Merry Christmas and Mazel Tov!

Since I was a young child, cosmic and often unanswerable questions would plague me as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep. I simply could not turn off my curiosity and surrender to the Sand Man. I even went through a phase where after I was tucked in, I'd walk down the stairs to ask my parents truly asinine questions such as "how many blades of grass are on our lawn," and others of the like.

Well, as a 22 year-old I still have that problem. Last night I got to wondering why Christmas and Hanukkah fell around the same time of year. Was it coincidence or purposeful? So, unable to finally rest until this question was answered, I went straight to the best friend of anyone with my questions problem: Google.

As a Christian growing up in a Christian society, I pretty much knew everything about the story of Christmas. But before last night I knew NOTHING about Hanukkah (or "Chanukah") other than the story of some candle's oil lasting 8 nights when it was supposed to last 1, latkes, 8 nights of gifts, and dreidels. Now I know much more. Though extremely different, I found some interesting similarities between the two holidays, and I want to share with you the chart I constructed based on my "research":

                  

 CHRISTMAS           

-Based on a miracle: the birth of Jesus by a virgin           

-Celebrated on the 25^th of December

-Gifts are given/received

-Light conquers darkness: Star of Bethlehem as a guide to Jesus’ birth in the black night sky

-Christmas dinner feast

HANUKKAH

-Based on a miracle: the lasting of oil 8x what it was logically supposed to           

-Celebrated on the 25^th day of the Hebrew calendar’s month of Kislev

-Gifts are given/received

-Light conquers darkness: Jews light the eternal flame of the Temple menorah to symbolize the end of the dark Syrian period of rule

-also called “The Feast of Dedication”

I couldn't figure out how to format those so they'd be side-to-side, but each bullet point matches up with its Jewish (or Christian) counterpart. This information was in no way legitimately researched (though it's all factual) and should therefore hold absolutely no weight in terms of actual academia. They're just my casual observations.

By the way, Hannukah has been celebrated in December-ish since before Christmas (duh... Jesus was a Jew and celebrated Hanukkah himself). Christmas's being held on Dec. 25th is actually pretty arbitrary as it relates to the birth of Jesus (since most scholars believe Jesus was ACTUALLY born sometime in the fall or spring months). The date of the Christmas celebration has jumped around a lot too- which would explain why a lot of eastern churches (i.e. Armenian Orthodox) celebrate Christmas on January 6th. On a sidenote, in high school soccer we were always scheduled to play Hoover High (a super Armenian high school in Glendale) on January 6th and they ALWAYS forfeited. I never understood why that game was ever scheduled in the first place. Anyway, I guess the reason we now celebrate Christmas on 12/25 dates back to Origen. On that day, there were already 2 festivals that celebrated the pagan gods on that day so Origen wanted to delegitimize those by an attempt to overshadow them with the celebration of the true God (backed of course by Christian rulers of the day).

I hope everyone was in the mood for a pseudo-history lesson. Haha.

If nothing else, maybe you can use this post as ammunition to combat those awkward small talk conversations at holiday parties this season.

Cheers!