Download Black and White PDF | The Other Days of the Hanukkah Series
I was heavily inspired by folk art when I was designing these Hanukkah paper dolls. I love traditional folk art designs. I always have. There’s still a lot of Russian and Ukrainian cultural influence in Alaska, so I got exposed to to Khokhloma painting at a young age and never really stopped loving it. So, that was what I was thinking of when I was designing the motifs on the trimming of these dresses.
One of the things I wanted for this whole paper doll series was for it to feel old fashioned without feeling like it came from any specific period of history.
One of the Hanukkah traditions I haven’t mentioned yet is giving gifts. This wasn’t originally part of Hanukkah, but in the USA, thanks to the proximity to Christmas, gift giving has become a big part of the tradition for many families. In my family, we usually piled up the gifts on the mantle by the fireplace and each person got to pick out one gift from the pile per night until the last night when all remaining gifts were opened.
I remember as a child thinking Hanukkah was much cooler than Christmas, because we got gifts for 8 nights!
This seemed a much better deal to me as a 2nd grader.