This week marks the collaboration celebration that is Chrismukkah: a combination of Christmas and Hanukkah for those, like I, with parents of different backgrounds. Chrismukkah is a term I recently heard, from watching an old episode of The O.C. Curiosity struck me and I did a quick google search to see what, if anything, would be picked up. Turns out, after The O.C.’s “The Best Chrismukkah Ever” episode debuted in 2003, Chrismukkah.com was formed. The website was put together by an interfaith couple, who had seen that particular episode and inspired them, and it sells a book about the “Hybrid Holiday”, cookbooks and gifts that combine the two holidays, such as menorahments (ornaments with menorahs on them), Matzoh House (like the gingerbread house, but inedible) and Chrismukkah caps (which look exactly like yamaka’s with Christmas colors).
I’ve celebrated Chrismukkah for eighteen years, but never had a means of defining what it was my family did. Instead, I’d exasperate myself trying to tell people, in one breath, “my dad is Jewish and my mom is Episcopalian, so we just celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah.” My friends, in our South-Philadelphia-Irish-Catholic-neighborhood, would look at me funny and ask why we had a Menorah -every year. Even now, I get people who ask me why I’m celebrating Christmas if I’m Jewish (and the only reason they would know I’m half-Jewish is because I always get an “that’s unusual” ,“that’s exotic” or “that’s different” when I inform someone of how my name, Hannah, is pronounced. I feel obligated to answer their silently implied question with “it’s Jewish”).
This year, we decorated the tree on the first night of Hanukkah. Christmas eve was spent baking cheese cake and pumpkin pie, watching It’s A Wonderful Life, and my younger sister singing Hanukkah tunes. Christmas morning was spent eating onion bagels with cream cheese and lox, opening presents, and then reading our new books; I became engrossed with “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”. Christmas afternoon/evening was spent with family friends; the epitome of the holidays to my family. We had dinner at one house, with delicious food-turkey, lamb and all of the necessary accompaniments overflowing, and brought cheese cake and wine to another. Conversation surrounding the tables varied from stories of long labors to horseback riding accidents to discussing the NRA and what gun laws there should be. It was a day spent surrounded by good food, amazing people and entertaining conversations.
A friend of mine, who also celebrates Chrismukkah, said she spent the afternoon at the movies, Chinese food for lunch and then back home for a Christmas feast featuring ham. Any other Chrismukkah-celebrators? What are your holiday traditions?
Happy Chrismukkah!
