Question

Hello Rabbi, I hope you are well.
 
My daughter gave birth yesterday, thank God, and the circumcision is planned for Monday.
 
Regarding setting the time of the circumcision: my wife has work constraints, so the earliest hour that works for her is 3:00.
 
My wife is not a salaried employee but self-employed, and during Hanukkah she runs a day camp for which people have already registered, so canceling the activity would cause financial loss and harm to her reputation.
 
There are guests who would prefer an earlier hour so they can manage to light Hanukkah candles at sunset, or at five o'clock as is customary among the people of Bnei Brak.
 
So the question is whether a mitzvah meal for a circumcision ceremony (assuming it can't be moved earlier than 3:00 if we want the grandmother to be present…) overrides the matter of lighting candles at sunset.
 
The daughter and her husband want to make it as early as possible out of consideration for family members who are kollel students.
 

For myself, I don't really understand the hesitation….. Assuming the circumcision starts exactly at 3:00 (Rabbi Diamant..), one can sit for another half hour or so and then head out (presumably there is no special point in being stringent and staying for the entire meal including desserts).
 The more fundamental question is whether the lighting time established for sunset is the beginning of the obligation, but from that time until the time when the marketplace empties there is no preference for any particular lighting time from the standpoint of the lighting commandment itself (as opposed to the general rule of doing mitzvot early), or perhaps the mitzvah is to light as early as possible within the time frame, and therefore lighting at 5:00 is preferable to pushing it off to 6:00.
 With blessings,