The Sun goes away. The Moon goes away. What do you do?
Obviously, you make fire magic. That's the logic underlying Hanuka.
We hear much of the pagan roots of Christmas; rarely, if ever, do we hear of the pagan roots of Hanuka. But that doesn't mean that they're not there.
In most years, the Jewish Festival of Lights spans the dark of the Moon closest to the Winter Solstice. Dark of the Sun, Dark of the Moon. So we make light to bring back Light, every night more light, until the Moon comes back and we know that the Cycle has been renewed.
Whew.
Rabbinical accounts make it clear that, as is usual with Jewish holidays, the holiday itself came first, with the historical etiology—the Maccabees and their trick oil cruet—added later to “sanctify” the old nature holiday.
Though I can't prove it, I suspect that what we see in contemporary Hanuka is the latter-day descendant of an old pan-Mediterranean Winter Solstice celebration. If we could travel back 3500 years to the temple-palace of Knossos at the time of the dark Moon nearest the Winter Solstice, I'm guessing that in the House of the Double Ax, we'd find oil-lamps in the windows and bonfires in the courtyards. Probably there would have been garlands of greenery decking the courts and doorways as well, since this was pretty much de rigueur for any special occasion in those days.
Chances are that they would have been eating fried foods as a special festival treat. The olive harvest, the last harvest of the growing season, would then have been newly finished; with the pressing of the olives would have come the year's greatest abundance of new oil.
So, probably, in additional to the usual singing and dancing, we'd have been eating some sort of fried holiday goodie similar to the banuelos of Sfardic Jewry: deep-fried dough soaked in honey syrup, and dusted with crushed almonds. The gifts of the olive: richness and light.
With the year's darkest nights come the Winter storms. A friend who lived in Haifa for some years tells me of the violent thunderstorms that blow in off of the Mediterranean at this time of year. The Sea Dragon, Lord of Chaos, assaults the land with thunderous surf; the might of the Thunderer, known locally as Ba'al-Hadad, battles his ancient foe, to preserve the life of the world.
So we kindle these lights to strengthen his hand.
Blessed are you, Ba'al-Hadad,
Slayer of the Ancient Serpent:
May the fires of the Sun and the Moon be rekindled,
on Whom our lives depend.