Genre: Information/Explanation

Hanukkah falls on the eve of the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev and lasts eight days . That lands it somewhere in December ( though in 2013 it fell on Thanksgiving in November , an extremely rare occurrence ) . In 2016 – or 5777 , according to the Jewish calendar – Hanukkah begins at sundown on December 24 and lasts through January 1 . For the first time since 1978 , Hanukkah will overlap with the Christmas holiday and end on New Year's Day . Also called the Festival of Lights , Hanukkah celebrates events from more than 2,000 years ago . First and foremost , it commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem after a successful revolt of the Jewish people led by Judah Maccabee against their Syrian-Greek oppressors , who had tried to assimilate the Jewish people and , in so doing , had desecrated the Temple . The reason the holiday is celebrated for eight days stems from what is told in the Talmud : when it came time for the rededication of the Second Temple , only one day's worth of pure oil was found to use in the temple's menorah – which was meant to burn all night every night – but miraculously the oil burned for eight days . This gave enough time to collect a fresh supply of oil and , with the belief that a miracle from God had occurred , a reason to celebrate for a full eight days . Today , especially in North America , Hanukkah is often thought of as the Jewish counterpart to Christmas , an association that developed because of Hanukkah's proximity to December 25 . The giving of gifts and displaying of holiday decorations have nothing to do with the Jewish holiday but were customs adopted from Christmas traditions . True Hanukkah traditions include lighting the candles on a nine-branched menorah called a Hanukkiah and saying the blessings , making and eating potato latkes ( pancakes ) and sufganiyot ( jelly doughnuts ) – both cooked in oil – and playing dreidel , a game of chance played with a four-sided top .