Can Christians celebrate Hanukkah?

Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, began Sunday, a holiday which starts on the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev and lasts for eight days. In the Gregorian calendar it begins December 2 and concludes December 10 in 2018. Hanukkah is also known as the Feast of Dedication, and while it is not written about in the Old Testament, it was an observance Jesus took part in during his earthly life.

“At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon,” John 10:22-23 recounts.

The holiday is fundamentally about the miracle of God being with the Jewish people during a time of great hardship and persecution.