Hanukkah is a relatively minor Jewish festival -- there are some added paragraphs in the daily prayers, an there is an evening tradition of lighting candles in a menorah or hanukkiah, a 9-branched candlestick. One of the candles is used to light the others. The 8 candles signify the 8 days of Hanukkah, one of the 8 is lit on the first night, two on the second night, etc. There is also the tradition of eating food cooked in oil, fried potato pancakes, jelly donuts, etc., all to remember the miracle of the oil 2150 years ago. Finally, there is the tradition of giving small gifts of money (or chocolate coins) to children so that the children can gamble using a spinning top called a dreidel (the Latin name for the top is a teetotum). As ********* drifted from a religious holiday into a secular gift-giving event, mostly post Charles Dickens, gift giving has also become common in Jewish families.