Published: 19 December 2024
Last updated: 22 December 2024
For the first time in almost two decades, Christmas and Chanukah will fall on the same date.
This year, December 25 is not exclusively reserved for Santa and his reindeer – dreidels, ponchkes and latkes now have an appropriately-timed seat at the festive table.
It’s the first time these festivals have collided since 2005, when I was just eight years old, and it won’t happen again until 2035.
Sharing this date is a breath of fresh air for many Jewish Australians who intimately understand the invisibility of belonging to a minority culture in a Christian-dominated society. For those of us who live in both cultures, it offers an unusual need to have it all simultaneously.
It’s no wonder Chanukah feels the need to compete with the chaos of Christmas. From December – make that mid-November – we’re subjected to festive fever. Supermarkets blaring carols on repeat. Streets lined with panic-inducing strobe lights. Terrifying fake Santas in shopping centres. A myriad of old and new Christmas movies flooding our TVs.
Selfishly, I’m not caught up in the “December dilemma” because I get to enjoy it all.
Add to this the belief by many outside the community that Chanukah is simply “Jewish Christmas” – while in the crowded Jewish festival calendar, Chanukah is a relatively minor holiday.
Thankfully, iconic pop culture moments have helped shine a light on and address misconceptions over the years, powerfully inserting Chanukah into the dominant Christmas conversation.
The OC’s Seth Cohen introduced us to the infamous ‘Chrismukah’ portmanteau; Ross Geller from Friends invented the unofficial Chanukah mascot – the hilarious Holiday Armadillo – while Schmidt coined the iconic catchphrase, “Judaism, son”, in New Girl.
For me, these traditions have never existed separately. Selfishly, I’m not caught up in the “December dilemma” because I get to enjoy it all. In my multicultural family – which blends Italian Catholic and Ashkenazi Jewish traditions – Chrismukah isn’t a competition.
Come December, our well-used menorah sits proudly on the mantle next to our perfectly decorated Christmas tree. Our stockings hang beside a kitschy ‘Happy Chanukah’ plastic sign, complete with a smiling animated dreidel. We give and receive Chanukah gelt and Christmas presents, and our carols are injected with renditions of the dreidel song.
It’s an impressive achievement pioneered by my parents, who have instilled a deep commitment to culture in my life.
That said, it hasn’t always been easy. Those raising or belonging to interfaith and multicultural families will know all too well that the perfect balance can often be elusive. For my parents, that manifested in prioritising what they felt was most important, and many sacrifices were made.
I didn’t receive a Jewish education but I celebrated my bat mitzvah with my family and friends. I missed out on formally learning Italian, but I spent weeks in Bellosguardo, my family’s mountainous village near the Amalfi Coast. I don’t go to shule or to church – in fact, religion is completely removed from our practice, which probably makes it easier to celebrate our secular and cultural Chrismukah than for mixed families who want to incorporate religious rituals.
When it comes down to it, both traditions are all about food, family and the celebration of miracles.
What also helped was the effort both of my grandparents made to learn about the other’s culture, traditions and beliefs. My Nonno and Nonna (or collectively, Nonni) made time to drop in during Chanukah, just like my Sapta and Saba came for our Christmas lunch.
Upon reflection, I imagine there likely was a hidden rivalry that I overlooked as a child, but the fact they were willing to try made our family unit stronger, and embedded a long-lasting precedent about the importance of not only embracing, but celebrating, difference.
Because in reality, their differences weren’t really that different. Both of my grandparents experienced considerable loss at an early age. They both moved to Australia in search of a better life for their family. They both worked multiple jobs to get by; faced racism and adversity; and found and built their own communities in a foreign land.
It’s just like Chrismukah – when you strip both holidays back, the differences aren’t so different. When it comes down to it, both traditions are all about food, family and the celebration of miracles. Both traditions embrace the values of connection, community and love.
So this year, on December 25, I will relish my identities, my worlds, quite literally colliding.
I will have Christmas lunch with my Italian family as I always do.
Instead of prawns or turkey, I will sit down for never-ending courses of Italian fare – antipasto followed by lasagna, chicken cacciatore, fagioli (beans) and involtini (beef bundled with mozzarella and basil and cooked in tomato passata). Instead of baking gingerbread houses, I will make tortanetto (a village dish combining biscuit, hazelnuts and toffee) and sweet panzerotti (round deep-fried pastry filled with ricotta and covered in icing sugar). I will play Italian cards and open my Christmas presents with glee.
That night, I will also celebrate the first night of Chanukah with my Jewish family as I always do.
I will fry homemade golden-brown latkes, my arm stiff from grating kilos of potatoes, and stuff my face with ponchkes (jam, always). I will watch the ‘Macca-babies’ tell the Chanukah story in A Rugrats Chanukah with my little cousins, and I will pocket my Chanukah gelt, thankful I’m still seen as a child in the eyes of my relatives. I will win and lose several rounds of dreidel and eat more chocolate coins than I can handle.
I will light the first candle of our menorah, and proudly watch it glow next to my sparkling Christmas tree.
I know my hybrid holiday won’t be accepted by everyone in our community. But my family understands and embraces Chrismukah – in all its unique, nuanced, complicated messiness – and in a time of deep division, despair and anger, that’s so much more than I could ever ask for.
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