We learned how to play the Hanukkah Dreidel game last year when we were learning about Jewish holidays. I had no idea how much my children would love this simple game, but it has definitely become a traditional part of our Christmas celebration.
We learned how to play the game using the children’s book Festival of Lights by Maida Silverman. This wonderful book tells the history of the Hanukkah celebration which is one that remembers a great, miraculous victory that the Jewish people had over Greek invaders. While in power, the Greek ruler would not allow the Jewish people to study the Torah, which is made up of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. He wanted to force the Jewish people to abandon their faith in Jehovah to turn to the pagan Greek gods. The Jewish people still met secretly to study the Scriptures, but in case monitoring soldiers came by, they had these little wooden tops that they would get out so it would appear that their meeting was simply a gathering to play a fun game. So really this game was a diversion that allowed these devoted people to continue to study the Scriptures under persecution.
There are four Hebrew letters on the dreidels, one on each side. The letters stand for the phrase “A great miracle happened there” as a reminder of God’s protection and intervention on the Jewish people’s behalf.
The first year that we played the Dreidel game, we just used a free printable dreidel located at this link. It worked just fine to find out how much fun this game is, but this year my kids requested a real top, and I discovered that they are very inexpensive on Amazon. I’ll tell you what, those real dreidels really spin! We couldn’t believe how they spun!
So, here is how the Dreidel Game is played:
1. Each player gets the same number of items. We chose to use 7 items each, simply because in the Bible, the number 7 is symbolic of God’s perfection, sovereignty, and holiness. We used jellybeans for our items, but any small objects are fine.
2. Each player puts one item into a separate, middle pile, called the Kitty.
3. Each player takes turns spinning the dreidel. The symbol that the dreidel lands on tells the player what to do. To make this simpler to remember, I made this card explaining each letter’s instructions:
4. When the Kitty is empty or only contains one item, each player must put one of their own items into the Kitty.
5. The game is over when one player has all of the items. Sometimes this happens pretty quickly, and sometimes it doesn’t. If the game seems to be taking too long, I simply put a time limit on it and say whoever has the most items at that point is the winner.
So, it is really a very simple game. It can also be pretty competitive! It has definitely risen to the status of a Prairie Family tradition that we will enjoy for many years to come.
P.S. Another part of the Hanukkah celebration that I have grown to love is this song, Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages) which is about the great deliverance that God gave to the Jewish people (the English words begin at 1:06):
