Hanukkah Playlist 2025: Eight Songs That Will Make Your Festival Lit

Hanukkah begins at sundown on Sunday (Dec. 14), kicking off eight crazy nights of the festival of lights with prayers, menorah-lighting, dreidel games, chocolate coins and the singing of a number of traditional songs commemorating the rededication of the second temple in Jerusalem following the outmanned Maccabean revolt against their Greek/Syrian oppressors.

While the joyous holiday is often embodied by the eight-slotted menorah and the nightly lighting of colorful candles signifying the miracle of a single day’s-worth of oil lasting eight days, it is also a time to crank up some music to celebrate the emergence of light in the darkness.

Sure, Christmas has top-billing around this time of year thanks to such indelible holiday standards as Mariah Carey’s inescapable “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and other Xmas favorites by Wham! (“Last Christmas”), Bing Crosby (“White Christmas”), Brenda Lee (“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”) and Andy Williams (“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”).

But Hanukkah is no slouch thanks to less chart-friendly family favorites such as “Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah,” “I Have a Little Dreidel” and comedian Adam Sandler’s beloved “The Chanukah Song.” You’re likely familiar with those, but did you know that raunch master-rapper Too $hort has his own not-kosher-for-your-bubbe ode to his favorite time of the year called “The Hanukkah Song?”

Maybe you’re feeling blue this year and need a bit of soul to go with your latkes? Never fear, late R&B singer Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings have you covered with their 1970s funk banger “8 Days (Of Hanukkah).”

So take a seat Santa and let the (macca)beats bang with these eight Hanukkah jams.