Tradition, tradition! Tradition!

It's funny how traditions begin, continually morph, and then wind up becoming something which almost imperceivably reflects its origins. Growing up Jewish, we celebrated Hanukkah. We did the whole shebang. 8 nights of presents, 17 or so menorahs (a combination of silver and gold classy ones, and those we made in the first grade out of a log, some popsicle sticks and glue). Which if you do the math amounts to 153 lit candles by the last night. We weren't messing around.

As time has gone on though, our Hanukkah traditions have lost some momentum and new Christmas ones have seeped their way in.  Hannukah rarely coincides with Christmas day, as any good Jew will tell you, there are only 2 things to do on this most holy of Christian holidays, which happen to be the only two things open. Go out to the movies (and OH are there choices of Oscar nominated flicks galore!), followed by a Chinese restaurant. I promise you that you'll bump into your (Jewish) childhood friends, cousins, ex-boyfriends parents and your elementary school English teacher all in one trip.

Since my dad got remarried though, we have also adopted a Christmas tree with ornaments, traditional Christmas Eve dinner and breakfast (my step-mom likes to serve our favorite, "Heart Attack on a Plate,"), and stockings (or random tchatchkes you never knew you wanted but are pretty damn awesome in their randomness).

These days we have the best of both worlds. We've created one monster holiday: Chistmukkah. It is Christmas Eve dinner, followed by stockings, presents, Heart Attack on a Plate, a nap, movies, culminating in a Chinese food feast. It doesn't get much better than that.

And since Jesus probably celebrated Hanukkah anyway, I'm sure that's the way he would have wanted it.