When is hanukkah this year

when is hanukkah this year

This year, on a page read in 2026, means 2026. The Hebrew date does not change: 25 Kislev. The civil date does, because the Hebrew calendar is lunisolar. Jewish days begin at sundown, so the first candles are lit on the evening that opens 25 Kislev, not at midnight and not at noon. If you wait for a daytime holiday on December 4, you have already missed the first flame that Friday night.

December 4, 2026 sits in meteorological winter in the north: December, January, and February. Astronomical winter waits for the December solstice, around December 21 or 22, so the first night this year is still astronomical autumn by a couple of weeks. By the last nights, the solstice is close. In the Southern Hemisphere December is summer. The menorah still follows Kislev. The heat does not.

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

This year’s civil window

Civil listings often print 2026 as December 4–12. The first date 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.

Next year is not this year. In 2027 the first candles are at sundown on Friday, December 24, and the stretch runs to nightfall on Saturday, January 1, 2028. That 2027 start sits after the solstice and is astronomical winter in the north as well as meteorological winter. Do not copy December 4 onto 2027. Do not copy December 24 back onto 2026.

For 2026, light the first candles at sundown on Friday, December 4. Continue through eight nights, ending at nightfall on Saturday, December 12. On Friday, kindle before Shabbat; on Saturday, wait until nightfall.

For 2027 and later, convert 25 Kislev again. Do not add 365 days to December 4. This year’s first night is a December sunset, not a December noon. The square on the wall calendar is only the civil shadow of Kislev 25.

Lights in the dark season

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, this year’s start is sundown on December 4, not a Monday observance and not the December solstice.

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. What you need for 2026 is the eight nights in early December, in northern winter’s first month, while the south is in summer. Coincidence with late December civil holidays is not identity: in 2026 the eight nights are over before Christmas Day.