Chrismukkah
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Chrismukkah is a pop-culture neologism referring to the merging of the holidays of Christianity's Christmas and Judaism's Hanukkah as celebrated in interfaith households where one parent may be of Christian heritage and another parent of Jewish heritage. Or from two Jewish parents, where one may not be religious at all (having a desire to put up a Christmas tree) while the other is very religious causing Christmas and Hanukkah to cancel each other out into one blur of a gift giving holiday. The word itself is a portmanteau arisen through the blending of the words "Christmas" and "Hanukkah". Chrismukkah is also celebrated as an ironic, alternative holiday, much like the Seinfeld-derived "Festivus." USA Today has described it as "[t]he newest faux holiday that companies are using to make a buck this season".[1]
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[edit] History
"A Christmas celebration with a tree, songs, and gifts became a symbol of being a part of German culture for many middle-class Jewish families in the 19th century. Some Jews celebrated Christmas as a secular "festival of the world around us" without religious meaning, or they transferred Christmas customs to the Hanukkah festival. There was an episode of the television program thirtysomething, which featured a fight over whether to celebrate Christmas or Hannukah for a baby's first holiday season in an interfaith home, but there was no mention of "Chrismukkah."
Chrismukkah was popularized by FOX television program The O.C.. On the show, the character Seth Cohen has a Jewish father and a Protestant mother. As a way to merge the two faiths, Seth claims to have "created Chrismukkah." The series included annual Chrismukkah episodes for every season of its run. Particulars of when exactly the holiday was celebrated were not given; Seth simply said in the first season's Chrismukkah episode that it was "eight days of gifts, followed by a day of many gifts," with a stress on the word "many"(this was repeated in the second season's Chrismukkah episode by Seth's new brother Ryan, with an added "many"). The only references to how it was celebrated, other than the family displaying both a Christmas tree and a Hanukkah menorah, was that the Cohens spent Christmas day itself--rather than going out for Chinese food and a movie as many American Jews have taken up in recent years--watching Christmukkah-season-themed movies they had rented, like It's a Wonderful Life and Fiddler on the Roof at home while eating Chinese takeout. Chrismukkah later received mention in the television series, Grey's Anatomy.
In 2004, Chrismukkah.com was launched by Ron and Michelle Gompertz, a Jewish-Christian intermarried couple in Bozeman, Montana. Their website took the fictional O.C. Chrismukkah and brought it into reality, selling humorous Chrismukkah greeting cards and dispensing detailed mythology about the fictional holiday. The Chrismukkah.com web site was widely credited with popularizing Chrismukkah to a non-television watching audience.
Chrismukkah.com stirred up controversy in the Fall of 2004 when the New York Catholic League issued a national press release opposing Chrismukkah. Further, The Catholic League and the New York Board of Rabbis, in a joint statement, condemned Chrismukkah as "insulting" to Jews and Christians.[1]
In December, Chrismukkah was listed in Time Magazine as one of the "buzzwords" of the year.[2] It was also reported in a Scottish newspaper, that Chrismukkah had been added to the authoritative "Chambers" dictionary.[3] In 2005, Chrismukkah.com founder Ron Gompertz authored a humorous book of Chrismukkah recipes called Chrismukkah! The Merry Mish-Mash Holiday Cookbook. Gompertz's follow-up book, entitled Chrismukkah - Everything You Need to Know to Celebrate the Hybrid Holiday (published by Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was released in October 2006. A rival book by Gersh Kuntzman, Chrismukkah: The Official Guide to the World's Best-Loved Holiday (Sasquatch Press), came out at around the same time.
Some marketers intentionally leave out the "T" from Christmas in the word Chrismukkah, as so that "Christ" would not be spelled out.[1]
[edit] Similar Holidays
A similarly named holiday called Christmanukkah was featured in The Strangerhood. Unlike Chrismukkah, Christmanukkah is twenty days long (twelve days of Christmas and another eight for Hanukkah), and all of the days are spent receiving gifts and eating til passing out.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c McCarthy, Michael. "Have a merry little Chrismukkah" (HTML), USA TODAY, 2004-12-16. Retrieved on 2006-12-28.
- ^ "The Year in Buzzwords" (HTML), Time, 2004-12-20. Retrieved on 2007-03-08.
- ^ Martell, Peter. "Scot's Yngling sails on to Blackberries of the blogosphere" (HTML), The Scotsman, 2004-12-12. Retrieved on 2007-03-08.
