Tonight is The First Night of Chanukah. There will be a menorah lighting ceremony on 59th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City, at the southern most point of Central Park. According to a NYC-related web-page, the menorah to be lit is 32 feet tall and weighs 4.000 pounds! The menorahs pictured in the image atop this entry are just a little smaller than that (-;
Be that as it may, in spite of having Jewish ancestors, I know very little about Chanukah or the lighting of the menorah, but I have read that "Chanukah means 'dedication,' and commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its desecration by foreign forces and the Jews' victory over the Hellenist Syrians in the year 165 B. C. For the rededication celebration, the Maccabees desired to light the menorah and looked everywhere for oil, finally finding a small flask that contained only enough oil to light the menorah for one day. Miraculously, the oil lasted for eight days. The message of Chanukah may be found in the name of the holiday itself: dedication —not only of the temple building but of individual lives to the pursuit of high religious and human ideals." This quote is something I discussed in bygone years in an entry here on Blogger where I wrote about a parallel between Advent and Chanukah.
In any event, the menorahs featured in the image atop this entry were created by Sébastien and if they look familiar to you, dear reader, it may be because I've featured them in bygone years in a posting I wrote for hometalk.
I've also published info on hometalk, as well as here on Blogger, re the type of reindeer figurine that can be seen standing in front of the menorahs. Please refer to these posts to learn more about a number of reindeer-sculptures that have been created from parts of Christmas trees.
And speaking of Christmas trees, tonight is not only The First Night of Chanukah, it also happens to be Christmas Eve! A number of reindeer have come to make music in honor of the coming of the babe in the manger, as evidenced in the picture below.
The musically-inclined reindeer can be seen atop the second shelf, which is now serving as their orchestra pit while they huddle below my crèche, as well as below the figurines who have come to visit it.
Most of the figurines that are on either side of my crèche, are from More & More Antiques, an exquisite shop on Manhattan's UWS, that is selling my fauna-flora-insect-themed postcards. All of these cards feature images from the iBook and ePub version of Cam's book, Words In Our Beak Volume One.
And there is still time to give Cam's book and or the postcards based on it as a gift for the holiday you celebrate. Chanukah is a celebration and the Christmas season lasts at least 12 days and technically until we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord. Moreover, for those of you might want to give either the book or postcards as a Kwanzaa gift, your holiday is upon us (12-26-2016 until 1-1-2017)!
2019 ADDENDUM:
The digital versions of Volume One within the Words In Our Beak book series that are mentioned in this entry may only remain available for a limited time, but hardcover versions of Volume One, Two and Three can now be found wherever books are sold.
Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.
Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.
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