How IS that Holiday Written in English?

Chanukah?  Hannukah?  Hanaka?  Whatever, as long as you spit when you say it.

Hannukah is, due to its approximate coincidence with Christmas on the calendar, one of the most widely-recognized Jewish holidays, but perhaps one of the least well-understood.  It commemorates the Miracle of the Oil – after winning a guerilla war against the Seleucid forces of Antiochus IV, the Macabees and their followers could only find enough unspoiled oil to light the Temple’s eternal flame for one day – but miraculously, it lasted for eight days.  There are other explanations for the nature of the Festival of Lights, but to this day, Jews all over the world light candles starting tonight in honor of that miracle.

So no, it’s not the Jewish Christmas.  The practice of giving gifts over the course of the eight-day festival is very much an American practice.  Wikipedia really outlines it best:

Hanukkah gained increased importance with many Jewish families in the twentieth century, including large numbers of secular Jews who wanted a Jewish alternative to the Christmas celebrations that often overlap with Hanukkah.

In recent years, an amalgam of Christmas and Hanukkah has emerged – dubbed “Chrismukkah” – celebrated by some mixed-faith families, particularly in the United States. A decorated tree has come to be called a “Hanukkah bush”. Other Jews (tongue-in-cheek) simultaneously acknowledge both the increasing secularization of the holiday season and their Jewish roots by wishing each other a “happy cholidays.”

Though it was traditional to give “gelt” or money coins to children during Hanukkah, in many families this has changed into gifts in order to prevent Jewish children from feeling “left out” of the Christmas gift giving.

These secular traditions are not a traditional part of the Hanukkah observance, and are often frowned upon by more observant and traditionally-minded Jews.

Simply put, Hannukah is nowhere near the most important holiday on the Jewish calendar.  Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and several other holidays are more holy than the festival which starts tonight at sundown. 

Why, then, the controversy over Wal-Mart employees saying “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas”?  Why the uproar over an airport responding to a request to raise a Hannukah menorah alongside a Christmas tree by taking down the Christmas tree?

At last check, the holiday celebrated at this season by the vast majority of Americans wasn’t about getting one’s way in pleasant conversation, but rather about peace, charity, harmony, and love.  Those ideas aren’t kept solely to one holiday or one religion, but transcend borders and differences, and would go a long way toward solving a lot of the world’s problems if we actually put them to use in our daily and, dare I say, political lives.

So why not wish someone “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”?  I don’t care which holiday you’re celebrating, I’m going to wish you a happy one!  It’s what James Caan, Kirk Douglas, and the late Dinah Shore-ah would do. 

Whichever holiday you’re celebrating this season-formerly-known-as-winter, have a happy, peaceful, and blessed one.  As for me, I’m gonna be scarfing down the sufagniyot and potato latkes like there’s no tomorrow.