“Chrismukkah,” the holiday mash-up of Christmas and Hanukkah, received its 15 minutes of fame from the character Seth Cohen in the early 2000s teen drama “The O.C.” If the series had been airing this year, it would have been a very special Chrismukkah episode because the first night of Hanukkah coincided with Christmas Day, Wednesday, Dec. 25.
This was just the fifth time this holiday rarity has happened since 1900. The last time was in 2005.
Christmas, which follows the Gregorian calendar, always falls on Dec. 25. Hanukkah, which follows the Jewish calendar, based on lunar cycles, always begins on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev, which on the Gregorian calendar falls somewhere between late November and late December each year, not on a specific day.
So it’s not too often Christmas, the Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, intersects with the first night of Hanukkah, the eight-night festival that marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after a small group of Jewish fighters called the Maccabees defeated their oppressors.
So this meant on the same day, some kids woke up to see Santa had eaten their Christmas cookies, other kids went to bed that night full of potato pancakes and jelly donuts; or, in the case of interfaith families, perhaps kids did both.
According to the Pew Research Center, 1 in 5 U.S. adults was raised in an interfaith household. A 2021 survey found 42% of married Jewish adults in the U.S. have spouses who aren’t Jewish.
If you were to remove Orthodox Jews from the findings, where intermarriage is very rare, among non-Orthodox Jews who have gotten married since 2010, 61% have spouses who aren’t Jewish.
This means there’s a good possibility for Chrismukkah celebrations in some of these homes.
“The greatest super holiday known to mankind,” according to Seth Cohen.
But the fun of the Hanukkah holiday, where children play dreidel and eat chocolate coins, is happening amid the ongoing war in Gaza and a rise of antisemitism in the U.S. and across the world.
In a new report released by the Anti-Defamation League on Dec. 23, 71% of Jewish parents and 37% of non-Jewish parents surveyed reported that their child witnessed or experienced antisemitism in K-12 classrooms or through course materials.
The ADL said this represents more than a third of all parents.
On Fox News Wednesday, Dec. 25, Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone and Father Gerald Murray spoke of how their two religions are coming together to support each other in this special time of year.
“When you look at the excitement about Christmas and Hanukkah, the number one adjective that plays in my mind is warmth,” Lightstone said. “And in the darkest and perhaps coldest time, let’s make it lighter, let’s make it warmer.”
“It’s good to share gifts, it’s good to share love in that way, but what really counts is what’s in our heart and do we manifest that in the way we treat each other,” Murray said.
There’s even more holiday cheer on Thursday, Dec. 26, as the first day of Hanukkah also marks the first day of Kwanzaa.
Kwanzaa is a weeklong holiday that celebrates African and African-American history and culture.
Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa all falling in the same week means people of many different backgrounds have a lot to celebrate together during this holiday season.
