DENTON, TEXAS - It’s Chrismukkah this year. Twice in eight years! That’s twice, when Hanukkah and Christmas occur at the same time. This year, Hanukkah starts on the night of December 25. I forget what the overlap was in 2016.
All my long life I have tried to challenge the common idea that Hanukkah is “the Jewish Christmas,” and when the two show up at the same time, it becomes almost impossible.
Hanukkah is really a minor Jewish holiday, celebrating the return to the Hebrews of the Holy Temple from the idolatrous Greeks in the 2nd Century BCE. But Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews celebrate with small gifts, usually of gelt (foil-covered chocolate coins) and the lighting of candles during the eight-day holiday, fitting all too neatly into the return-of-the-light and gift-giving themes of the Christmas season.
And some people really get into the spirit of this portmanteau season. I remember being at one of the winter craft fairs in 2016, and seeing a woman in the crowd who was wearing an amazing Coat of Many Colors. It had Christmas symbols—you know: reindeer, candy canes, Santa, in red and green—on one side of her jacket; and Hanukkah symbols—menorahs, dreidels, gelt, in blue and yellow—on the other.
I was stuck behind my booth, or I would have stalked her to get a photo, but she moved too quickly in the dense crowd, and I missed my moment. Surely, there walked the Spirit of Chrismukkah!
I wish there had been a Chrismukkah when I was a child, for I felt deprived as many around me celebrated with decorated trees and jolly gifts. The best I was able to achieve was pressing my nose against the magical Christmas windows of Marshall Field’s in Chicago, and gazing at the brilliantly decorated and lit homes in neighborhoods that were not, like mine, predominantly Jewish.
But then, while they had Christmas trees and Santa Claus, I had eight whole days of lighting candles in the menorahs at my home and my grandparents’. Eight days of small gifts, accompanied by the warm fragrance of roast chicken and frying latkes, and grandma’s hugs. Eight days of playing the dreidel betting game, and winning gelt from my grandpa.
I guess I wasn’t so deprived, after all.
And I never had to tell my kids that there really, after all, wasn’t a Santa Claus. I never had to fight another desperate mom in search of the ONLY Christmas gift the TV had told my kids they had to have this year. I never had to endure the kind of awful holiday dinner we see in the movies, or read about in Dear Abby.
No, not deprived at all. And I can still enjoy this portmanteau season as I watch my neighbors, mostly Latinx, light up their yards in bright colors, and I put an electric menorah in my window. It’s time to celebrate the return of the light, however we do it.
Happy Chrismukkah!
