Chanukah Status

Our first Chanukah in Israel. We thought we'd go all out - an oil menorah (no more candles for us) and a box so we can even light with our window open to further display the miracle.
This first picture shows the first night - a success - we got both wicks lit and they stayed lit to take pictures and enjoy the light.



However...our oil did not seem to want to last the eight days of the miracle. Nights 2, 3, 4 and 5 were all struggles until we made our new menorah (picture below). Night two we ended up using shabbat candles after multiple attempts to unsuccessfully light the oil. Night 3 we finally got them all lit after 30 minutes of experimenting. Night 4 we got two on the first try, 2 more on the 2nd and 3rd tries and went without a shamash - that one really didn't want to light.



So we are back to candles and look forward to using our menorah back in the states that happily takes candles that light on their first try. Maybe another year we'll try oil again, but for now we'll let that miracle reside in the tales of the holiday.