Fourth Night

Another Hanukkah night at our house. No sufganiyot this time, we are suffering from oil and sugar overload LOL Today we will talk about dreidels

Here is what history.com is telling about this Hanukkah tradition:

The dreidel is a four-sided spinning top with a Hebrew letter inscribed on each side. In America the letters stand for "A Great Miracle Happened There". In Israel the letters mean "A Miracle Happened Here". Each player receives a given number of coins or candy pieces. Before spinning the dreidel, each player puts a fixed proportion of the amount received into the "kupah" or kitty. Each player in turn spins the dreidel. When the dreidel falls, it will fall on one of the 4 letters. According to the letter, the following will happen: Nun – no win / no lose Gimmel – take all (from the kitty) Heh – take half (from the kitty) Peh or Shin – lose (what you deposited) The game continues until players have run out of 'funds' or it is agreed to stop (anyone losing all funds is out of the game). The dreidel game was popular during the rule of Antiochus before the Maccabees' revolt, a time when soldiers executed any Jews who were caught practicing their religion. When pious Jews gathered to study the Torah, they had the top ready in case they heard soliders approaching. If the soldiers appeared, they would hide the holy scriptures and pretend to play with the dreidl. In Israel the dreidel is called a sivivon. The yiddish word "dreidel" is derived from the German word "drehen", or "turn".

Check this website for everything about dreidels including pictures, rules, crafts and may more.

And here are some flickr pretties

1. asyagiv, 2. vered T, 3. sipour shel haruzim, 4. esotropia, 5. diwe, 6. soulrebel31, 7. mfajardo, 8. dogfaceboy, 9. drurydrama
Created with fd's" Flickr Toys.

Thinking about today's post I remembered about the Hanukkah card that I made few months ago and never shared. I used the small Hero Arts dreidel stamp, but enlarged it and stamped several times. I cut out the impressions and glued the layers together making a home-made chipboard piece. I than colored the top layer with colored pencils and put the dreidel into the little vellum envelope.

Today's giveaway is again from the Maya Road warehouse sale kit. I have a small tin with 6 paisley slides, a package of Maya road fibers (Australian outback) and 2 yards of green velvet trim. Post a comment to win! :)

The winner of the Third Night RAK is....

Here are your random numbers:

17
Timestamp: 2008-12-25 02:49:35 UTC

Comment 17 was by nogadin! Congratulations! Email me your shipping address to maya.orendahan@gmail.com

Check this amazing menorah she made from polymer clay! Beautiful!

Shira asked me what dinner rolls we are using for making sufganiyot. We are using Rhodes frozen dinner rolls.

I'll be back tomorrow with another post and another giveaway!