Light up the night, beat back the shadows

My house, the first night

Happy Hanukkah everyone!!

Last year I had a few songs, including Miracle, by Matisyahu and Candlelight by The Maccabeats (which is still the only thing I hear in my head when I hear the original non-Hanukkah version when I'm like, at the gym or something). This year The Maccabeats covered Miracle. So it all comes together. They are also doing a charity thing with this video - trying to raise money during Hanukkah for bone marrow donation - http://makesomemiracles.com/ so go check that out!

Hey guys, Blossom is in this video!!! (You can win a phone call with her or BBT swag from donating to the above). I love her. So she kinda makes the video for me. Also, her menorah is AMAZING. All the ones in the video are great and make me have serious menorah-envy.





And then, The Fountainheads (from Ein-Prat Academy, Israel) have two great Hanukkah songs/videos that I didn't see until this year. And they have a great Passover one I see, it's super cute. I will bust that out later. Love love love to see people make fun modern Jewish holiday songs. Good work, people. Very good.

"Light Up The Night" - I really like this song. They did a fantastic job writing something beautiful and catchy.  Selected favorite lines - "Light up the night, beat back the shadows..." is my fav, but this is also good -

 "For just eight nights / gather together / glimmers of those / who light up your life" 

And the part in Hebrew is transliterated as follows: Al Hanissim, Al Hapurkan (for the miracles and for the salvation) / Yamim Hahem, Bazman Hazeh (In those days, at this time). Those are similar to many refrains in old traditional Hanukkah songs.

And the video is cute, though IDK why there are Matrix-y bits, and a bit of what looks like wizarding Harry Potter-ness. It's amusing. Love the prominent featuring of sufganiyot (traditional Israeli Hanukkah jelly donut, I can't wait to go home so my mom can make me some!) and the use of kids in candle headbands (which I love, even though there are really bad dorky pics of me and my siblings as kids in something similar).




"I Gotta Feeling"  is based on the dreaded BEP song. It is pretty cute and fun. I love the part where the guy spins the dreidel on his head. Tonight's gonna be a bright night!!





And for your jazzy holiday music mix, a bass version of the ancient song "Ma'Oz Tzur" - Alex Bershadsky. And I wasn't really expecting much from the video (since it's just jazzy bass), but it's really stylish and has just flashes of him, city shots, and a candle... LOL a little much maybe for a wordless video, but it's cute and classy and I liked it.





So everyone enjoy their holidays, whatever it is - may it be full of light and hope and all that good stuff.


And don't forget -

"You don't need deck the halls or jingle bell rock Cause you can spin the dreidel with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock..."