Feastival of Lights and Miracles.....

Tonight our family celebrated the second night of Hanukkah. We lit the candles, thanked God for our freedom of religion and our everyday miracles, played the dreidel game, and then made homemade donuts. Many of you are saying to yourselves "the Hills are Jewish?", yes by heritage we are Jewish. My Oma was a Holocaust survivor. Living with her family in Germany they survived the war. We celebrate Hanukkah as a family for a few reasons. I also would challenge those of you who are Christians to think about taking up this wonderful tradition. First we are celebrating the freedom of religion. The Jews were forced by the Greek-Syrians to worship idols that they put in the Jewish temple. The first thing the Jews did when the got their freedom back was to clean out the temple, rededicate it, and light the menorah. Second we celebrate everyday miracles. The story goes on that the menorah only had one day of oil, but God kept it burning for eight days until the Jews could retrieve more oil. It is a celebration of freedom, re dedication, and miracles. We light candles each night to represent each day of miracles. We serve fried foods (homemade donuts or potato pancakes) to represent the oil, and we thank God for our freedom to worship and for everyday miracles. I hope that this helps you understand why the Hills celebrate.