For those interested - here's a link to the basic facts about and observation of Chanukkah. The first candle was lit at sunset this evening; the eighth will be lit at sunset next Sunday night.

You'll notice that the story of the oil lasting for eight nights is granted no 'historical' accuracy, but attributed to the Talmud, which came much later. This is known as midrash: an illustrative story or parable that has no canonical authority but is treasured and oft repeated. Notice also, the entire Chanukkah story is not 'canonical' - the Book of Maccabees is not included in Tanakh.

Not discussed on that web page are a couple of things 'my' rabbi taught...

Concerning the timing of the holiday: The victorious parties decreed a festival of thanksgiving to last eight days, to mimic the far more significant (and Biblically commanded) festival of Sukkot. Setting it in the lunar month in which the Winter Solstice also falls had no relation to when the rededication of the Temple was complete - in a bit of 'reverse syncretism', it was deliberately done to distract Jews from the festivities of their gentile (pagan) neighbors.

Concerning biblical apochrypha: The descendants of/successors to the Maccabees became, in short order, as corrupt and Hellenistic as their former enemies had been - serving to explain why the Book of Maccabees was excluded, and why the midrash supplanted the original 'reason for the season' in the traditions of the Diaspora.

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As to the modern American tendency to turn Chanukkah into a 'Jewish Christmas'... think about the oxymoron contained in a literal reading of that phrase, and you'll have my view.

E'