Fourth Night = Fantastic Family Fun + A Fourtieth Birthday + Flying From Florida

Last night was the fourth night of Chanukah!  My brother and his family came over to celebrate for our annual Chanukah celebration and Nana even flew in from Florida.

We had an AWESOME time!

We opened our traditional holiday crackers (I borrowed this tradition from Jocelyn's family years ago!)

We ate lots of latkes, macaroni and cheese, Bubbe's famous kugel, and tuna casserole!

We played DREIDEL!!!  For a really long time! 

We ate lots of candy and chocolate gelt.

We crafted fig newton and marshmellow dreidels for dessert.

We had a 40th birthday cake for my brother's impending 40th birthday!

We lit the Chanukah candles and sang the blessings together.

We exchanged presents.

We seriously enjoyed each other's company the whole time!

The cousins had an absolute blast hanging out, playing and carrying on together.

Essentially, we were a "tribe" coming together to perform ancient rituals in the dark of the winter.  The rituals created real light (candles) and emotional light - it made us happy.  Clearly there is a reason for these holidays - whether you believe in a god or not - even the pagans had(and Communists for that matter) holidays - just for this reason?!?!

When we mark days and make them different it gives us an excuse to stop everything and come together to be thankful and appreciate each other and what we have!  I think we did that last night.  That makes me really happy!

Thank you Uncle Michael, Auntie Stacey, Logan, Rayna, Xander and Nana for making our fourth night a true night of family!