Think, why was the menorah being lit?

It was celebration and gratitude for the liberation of Israel from foreign rule and oppression in our homeland. Without that, there would not have been the opportunity to light the menorah.

Hanukkah is in fact a Zionist holiday. Zionism is the belief in the right of Jews to have self-determination and sovereignty in our indigenous homeland. That is what Hanukkah is: Hashem helped the Maccabees achieve exactly that.

Yes, we celebrate Hashem's miracles. All of them, not just the ones that are politically convenient or politically correct. We celebrate the miracle of getting our security in our homeland back, and we celebrate the fact that we were able to honor that first miracle in full.

If you don't like the miracles of Hanukkah, don't celebrate the holiday commemorating them. But don't try to make the holiday into some digestible convenient thing that it isn't.

Baruch Hashem for all the miracles of Hanukkah. Not just the cutesy ones.

Our days are sunset to sunset. An erev [holiday] is not the night before the first day of a holiday, but rather the *start* of the first day, which ends at the next sunset.

So the eighth night is the start of the eighth day, which ends at sunset the *next* day.

The last night of Chanukah - December 21st this year on the secular calendar - is the start of the last day of Chanukah, which ends at sunset on December 22 on the secular calendar.