For all the Jewish people out there, what kind of presents do you usually get for Hanukkah?

Presents are for the children, not the adults, generally. Actually, I give myself a Chanukkah gift of the prettiest candles I can find/afford for the hanukkiah-lighting (the hanukkah menorah), so yes, I suppose you could say we do "give" candles. lol We aren't wealthy, to say the least, but we give as nice a collection of presents as we can afford, and I am guessing it's the same for xtian parents at xmas.

In past years I would get like an iPod one night or a cell phone or laptop, but on another night i would get socks haha (: Or I would get like all medium gifts, like boots.

As a young person I got pen & pencil sets and stationary, socks and stuff. Now, since we have no children my husband and I exchange 1 gift and it is something we would buy anytime of year. He gets a book or tools, I get a book or a few years ago he bought a havdalah set because we didn't have one. This year I got a new office chair. Since he is away on a contract he tried to purchase the chair online and had no idea what kind of chair I had in mind. He gave up looking, put the $ in the account and told me to pick out the 1 I wanted. Which means I had to schlep it home and put it together ! To the poster with engineer parents - I am truly sorry ! If you don't know the reference find Yound Dilbert as Engineer on Youtube. I can sympathize as I have been offer sympaths as well - my husband is also an engineer,

Only in America are presents given, because of Christmas. So there's no 'requirement'. It's just like anything you might get for Christmas.

Technically, Hanukkah was a holiday of rededication and religous freedom from the Hellenist Greeks. Purim is the true holiday for giving gifts. However, the only reason that Jewish give Hanukkah presents is that it sometimes overlaps Christmas. It depends.

it depends. While I do like to get my kids the occasional nice gift (it happens also to me one of my kids' birthday) I try to downplay the present element. Presents are not an intrinsic part of the holiday -- they are more likely a recent invention so that little jewish kids don't feel left out which christmas presents are all around. so my kids mostly get little nothings with an occasional nice gift.

Wow, haha. Tell you mom that Jews are not ahmish people who give their children candles. Hannukah is the festival of lights, celebrating a military victory because of the story about the oil lasting for 8 days instead of the one day it was supposed to last (hint to the festival of lights thing). Two years ago these were my gifts 1: Halo 2 2: A Nike jacket 3: A paintball gun 4: 1500 paintballs 5. A mask so I can play with my friends 6. Boring clothes from my grandmother 7. A new tennis raquet (This was the year i started being competitive in tournaments) 8. Tennis lessons and a USTA membership so I can do tournaments I am a reformed Jew so I do not keep kosher (my parents say its more important what comes out of the mouth than what goes in). Also we do eat latkas on Hanukkah, which are fried potatoes which taste sort of like hashfrowns. I am 16 now so this was when i was 14, and all my Jewish friends at my school (all 5 of us) each get presents similar to this

Your Mom is right. Some Jewish parents give more expensive gifts, but it is nowhere near the gift-buying frenzy of Christmas. The traditional gifts are Hanukkah gelt (money) which can be actual coins or chocolate coins in gold paper. That's all I ever got and that's all my kids ever got and they were happy with that. They were not jealous of the Christian kids because they were happy being who they were.

We give small gifts, but not school supplies. :) Well, let's see. my 11 year old is getting some i-pod accessories. Barnes/Nobles gift cards (she loves to read). Some items she requested. But small things. We are financially stable, but we do not believe in being ostentatious, nor in bastardizing a religious holiday with consumerist greed as christians have done to their christmas. It's a pity what they've done, and it's pity that a generation ago some Jews tried to compete with them. Fortunately that has fallen back out of favor now, because it is degrading to Jews and Judaism alike. My husband and I do not exchnge gifts, or we sometimes exchange a small gift, and I do mean small. My mother still buys me a gift, and I let her, because I love presents :) Who doesn't ? But really, the gifts are tokens, for children.