I’ve never really celebrated Hanukkah before. To be honest I know nothing about it and I really try my best to understand the culture and the religion. My boyfriend in turn helps me and only explains a little at a time. As I have put up here several times before I’m not exactly a religious person. I don’t think there really is any "god" in the sky. I don’t think there is someone out there who is watching us. I don’t believe someone gave up their life for our sins. I just don’t believe any of it. I believe in the cycle of life and that mother nature is a real force that does what she wants. I think that were lucky to be here and that were lucky that she hasn’t wiped us out from the face of the Earth for polluting her or for being idiots in general. 

So for me religion isn’t something that I really dance around in but, I respect that my boyfriend is Jewish. I respect that he believes in the religion and that his family is a part of it as well. I won’t say that he loves the religion or is 1000% into it but he does have some belief and that’s enough for me. 

As a part of his life I have been celebrating Hanukkah with him. See his family gave me this little kit that has a menorah in it and it comes with all the candles you need to light them every single night. It tells you the instructions and I learned quite a bit from the past two nights. 1) the candles have to burn all the way down and you can't blow them out or its bad juju. 2) You have to have a total of 44 candles for the whole eight days. Both of those facts I didn’t know and I was surprised to learn that. I think it’s because movies don’t really go into detail about Hanukkah and they just show that they do the prayer, light the candles, and then pass out presents. Really that’s it. They don’t really show that the candle is burning all the way down each night and they don’t really explain how many candles you actually need for the entire eight days. 

Well they probably do but I don’t think I ever paid enough attention or watched movies that was based around the religion. In any case I can say that I’m glad I’m learning because honestly, I probably wouldn’t know anything at all if it weren’t for him. My dad’s dated someone that was Jewish but she didn’t really do everything that was a part of the religion. So this is new for me and I will gladly learn to respect not only him but his family as well.