This festival lasts for eight days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev (the third month). It celebrates the victory of the small Maccabee army against the large Greek army of Antiochus, and the Maccabees' recapture and re-purification of the Temple in Jerusalem (c. 168 BC). When they did so, they found only a small amount of oil to light the menorah in the Temple, and it would take a week to make more; miraculously, the oil burned for the full week. To commemorate this, on each night, observers use a 'helper candle' called the shamash to light candles in a menorah (more properly called a chanukiah, as a menorah only has six branches while a chanukiah has nine): one candle (besides the shamash) on the first night, two on the second night, and so on. Furthermore, it is traditional to eat foods fried in oil; in the United States, potato pancakes called latkes are popular; in Israel, fried jelly donuts called sufganiyot are more common. Children play a game with a spinning top called the dreidel, which contains the Hebrew letters that form the initials of a phrase that translates as 'a great miracle happened there' (in Israel, they say 'a great miracle happened here'). Exchanging presents is only a recent tradition developed in the U.S. to make Jewish children feel less left out as their Christian peers get Christmas presents (or, if you are cynical, the tradition was invented by toymakers to sell more toys).