Chanukah is a Jewish Festival that has been celebrated since before Jesus was born, and it is always about the same time of year as Christmas. There are references in the New Testament of the Bible to Chanukah (also called the Feast of Dedication) and there is a reference of Jesus going to celebrate it.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a Greek king called Antiochus. This king certainly thought a lot of himself – for he thought he was a god. Actually, he thought he was No 1 amongst the Greek gods, for he thought he was Zeus, who was the king of the Greek gods. (Not many believe in Zeus any more, – so I am not going to say anything about that.) According to Greek legends, Zeus wanted to punish Antiochus: he always got very angry when humans pretended to be him.
This is what happened, – but I am not saying it was because of Zeus!
Zeus, as I said, was very angry with Antiochus. But the Jews were also very angry. They definitely weren’t going to worship Antiochus. This made Antiochus very angry with the Jews, and he began to persecute them. He tried to encourage them to give up their religion and worship Greek gods (and him!) The Jews weren’t going to stand for that, and so there they revolted. (If you want to know when that was, it was about 167 years before Jesus was born, which is a very long time ago.) Because of this, Antiochus’s soldiers attacked the Temple in Jerusalem. But a small army of Jewish rebels, led by Judah Maccabee, fought back, and won: they got their Temple back!
Antiochus’ soldiers had left it in a terrible state. And there was very little oil left. The oil was special, and it was needed every day for the beautiful holy lights and for their scent. Then there was a miracle! The Maccabees lit the oil, and it burnt for 8 days, (although there had been only enough for a single day.)
Of course, during the eight days, the Maccabees had enough time to find and prepare some new pure oil.
This is the Miracle of Chanukah, which was celebrated by Jesus. While Chanukah practices may have changed since, the fact that the New Testament mentions Jesus celebrating this holiday, highlights both that Jesus was a Jew and his connection to Jewish practice. Jews still celebrate Chanukah which this year is in the middle of December.
And in some ways Chanukah is better than Christmas for children, as many Jews give small treats or presents over the 8 days!
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https://charlotteswonderfulstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/latest-chanukah-story-.mp3
Both the text and audio versions are copyright to me, Charlotte Sebag-Montefiore.
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