Hanukkah is not a biblically mandated festival, carries no prohibition of work, and is by traditional reckoning a minor observance, far less significant than Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur.
Its modern prominence, particularly in North America, has an identifiable cause: it falls in December. In a society organised around Christmas, a Jewish festival in the same weeks acquired a weight its liturgical status does not warrant, and acquired customs, gift-giving on a large scale, in particular, that it did not previously have. The traditional practice was small gifts of money to children. The rest is twentieth-century, and Jewish writers have discussed it critically at length.
The calendar keeps it in December, which is why the parallel holds. The festival begins on the twenty-fifth of Kislev, and because the Hebrew calendar is corrected to the solar year it stays in late November to late December permanently.
The ritual core is the lighting. Candles are added one per night, and the classic dispute, recorded in the Talmud, between the schools of Shammai and Hillel, on whether to begin with eight and decrease or begin with one and increase, was settled for increase, on the principle that one raises in matters of holiness. The lamp is to be placed where it can be seen from outside, publicising the event, and that requirement has been suspended in times of danger.
The Hebrew word means dedication, and it refers to the Temple, not to the lights.