Printable Hanukkah bingo cards

Bingo across the eight nights of Hanukkah

The page opens with the family list loaded, 8 cards, 4x4 with no free space, 4 to a page. Change the number of cards to the number of people at your table. Use Start from above the word box to switch to the list for little ones. Edit the words before you print: if your family makes bimuelos rather than latkes, or sings songs that are not on the list, swap them in. Your edited list stays in this browser for next year.

One card for the whole week

The family list has exactly 56 squares, so calling 7 words a night for 8 nights calls every word once. Print everyone's card on the first night and keep the cards and the caller sheet next to the menorah. Each evening after the candles are lit, read out that night's seven words and let everyone mark their cards. In 4,000 simulated games with 8 players, the first completed line came on the third night in just over half the games and on night two, three or four in 96% of them; the first full card came on the seventh or eighth night in 97%. So play for a line in the first nights and for a full card at the end, on the night all eight candles are lit. Because every word has been called by the end of night eight, every card is full by then, so agree beforehand how to settle a tie, for example that both players choose the next song.

In 2026, Hebcal lists the first candle on the evening of Friday 4 December and the eighth on the evening of Friday 11 December, with the last day of Hanukkah on Saturday 12 December. Hanukkah candles are not lit on Shabbat itself, so on Friday they are lit before sunset. If your household does not play games or write on Shabbat, skip the Friday round and call fourteen words on Saturday evening instead.

What is on the family list

The family list covers five things. The lights: the menorah (hanukkiah) has nine branches, eight for the nights and one for the shamash, the "attendant" candle used to light the others; one candle is lit on the first night, two on the second, and so on until all eight burn together. With a candle menorah that is 36 Hanukkah candles plus 8 shamash candles, the "44 candles in all" square. The story: the Maccabees recovered Jerusalem and the Second Temple from the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE, and the Talmud tells of one jar of pure oil, enough for one day, that burned for eight. The dreidel: its four Hebrew letters nun, gimel, hei and shin stand for "a great miracle happened there"; most dreidels in Israel have pe instead of shin, for "here". The food: fried in oil to recall the oil, such as latkes (potato pancakes), sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) and the Sephardic bimuelos, plus dairy foods, which some link to the story of Judith. The songs: Ma'oz Tzur, the Judeo-Spanish "Ocho Kandelikas" (eight little candles) and the Hebrew "S'vivon Sov Sov Sov".

A few squares are for older children and adults: Hallel (the psalms of praise sung each morning of Hanukkah), the Hasmoneans, the 25th of Kislev, and "Ends in Tevet", because Hanukkah is the only Jewish holiday that starts in one month of the Hebrew calendar and ends in the next. Calling one of these is a good moment for whoever knows the story to tell it.

3x3 cards for small children

The little ones list has 50 short words: candle, flame, dreidel, spin, latkes, doughnut, jam, gelt, gold coin, grandma, hug. Eight of the squares are counting squares, "1 candle" to "8 candles", so a child can match the card to the number of candles burning that night, not counting the shamash. Choose 3x3: nine squares is about as many as a four-year-old can scan, and the words print large. In simulated games with 5 children on 3x3 cards from this list, the first line usually came after around 14 words, so it works as one short game on any night rather than a week-long one. For children who cannot read yet, draw a small picture next to each word before you print, or read the word and point to the real thing on the table.

Printing

Choose 4 per page for 3x3 and 4x4 cards: 8 players is 2 sheets of paper. Use 2 per page for 5x5 cards so the longer family squares, such as "Light the shamash first", stay readable. Print with margins set to Default and scale at 100%, or press Download PDF to print elsewhere. Print all the cards at once on the first night, because every press of Generate makes a new set. Cards that have to last eight nights do better on thick paper or in clear plastic sleeves with a dry-wipe pen. Press Caller sheet for every word in shuffled order with a tick box; for the eight-night game, draw a line under every seventh word so each night's words are marked off before you start.

What it cannot do

The page ships no pictures, and it is a party game, not a guide to how Hanukkah is observed. Customs differ between families and communities, for example in which foods are made and whether the shamash is lit first, so read the list before you print and change anything that is not how your family does it.

Sources

Checked 14 October 2026. The facts in the prose above (the eight nights from the 25th of Kislev, the nine-branched menorah and the shamash, the Maccabees and the jar of oil, the foods and songs, Hallel, and lighting before sunset on Friday) are from the Wikipedia article "Hanukkah" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah). The dreidel letters and the Israeli pe are from the Wikipedia article "Dreidel" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreidel). The 2026 dates are from the Hebcal Jewish calendar's 2026 holiday list (hebcal.com). The simulated game figures were computed for this page. Both word lists were written for this page.