Home Care Activities: Creative Recycled Homemade Menorah
Hanukkah is a holiday that emphasizes the importance of family, tradition, and love. This makes it a precious time to spend with loved ones and enjoy special memories together. If you are on a home care journey with your elderly loved ones, this is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy some multigenerational care with them and your children as you do activities that will help the younger generation learn about their culture and the traditions of the holiday while spending time with their grandparents.
One wonderful activity that you can do with your aging parents, your children, your partner, and even your senior loved ones’ in home health care services provider this Hanukkah season is making a homemade menorah. Pulling out the Chanukiah that your parents, grandparents, or even great-grandparents used for the holiday can be a meaningful moment that begins your holiday celebration, but this craft lets your children get hands-on learning about this important symbol and gives them their own menorah that they can keep in their bedroom or other area of the home so that they feel personally connected to the holiday celebrations. When they pull their menorah out the next year, they can think about their grandparents and the time that they spent making this craft together.
There are many different ways that you can create your own homemade menorah, but using recycled materials from around the home lets you emphasize sustainability and environmentalism while also learning about the holiday. This version uses items that may have ended up in the kitchen recycling as well as basic craft supplies.
What You’ll Need
• 8 glass jars around the same size
• 1 glass jar that is larger than the others
• Mod Podge Glossy Finish
• Paint brush
• Blue tissue paper
• Silver or white tissue paper
• Yellow tissue paper
• Scissors
• Narrow blue ribbon
• Narrow silver ribbon
• Hot glue
• Votive candles
What to Do
• Wash and dry all of the glass jars thoroughly. Remove any labels and adhesive
• Wrap one of the eight jars of the same size in two sheets of white or silver tissue paper and cut with the scissors to fit
• Mod Podge the tissue paper to all eight of the jars and allow to dry completely
• Repeat this process with the large jar and the blue tissue paper
• Cut eight rectangles out of two sheets of blue tissue paper. You should have eight doubled rectangles
• Cut a doubled rectangle out of the white or silver paper
• Mod Podge these rectangles to the front of the jars, using the white or silver rectangle on the large blue jar
• Allow to dry completely
• Cut nine elongated ovals with a slight point, similar to an egg shape, out of two layers of yellow tissue paper
• Mod Podge these at the tops of the rectangles on all of the jars to create “candles” on the fronts of the jars
• Use hot glue to adhere ribbon around the bottom of the jars in the contrasting color
• Arrange the jars so that the large jar is in the middle and there are four small jars on either side
• Drop a votive candle into each jar to light on each of the nights of the festival.
If you or an aging loved one are considering home care in King of Prussia, PA, contact the caring professionals at Reliant At Home Care today (610) 674-6860.
