Countywide : Gifts for Hanukkah Available in Stores

Temple gift stores and retail stores have stocked up on dreidel, menorahs and chocolate gelt for the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, beginning Dec. 9.

Gift items range from traditional brass menorahs to the very non-traditional Hanukkah troll dolls with blue fuzzy hair, dressed in a blue-and-white sweater bearing a Star of David.

The stores also carry such items as T-shirts that read “Happy Hanukkah,” pink and blue dinosaur menorahs for children and the trivia game “Quick Shtick.”

“You name it, we have it--everything you could possibly need or want for Hanukkah,” said SorrellWayne, a buyer for the gift shop at Temple Bat Yahm in Newport Beach.

Julie Ghodsi, tired of trekking to Los Angeles for items to celebrate Hanukkah, opened a Costa Mesa retail store two years ago.

Ghodsi and her husband, Shahrokh,are owners of the Golden Dreidle, which offers a wide selection of gifts, cards and decorations.

“We try not to go off into the deep end with artsy things. We try to find things that are within people’s price ranges,” Julie Ghodsi said.

Ben Yehuda Street in Los Alamitos also has plenty of gift items, such as colored glass vases with sterling silver accents, videos about the “Story of Hanukkah,” and an original hand-painted sculptured menorah with touches of 22-karat gold, priced at $595.

These gift shops also feature toy dreidels, spinning tops with a different Hebrew letter on each side. Some sell for under a dollar, while collectibles are priced up to $100.

Ghodsi also sells porcelain hand-painted dreidels on a necklace that range in price from $39 to $45.

At Ben YehudaStreet, shoppers will find a brass dreidel inlaid with amethyst that costs $85, as well as Venetian glass spinning tops from Italy, salesclerk Judy Heller said.

A variety of dripless candles, which come in packages of 44--for each day of the Hanukkah festival--are also available at these stores.