The Worst Candles Ever

Many years ago we started celebrating Hanukkah. We had an antique menorah that we acquired when we were younger and started a new tradition. I admit that we don't celebrate Hanukkah in a religious way, like we celebrate Christmas, but we always light a menorah each year. Hanukkah is a minor Jewish holiday, but the story is a great story of religious freedom. You don't have to be Jewish to celebrate the meaning of The Festival of Lights. There was a war, about 200 years before the birth of Christ, between Antiochus the ruler of the Greek Kingdom and the Jewish citizens. When Antiochus destroyed the Jewish Second Temple and imposed pagan beliefs for all his people, like worshiping statues of Zeus, or sacrificing pigs at the alter of that Temple, the Jews rebelled. The Jewish warriors were called Maccabees, led by a Jewish Priest named Mattathias and his 5 sons. They were the first Jews to defend their religious beliefs. When Mattathias was killed, his son Judah became the leader. After the War was won, Judah and the Maccabees restored the Second Temple. Because there must be a light burning in the Temple at all times, when they were rededicating the temple they only had enough olive oil to light the menorah for one day. By a miracle the oil burned for eight nights giving them time to find more oil. Great story no matter what religion you are.

This is what Hanukkah candles are not suppose to look like when they are burning.

Now that the history lesson is over, let's talk about candles. Each year I buy candles, and always late by like a day or two before I need them. Never a good plan because they are not easy to find. I usually buy them at Target, or a grocery store. In 2020 I think I bought them at a grocery store. 

This was after about 5 days and the unidentified box of terrible candles.

The tradition is to light one candle the first night, two the second night, and so on until you are up to eight on the eighth night. There is one extra candle each night, the middle candle called the Shamash,  that is lit first. You use the Shamash to light the rest of the candles from right to left like Hebrew is read. This is a lot of Jewish history from a Christian girl just to complain about candles, lol.

This was half way through night 6. Already a nice size pile of "wax"

 and the menorah is a mess.

So, in 2020  I lit the candles, and unlike every other Hanukkah night for the last 30 some years, they didn't melt correctly. Normally, the candles barely leave any wax residue anywhere. This was a crazy mess. I kept the drippings on the plastic place mat I had the menorah on just to see how much wax I would end up with. I was not disappointed. 

The end of day 8. The large pile of "wax" was bad enough, but trying to clean
 the menorah and removing all the drippings on the metal was a nightmare.
 I felt like it was its own miracle that I got all the 'wax" off. 

This was a long way to go to complain about terrible candles. But, if  y'all learned something about history, religious freedom, miracles, or just terrible candles, it was worth it. Shalom.