I'm going to answer those questions in the order in which they were received, with the help of an awesome website called Modern Tribe, which gives every Jewish family the gift of cool.
While we may not want to festoon our homes with sparkly lights and shiny balls, it is nice to make your home look special. That's where these lovely hanging decorations from Polli come in. With images like doves and olive branches, they make a sweet hostess gift. Hang them in a window (no, not on a "Hanukkah bush") and feel the peace settling in.
Next: "Who gets more gifts?" Well, my answer is that it's not a competition, and in fact there are plenty of children out there who get no gifts. As a reminder of that, I think this simple, Make your own Tzedakah box is a really nice first-night gift, at a price that lets you give one to every kid at your Hanukkah party. You'd be amazed how much spare change we have lying around our house and once we collect it, we have a blast going to the counting machine then donating the money to a charity we all chose together.
As to: "How is a top not lame?" check out Spinagogue, a multi-themed dimentional board game that has elements of baseball, skee ball and other games to make playing dreidel very cool indeed. This might be the item at Modern Tribe I'm excited about the most.
Hannukah is only a few weeks away, but would it kill you to get your shopping done early? Oy!--Betsy
Check out the Hanukkah gifts decorations, tzedakah boxes and dreidel games along with a ton of other cool holiday ideas at Modern Tribe.
