When does hanukkah start

when does hanukkah start

The Hebrew date is fixed: 25 Kislev. The Gregorian date moves, because the Hebrew calendar is lunisolar. Jewish days begin at sundown, so the first candles are lit on the evening that opens 25 Kislev. Civil listings often print that sunset as a November or December date. Midnight on that civil date is already several hours into the Jewish date. If you wait for a daytime holiday, you have missed the first flame.

In 2025 the first candles were at sundown on December 14. In 2026 they are at sundown on Friday, December 4, and the eight-night stretch runs until nightfall on Saturday, December 12. In 2027 the first candles are at sundown on Friday, December 24. Do not copy last year’s December number forward. 2025’s December 14 is not 2026’s start, and 2026’s December 4 is not 2027’s start.

Season language has to be split. Meteorological winter in the north is December, January, and February, so a December 4 start in 2026 is already in that winter block. Astronomical winter waits for the December solstice, so early December can still be astronomical autumn. In 2027 the first night is after the solstice and therefore sits in astronomical winter as well. In the Southern Hemisphere, December is summer. The menorah still follows Kislev. The heat does not.

Why the civil date walks through late autumn

Hanukkah can begin from late November to late December on the civil calendar. That range is the whole reason the question is asked every year. The festival was not scheduled as “the Jewish Christmas.” Some years the two sit near each other on the Gregorian page. Some years they do not. 2026’s eight nights are over before late December. 2027’s first night is December 24, so the overlap returns. Coincidence of calendars is not identity of holidays.

The received story attached to the dates is the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabean revolt in the second century BCE, and the account of a small amount of oil that lasted eight days. This page treats that as the story of the festival, not as a laboratory measurement. What you need for the clock is simpler: eight nights of lights, starting at sundown on 25 Kislev.

Find 25 Kislev for the year you care about, or a reliable civil conversion. Light the first candles at that sundown, not at noon and not at midnight. Continue through eight nights; the last lighting is the evening that opens the eighth day.

On a Friday start, lights are kindled before Shabbat begins. On Saturday, they wait until after nightfall. 2026 starts on a Friday, so the first lighting is before sundown that Friday, not in the later evening window used on an ordinary weeknight. The second night, Saturday, waits until nightfall. Local sunset is the clock. A table printed for another city is only a hint.

The first night is a sunset, not a noon. December’s number is only the civil shadow of Kislev 25, and it will not sit still from year to year.

Eight nights in the dark months

When does Hanukkah start is a first-night question. When it ends is eight nights later at nightfall. Civil tables sometimes print a range such as December 4–12, 2026. The first date in that range is the Friday of the first sundown. The last date is the last civil day of the festival. If you only mark one square, mark the first sundown, then keep the next seven evenings. A single office blob that says “Hanukkah” on December 4 and nowhere else will miss most of the lights.

Hanukkah is not a U.S. federal closing holiday. Some schools and workplaces may note it. Most will not shut. In Israel it is a widely kept festival with its own public rhythm, still built on the same Kislev start. Either way, the start is sundown, not a Monday observance and not the December solstice. If you need 2028 and later, convert 25 Kislev again. Do not add 365 days to December 4, 2026. The lunisolar drift is the reason the civil date walks.