The holidays are a time to revisit family traditions and celebrate our heritage. I’ve been married for almost 6 years now, and I truly enjoy the holiday traditions of my husband’s family, The Bakers.

From hunting for ugly tabletop Christmas trees to hilarious white elephant gifts, The Bakers have an absolute ball around Christmastime!

During this time of year, my father-in-law, Bill, often recollects the Catholic and Jewish traditions he had while growing up. His mother, “Bunny”, was Jewish and his father was Catholic. His household celebrated both holidays, giving Bill lots of happy holiday memories.

He shares all sorts of stories with us ranging from winning Hanukkah gelt, to Bunny calling the Christmas tree a “Hanukkah Bush”.

I thought it would be fun to make some of my own Hanukkah decorations this year, and celebrate the Jewish side of Marc’s family!

Candle Cup Holder Menorah

When I asked Bill to tell me about his childhood traditions, he vividly recollected lighting the menorah for the 8 days of Hanukkah. While Bill’s childhood menorah is tucked away in storage, I thought it would be fun to make my own using wooden candle cups and a bit of Flow Blue MMS MilkPaint™.

The wooden candle cups can be purchased anywhere online, but I got mine from Hobby Lobby. They also have some lovely white taper candles that almost fit inside. I have a video tutorial at the end of the this post to show you how I made my menorah AND how I got those little tapers to sit inside nice and tight!

The handy thing about this menorah is that it’s portable and easy to set up just about anywhere. To add a bit of wintery flair, I tucked in some evergreen clippings here and there. You could easily set this menorah on a buffet or have it go down the middle of your dining table. It would look lovely in a window too.

The choice is up to you!

Paper Mache Gelt Gift Box

When he was a kid, Bill would play dreidel and win Hanukkah “gelt”. Gelt means “money” in Yiddish, and oftentimes, Bill’s gelt was in the form of chocolate coins.

Now that we’re adults, we don’t necessarily have to play dreidel to win gelt. I thought that it would be sweet to make a little “gelt gift box” that can be tucked into a place setting at your holiday table.

To give you an idea of how it would look, I set the table using the wedding china that my Dad got for my Mom from when he was stationed in Korea in the army.

The silverware is REAL silver that belonged to my grandmother. It was only appropriate to use the family heirloom pieces along with my Hanukkah gelt box. I thought it was a nice blending of Holste and Baker.

(Holste is my middle name, if you didn’t guess. It rhymes with “tea”.)

I tied a rather glittery bow on top and added a little name tag to top it all off.

Oh, and I didn’t forget the gelt!

Hanukkah Decorations Video Tutorial

To see the full process, give this short tutorial video a watch. Enjoy the music too! I had fun picking that out.

How Much Yiddish Do You Know?

Bill is always throwing words around like meshuggeneh and bupkis. They’re Yiddish, which is a language that is common among Jewish folk.

Here are a few Yissish words that Bill likes to use along with a few others that you probably already know!

• Bubbe - Grandmother

• Bupkis - Means “nothing” i.e. We played poker the other day and I won “bupkis.”

• Chutzpah - Gall, audacity, nerve (in a negative way)

• Keppie - The forehead or head

• Klutz - Clumsy person

• Kvell - Bursting with pride over someone’s accomplishments

• Kvetch - To complain too much i.e. “Aw stop kvetching already!”

• Meshuggeneh - An insane or crazy person i.e. “He’s a meshuggeneh if he thinks we’ll get to the shore in an hour.” (See, Bill grew up in Philadelphia, and they “go down to the shore” as opposed to “go to the beach”.)

• Mishegas - Silliness or craziness i.e. “What’s all themeshegas going on downstairs in the playroom?”

• Plotz - To fall apart, collapse or explode i.e. “He told so many jokes I thought I was going to plotz!”

• Punim - Face; often used by grandparents when adoring their grandchildren i.e. “Look at that adorable little punim!”

• Schmutz - Dirt or stains i.e. “Put your shirt in the washer - you got schmutz all over it.”

• Schlep - This can a verb or noun. Verb - To move awkwardly or tediously i.e. “He kvetched all the way up the stairs while we were schlepping moving boxes.” Noun - A journey that seems never-ending or ridiculously long i.e. “I don’t want to make the schlep to work in rush hour traffic this morning.”

• Schvitz - To sweat i.e. “Can I get an iced tea? I’m schvitzing over here!”

There are LOTS of other Yiddish words out there, and plenty more that Bill uses, but these are a fun sampling.

How many did you know?