A snowy Chanukah

 Chanukah children's songs often speak about snowy Chanukahs..like this old chestnut of a song

שלג על הארץ קר מאוד בחוץ חנוכה הלילה אל הבית רוץ כי בבית חם וטוב נרות יפים דולקים משחקים בסביבון ולביבות אוכלים

 If you listen to Track 5 you will hear this Chanukah song written for Hebrew-speaking American children. I remember singing this song endlessly as a very little girl and being dumbfounded that there actually wasn't snow on the ground during Chanukah. The year I got a snow shovel as a Chanukah gift ( I was probably four) there was a tiny dusting of snow on the lawn. I did my best to shovel it.

The next snowy Chanukah song I know from Hebrew school Chanukah assemblies at Temple Beth El.

If for some reason the video above doesn't play you can click here. The song gets pretty tiresome by night three so you really don't have to listen to the whole thing. But by listening to both songs you have a window into a part of my childhood.

Usually, a snowy Chanukah is just the fantasy spun by children's songs.

But as we lit candles last night,

It had already begun to snow.

It was truly a snowy day today.

The air conditioners across the way were all capped with snow.

And tonight we lit our last candles.

I am usually not one for magical thinking. The rational part of me knows that lighting Chanukah candles is not going to cause any changes in the universe. But this awful dark year I hope that the lights of our Chanukiyot somehow signal a return to brighter days in our very dark world.