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“This will be his first Christmas!” Kris beamed as she dressed her little son following his bath. 
    “And his first Hanukkah,” Michael added. “Even the youngest members of the family are present for the lighting of the Menorah. This year, that means you,” he touched the tip of his son’s nose , and Mitch smiled.
    The baby’s smile made Kris smile too. “When is Hanukkah this year?” she asked as she finished tucking Mitch’s blanket around him. 
    “Sunday night,” Michael responded.  “We light the first candle right after sunset to begin the first night of the celebration.”
    Kris did not know much about Hanukkah, and she had no practical experience with it. She did know that she wanted to make this Hanukkah special for Michael—it was the third holiday since he had lost his parents, and his family had always celebrated together. She knew from going through Christmas without her own parents how much holiday s magnified the loss of family. She had started looking for recipes early in the year. Supplies were very limited, but potato pancakes were doable—she had even recruited Karyn to help her. Other than preparing the latkes, she did not know what she could do to make the celebration seem special. 
    On Sunday evening everyone gathered in the living room. For several weeks Michael and Jeff had been working on the Menorah in their s pare time, and Michael now held a roughly-fashioned candelabra holding nine candles, with the center candle slightly higher than the others. Jeff had made a little platform for the Menorah—he was the one with the construction experience, and he had been happy to help Michael with th e project, but he did not understand why they had gone to so much trouble to light some candles. Both families gathered around , and Seth and Faith watched with a child’s interest. Kris held Mitch facing the Menorah so that he could see what was happening. Keith slouched against the wall. He had zero interest in religion and less than zero interest in Hanukkah, but he liked the idea of sampling the potato pancakes.
    “We light the candles after sunset to commemorate the Feast of Lights,” Michael began. “In 168 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanies declared war on the Jewish people and suspended th e worship of the God of Israel. The prophet Daniel had foretold that a ruler would come who would desecrate the temple and stop the sacrifice, and Antiochus fulfilled this prophecy. Antiochus wanted to destroy the worship of Yahweh and bring the whole world under his control by eliminating all other religions. Using deceit, he was able to capture Jerusalem. He stripped all of the wealth out of the temple and carried away the gold, the candlesticks, the altar of the incense, the table of the shewbread, and all of the linen cloths. He killed many Jews and took about ten thousand people away as captives.  
    “Antiochus wanted to completely blot out the worship of the true God, so he desecrated God’s temple by sacrificing swine on the altar, and he forced the people to set up altars to idols in every part of Israel and to sacrifice swine on them. He also made it illegal for the Jews to circumcise their sons, as God’s law commanded. He crucified the Jews who resisted and the women who circumcised their babies, and he hanged their newborn infant sons around their necks as they hung on their crosses. He burned all of the copies of God’s law that he could find and put to death anyone possessing a copy.
    “At this time, there was a Jewish priest named Mattathias who had five sons—John, Simeon, Judas, Elea zar and Jonathan. The governor demanded that Mattathias set a ‘good example’ for the rest of the community by offering polluted sacrifices on the Temple altar and encouraging the people to obey Antiochus. But the high priest feared God more than the king, so with only his five sons, he started a rebellion. ‘If anyone is zealous for the laws of his country and for the worship of God, let him