The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah celebrates the victory of the Maccabees over their enemies, the consecration of the new altar in the Temple that followed, and the miracle where the minimal amount of pure oil for light miraculously lasted for eight days. Because of this, Hanukkah lasts eight days. To celebrate, candles are lit and special donuts are eaten. This holiday always happens sometime in December. A traditional Jewish holiday gift for Hanukkah is the dreidel. This is a special four-sided top for luck games. Another favored Jewish holiday gift is money, but not paper money. It should be in coin form, even in chocolate coin form, to enable dreidel playing.

If you want to go a less traditional route a young Jewish girl might like a Gali Girl doll. Very similar to the popular American Girl dolls, they are the very first Jewish dolls of their kind and make a perfect Jewish holiday gift. They come with accessories like Jewish star jewelry and Shabbat play items. You could also buy a wooden Shabbat play set for a Jewish holiday gift. It comes with two candle sticks, a Kiddush cup, two challahs, and a challah knife and will give your kids everything they need to share in the Shabbat traditions. It comes with a drawstring bag to store your items in when they are not being used.

Another great gift idea is the wooden Hanukkah play set. It comes with a menorah, nine candles, a frying pan, two latkes, a dreidel, and a wooden Chanukah gelt. This is a safe way for your children to “light” the candles and role play during the holiday. This Jewish holiday gift also comes with a handy storage bag.

You could always get youngsters books on the Jewish holiday that you want to commemorate. There are many available and you can do a search on the Internet to find them or go to your local book store and ask the clerk to order them for you if they aren’t available. Regardless of the child’s age these make a great Jewish holiday gift.

When I was going up, I was always considered a tomboy. Though I loved to dress up on occasion, I was more comfortable in jeans or shorts. I spent most of my time running around the neighborhood with my friends, and we are often found playing in the water of the local creek, or climbing trees or going up the side of the mountain. I loved my childhood and would do nothing to change it, but it did make me the tomboy that I tend to be. This is why when I’m looking for a dress I do everything I can to avoid fancy dress shops.

A few years ago I was going to go to a concert that was very important to me. A friend that was going with me told me that everyone was going to be wearing a dress. This meant that I would have to go out to fancy dress shops to find something to wear. This notion did not sit well with me. Even though I enjoyed wearing dresses a little when I was a child, it takes a lot to get me into one today. The thought of going to fancy dress shops to try on different dresses left me feeling petrified.

I asked my friend for help. I told her if that there was any way to avoid the fancy dress shops I would do anything to get a dress somewhere else. She had a chuckle at my expense, and then explain to me that I can find fancy dress shops online if I didn’t want to go to a retail store. We did a search online only to find out that she was not as right about that subject as she thought she was. Though there were many places to buy dresses online, I could not seem to find what I was looking for that in my price range. In fact, the number of good dresses online seemed to be very low.

Because of my fear of fancy dress shops, I even look on eBay. I was disappointed to find that most of the great dresses I found there were used. Though I think there is nothing wrong with this, I did not want to buy a used dress for this occasion. I had to suck it up and go shopping in a local store. There are not a lot of fancy dress shops in my area, but I did manage to find something that fit me pretty well. That dress is now in the back of my closet so that I may have it for a future occasion. Probably by the time I get around to wearing another dress it will be woefully out of style. I guess that means I will have to again brave the fancy dress shops.

Bridesmaid and groomsmen gifts have been around for awhile, and while they may appear at first blush to be unnecessary expenses, your bridesmaids and groomsmen have probably spent a considerable amount of their own time and money on your wedding, so it’s considered good form to give them a little something in return. While one groom may elect to get his best man a little something in addition to the gifts for the rest of the groomsmen, another may give all of the groomsmen the same thing, while a third will get each groomsman a unique gift, what you do is probably best left up to you.

So what do you get as your groomsmen gifts? This depends quite a bit on the makeup of your groomsmen. For example, if they’re all similar in age and taste, you could get a matching gift for all of them as a common bond. One popular, classic gift is the personalized flask, which can be great as a matching gift, with each flask either personalized with something to do with the wedding or personalized for each groomsman. Of course, if some of your groomsmen don’t drink, a flask may not be the best choice, just as personalized golf sets don’t work too well for baseball fans. A more thoughtful approach involves getting specialized groomsmen gifts for everybody; maybe a humidor for the cigar smoker, a putter for the golfer, and a poker chip set for the card player. Try to keep the amount spent on everyone roughly equal, but don’t start splitting hairs and lose sleep if one groomsmen gift costs $50 while another runs you $75. It’s unlikely that anyone’s feelings are going to be hurt, and your groomsmen will be appreciative that you took the time to think about what they may want.