Family Time: A Holiday Gift Guide
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
This year, Christmas falls right in the middle of Hanukkah, which means that for the duration of the holiday, most kids will be free from school, eating latkes and jelly donuts. With more time to spend with relatives, here are three Hanukkah gift ideas that the whole family can enjoy.
For kids who can’t get enough of arts and crafts, Rivky Koenig’s “Crafting Jewish: Fun Holiday Crafts and Party Ideas for the Whole Family” (Mesorah Publications, $29.99) is an ideal choice. The book features innovative art projects for children and adults, as well as simple holiday food recipes. In easy-to-follow instructions, aspiring artists can make clay dreidel charm jewelry, glowing glass menorahs, challah covers and Lucite mezuzahs.
Get the kids in the kitchen with “Jewish Holiday Cooking: Festive Meals for Celebrating the Years” (DK Publishing, $19.99), by Jill Colella Bloomfield. Perfect for the novice cook, this tome provides easy holiday recipes and includes information on why certain foods are important to Jewish culture. If you’re looking for an activity to do with your child, or simply looking for a painless turkey kreplach recipe, this is a great gift.
Israeli artist Laura Cowan has created two new space-age Hanukkah gifts: the Smart and Saturn dreidels. For those who can never remember how to play the game, the Smart Dreidel ($80) is a brilliant option — the disk and cone design features the rules, written in colorful print, on the top of the toy. The Saturn Dreidel ($160) will appeal to those with minimalist sensibilities, its sleek form inspired by the rings of the planet for which it’s named. Both are made from anodized aluminum and available at *www.lauracowan.com. *
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
