If you're driving through Brooklyn tomorrow night, be on the lookout for gargantuan, silver, Hanukka candelabras.
Indulgent arent they? Is this what the Maccabees had in mind? Actually, yes. As Simcha will be happy to tell you, God likes it better when we perform His commandments using very expensive implements. Hidur mitzvah, the silversmiths call it. There is a whole heirarchy, in fact, listed in the law books. Gold is best (natch) and silver is next, on down to wood and bone. So screw the magic miracle oil, and go for Tiffany-grade silver. You deserve it. And the poor suck. if God wanted them to have nice things, the nice things would fall from the sky.
Anyway, it's not like Christmas is an unpolluted well of selfless giving.
