Winter Treats: White Chocolate Chip & Cran-raisin Cookies, and Hanukkah

So, I'm beginning my festive season of baking with white chocolate chip and cran-raisin cookies: a sweet, healthy treat reminiscent of winter and fall at the same time. The sweet, snow-like white chocolate chips are a perfect complement to the tart, chewy cran-raisins (or "craisins") that are reminiscent of the fall harvest. Mixed with a classic chocolate chip cookie dough, they're one fantastic kind of cookie that has my family and I returning to the cookie jar again and again. Perfect with a glass of egg nog.

On Wednesday, Hanukkah will start. My family and I already had our Hanukkah dinner at church last week, where we had latkes and grape juice, and shared stories and songs with our friends. We played dreidel, too.

If you've never played dreidel before, the rules are quite simple. Everyone, to start, gets maybe ten tokens of some kind, whether it's pennies, or in the case of last week, dried macaroni. First each person puts one token in the middle of the table, or the "pot." Everyone takes turns spinning the dreidel, a four-sided top that has a different Hebrew symbol on each side, and whatever it lands on is what you have to do with your macaroni. If it lands on "Gimel," you get everything in the pot. If it lands on "Hey," you get half of what's in the pot. If it lands on "Nun," you get nothing. If it lands on "Shin," you have to put two tokens into the pot (three, counting the ante). After each person takes their turn, everyone has to put one token into the pot. Whoever has the most at the end wins. My sister won when we played last week. I may just have to challenge her, as there are still eight nights of Hanukkah left.