"Just because it’s different than what you imagined or experienced as a child or parent, doesn’t make it less than."
I Have A Little Dreidel (For an SPD Hanukkah)
Happy Hanukkah!
For those of you who don’t know, Hanukkah is a celebration of the Jews' victory in a battle to reclaim their temple from the Syrian army. In order to rededicate their temple, the Jews needed oil to light their “eternal flame” candle. They thought they only had enough oil to burn for one day. However, a miracle occurred and the oil lasted for eight days, giving the Jews enough time to make more oil. This is why the holiday is called the “Festival of Lights” and is celebrated by lighting candles for eight nights.
Any holiday can disrupt a family’s routine. One that is eight nights long can really change things up. My son, with all his sensory issues, can’t sit through an organized Temple Tots celebration or anything like that. So for a successful holiday, we’ll be doing all our celebrating at home, just like I did when I was a kid. And this year, we’ll be making our Hanukkah sensory friendly.
We’ll be celebrating the eight nights of Hanukkah with all eight senses - the seven senses of sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing, vestibular and proprioception, plus the latest sense in the world of sensory processing: introception. Here’s how our family will focus on one sense for each night:
Night 1 ~ Proprioception On this night, we’ll light the first candle in the menorah and focus on our joints and muscles. This is a great way to start the holiday week, because this is what my son craves the most. Our activities are also a perfect way to kick off our celebration. To get him the proprioceptive input he needs, my son and I will first start by cleaning up the house – dusting and vacuuming and putting away all the toys. He’ll also be in charge of carrying the presents into our living room for that first night. This heavy lifting will help exercise all the parts of his body, and stacking the presents in piles for each family member will help with his muscle control. On this first night, we’ll start to make some traditional Hanukkah desserts to be cooked in oil, so I’ll have him stir up the cookie batter for extra sensory input in the kitchen.
All this heavy work and controlled movements will help us build up his sensory deposits for the rest of the holiday week. By starting off with proprioception, we’re setting ourselves up for a calm week ahead.
Night 2 ~ Smell Because the Hanukkah holiday celebrates the miracle of the oil lasting for eight days, traditional Hanukkah foods are cooked in oil. This brings quite a lot of new smells into our house, since we don’t usually cook this way. My son is recently very sensitive to smells. To help with this, we’ll start off slowly by cooking one traditional food each night, plus at least one familiar and appealing smell. This night, we’ll make potato latkes (crispy potato pancakes) cooked in oil, and bake the pumpkin cookies from the batter we made the night before.
Night 3 ~ Taste Just like with smell, there are a lot of different things to eat for Hanukkah. Traditional foods include potato latkes, applesauce, doughnuts, and cookies. My son is particular to certain textures, and latkes, applesauce and doughnuts fall into the category of “non-preferred” foods. I’ve learned enough over the years to not force him to eat anything he doesn’t like because it doesn't end well. However, my hope is that by including him in the preparation of all the foods (helping measure out the ingredients for the latkes, mixing up the batter for the cookies) it will encourage him to try the different foods. I’m also not above a little bribery. Three bites of latkes may equal one pumpkin cookie. We’ll see how desperate we get.
Night 4 ~ Touch One of our favorite activities to do as a family is to make Hanukkah decorations. After lighting the candles on the fourth night, we’ll sit down to make our own dreidels.
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