Christmas Eve dreidels

I suppose it is somewhat appropriate in these times of multicultural relationships that we spend an evening with friends who are Jewish and are happy to share some of their customs with us even as we share Christmas Eve customs with them.

What we thought was an afternoon get together turned into a dinner party with games of all sorts and presents for the winners. Our first game of the evening involved the dreidel, a four-sided wooden or plastic top, and a whole lot of Hanukkah "geld" or foil covered chocolate in the form of money. It is a common children's game played during the Jewish festival of Hanukkah but we had at least as much fun as kids would when a couple of the players began thinking up side "bets" to make the game a little more interesting.

We then enjoyed a delicious meal consisting of Jewish and Spanish-American dishes. And that was followed by more games, this time of the intellectual kind such as going around the circle of participants naming a city that starts with A until someone can't think of one.

A little different from some of our Christmas Eve's but fun nevertheless.