Chrismukkah is a pop-culture portmanteauneologism referring to the merging of the holidays of Christianity's Christmas and Judaism's Hanukkah. The term was popularized beginning in December 2003 by the TV drama The O.C., wherein character Seth Cohen creates the holiday to signify his upbringing in an interfaith household with a Jewish father and Protestant mother. Chrismukkah is also celebrated as an ironic, alternative holiday, much like the Seinfeld-derived "Festivus". In 2006 USA Today described Chrismukkah as "he newest faux holiday that companies are using to make a buck this season".
History
Before "Chrismukkah" entered the popular lexicon in the early 21st century, Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations had been informally merged with one another. 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. In the 1990s, the popular sitcom Friends often portrayed Jewish characters Rachel, Ross and Monica celebrating Christmas with their Christian friends, signifying many contemporary American Jewish households who celebrate Christmas in the strictly secular sense. Chrismukkah was named for the first time, and prominently featured, in the FOX television program The O.C.. Show creator Josh Schwartz used the holiday to depict, he later said, On The O.C., as a way to merge his parents' two faiths, Seth Cohen claims to have "created the greatest superholiday known to mankind" when he was six years old. 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 presents, followed by one day of many presents," with a stress on the word "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 at home eating Chinese takeout and watching movies like It's a Wonderful Life and Fiddler on the Roof on TV. 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 website 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. In December 2004, Chrismukkah was listed in Time magazine as one of the buzzwords of the year. It was also reported in a Scottish newspaper, that Chrismukkah had been added to the authoritative "Chambers" dictionary. 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 was released in October 2006. A rival book by Gersh Kuntzman, Chrismukkah: The Official Guide to the World's Best-Loved Holiday, came out at around the same time. In "A Kosher Christmas: 'Tis the Season to Be Jewish," author Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut, Ph.D discusses Chrismukkah and the creation of Festivus and other hybrid holidays among Jews in America during December.
Years when the first night of Hanukkah exactly coincides with Christmas
In 2005, the sunset of December 25 coincided with 25 Kislev, the first night of Hanukkah, making Christmas Day and the beginning of Hanukkah the same day. This occasion will not happen again until 2024. In 2016, the sunset of December 24 coincided with 25 Kislev, the first day of Hanukkah, making Christmas Eve and the beginning of Hanukkah the same day. This occasion will not happen again until 2027.
Similar holidays
A similarly named holiday called Christmanukkah was featured in The Strangerhood. Unlike Chrismukkah, Christmanukkah is twenty days long, and all of the days are spent receiving gifts and eating until passing out. Pants and pumpkin cider are considered a traditional gift. Similar neologisms such as Chrismahanukwanzakah and HanuKwanzMas blend Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.
