6 Ch6-The Opposite of Hanukkah

Chapter 6 The Opposite of Hanukkah During the first week in December, Miss Daisy told us all about the holidays so we'd be ready for the pageant. I already knew the story of Christmas. But I didn't know much about Hanukkah. Now, I don't remember everything Miss Daisy told us. But basically, Hanukkah has something to do with a war. I know

all about war. I have some plastic army guys down in my basement, and me and Michael and Ryan line them up and shoot them with rubber bands. Anyway, a million hundred years ago, the Jewish people were fighting a war. They were way outnumbered by another army, but they kicked their butts anyway. So after the war was over, the Jewish people went back to their temple to hang out and play video games and stuff. It was dark out. They didn't have lightbulbs in those days, so they had to light oil lamps or they would bump into the walls when they walked into the kitchen to get more pizza. The problem was that they could only find one jar of oil. That would last one

night, but they wanted to hang out all week playing video games and eating pizza. I guess they sent somebody to the gas station to get more oil, but he never came back. So they put the one jar of oil they had into the lamp and lit it. The cool thing is that the oil didn't just last one night. It didn't just last two nights. It didn't just last three nights. It lasted eight whole nights! It was a miracle! "Wow!" we all said after Miss Daisy fin- ished telling us the story of Hanukkah. "I saw a miracle like that once," I said. "Tell us about it, A.J.," said Miss Daisy. "We were driving to my grandmother's house," I said. "Suddenly our car stopped right in the middle of the highway. My

dad said he thought he had a full tank of gas, but it turned out the gas gauge was broken, and the tank was empty." "That doesn't have anything to do with Hanukkah," Andrea said. "Sure it does," I said. "The Jewish people thought they only had a little oil, but it turned out they had a lot. We thought we had a lot of gas, but we only had a little. It was the opposite of Hanukkah." "You're a dumbhead," Andrea said. "So is your face," I told her. Anytime somebody says something mean to you, all you have to do is say, "So is your face." That's the first rule of being a kid. Miss Daisy told me and Andrea to

knock it off. She said that Hanukkah lasts for eight nights, and each night they light a candle in the menorah. "They stick the candles in manure?" I asked. "That's disgusting!" "Menorah!" Miss Daisy said "It's like a candleholder." "Oh," I said. "I knew that." To celebrate Hanukkah, Jewish kids play this game with a four-sided top called a dreidel that spins around, and they eat potato pancakes called latkes, and they hunt for chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil. The kids get pres- ents every night, too, of course. Hanukkah is cool. Miss Daisy showed us how to spin a

dreidel and gave us each a piece of chocolate money. We had a bathroom break after that, and then she said it was time to work on our writing skills. We were learning to write friendly letters, so Miss Daisy asked us if we'd like to write letters to Santa Claus.