Combining Holidays?

The New Jersey Jewish News recently began sending out a weekly email called Responsive Reading: The Best Arguments of the Week. The paper finds the best provocative essays of the week and matches them with equally provocative responses. (If you’re not signed up for it, I highly recommend doing so.) This week, of course, the topic of combining Christmas and Hannukah came up, with this mom in favor of celebrating both and this mom against.

My opinion? “Chrismukkah” is insulting. There, I said it. At the risk of offending dear friends and family, I have to say that I find treating Christmas and Hannukah as though the two holidays are basically the same is offensive to both religions. If they didn’t both land at about the same time of year, we would never think of comparing the two. Christmas is about the birth Christ and the beginning of Christianity. At its core, Hannukah is about rejecting assimilation and keeping Jewish tradition pure. See the problem?

Recently, I was repulsed by an episode of “Glee” during which Jews Rachel and Puck sang about and generally celebrated Christmas at school, Rachel whining to her non-Jewish boyfriend that she expected several expensive gifts for Christmas. When another student replaces an unreligious recitation of “Frosty the Snowman” with the story of Jesus’s birth, the camera pans over the Jews listening and smiling along with the rest of them.

I’m sorry but, yes, he’s right—Christmas is all about Jesus. What I don’t understand is why the Jewish kids didn’t get up at that moment and say, “Hey, we don’t belong here.”

I can understand why interfaith parents justify celebrating both holidays. And I won’t pretend I know what’s right for every family, but having grown up celebrating both (at least to some degree), I think kids find it confusing.

I would love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree with me or not.

Meanwhile, tonight I’m happy that there are two holidays I can combine—Shabbat and Hannukah. Happy Shabbanukah.