How to impress your Jewish friends on Hanukkah (or is it Chanukah?)

It's that time of year again!

• Happy Hanukkah! Lighting of menorah begins 8-day celebration
• Hanukkah for beginners

Now, Calgary is a city of complex cultures, various communities and identities which means sometimesit all gets a little confusing.

Especially around Decemberwhen different holidays are being celebrated. What to say? What to do?

Well, I'm going to let you in on a couple holiday hints that will light up the faces of your Jewish friends (light? menorah? get it? Ha!).

First, a bit of full disclosure I grew up in a secular Jewish household, but both my siblings became orthodox Jews as adults.

In other words, if I didn't follow them on Facebook I wouldn't even know when Hanukkah begins. But I'm a cultural Jew,so I have the fun parts of the holidaydown pat.

• Fellowheebs! What isthe most impressive thing a non-Jewish person has done for you onHannukah? Share itin the comment section below.

Say it, don't spell it

Guess whatJews don't actually care how you spell Hanukkah. Most days I can't even spell it without the help of Google. Ya know, get it wrong by missing an "n" or adding a "k." The Hebrew? ( ,) Forget about it.

But please, if you do wannawish me a happy one,try to avoid using the "ch" sound, like cheese. Cha-NOO-Ka. Wrong. Just wrong. Adam Sandler was just joking, OK?

Make us latkes

Instead of begging us to make you the yummy potato pancakes, why don't you give it a try for yourself.

All it takes is grating most of the skin off your fingers, scalding your hands in cooking oil, and several panicked phone calls to your grandmother (bubbie, in Yiddish).

After only four hours of hot labour, you'll have perhaps 12 whole morsels, which will last about 30 seconds.

Or, you can cheat. A little known Jewish secret, most of us head down to the Jewish Community Centre and buy our latkes.

Get us a stat holiday

For almost a decade I've worked pretty much every Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day. I'm going to take a wild guess and say I'm not the only Jew in Canada who has done this. It's what we do.

We're glad to man the fort so you can spend time with your loved ones over the holidays. But how about you return the favour? We'd be really impressed if you lobbied your boss to give us a stat holiday.

We're not asking for the full eight days of Hanukkah. Maybe just one to lounge around in a latke-induced coma in a pair of elastic waist sweatpants, humming the dreidle song over and over.

Social media the holiday

You are totally allowed to post Hanukkah videos on your Facebook page. The goofier the better. We eat that up.

CBC Calgary's special focus on life in our city during the downturn. A look at Calgary's culture, identity and what it means to be Calgarian. Read more stories from the series atCalgary at a Crossroads.