War on Christmas | Day 7: Dark Wizards Attack Muggle Homes

Pardon my Grinchery on this, the second night of Chanukah. Chalk it up to an overdose of latkes if you will.

Does any one else recall a Patronus being present at the birth of Christ?


Actually, what's up with religion in Harry Potter? There certainly seems to be Christmas-type celebrations, but everything seems pretty secular. I guess performing miracles and resurrecting seem less impressive when any dick kid or his parents can do it just because they love enough.

War on Christmas | Davy 5: The War on Chanukkah

If you want to disprove the war on Christmas as a legitimate worry, you need only ask where the atheists are who should be fighting against every other even remotely pagan religious ceremony within the month of December.

The war on Chanukah? That was called the story of Chanukah. Jews beat the crap out of a superior military force and were miraculously un-obliterated. Then, oil lamps burned with 800% fuel efficiency. There's your miracle.

The war on Kwanza? Try 500 years of racial oppression of the black man in Western culture.

Where's the battle to keep latkes out of our schools? Or the Solstice from being a nationally recognized day of "oh god oh god let's all party and fuck in case we die?

The answer is no one is attacking these holidays, because there is nothing to be feared from them. Frankly, the only thing antagonistic to these holidays, in this age, is Christmas in the first.

War on Christmas - Day 3: Curious George Chiam

I came across a copy of Happy Hanukkah, Curious George today. It's a board book, meaning it's pages are made of stiff cardboard to stand up to tiny child hands. It's about 14 pages long and involves the Poacher Slaver Man in the Yellow hat (though frightfully referred to not by name, but only as "a friend") taking George to a Hanukkah dinner.


George helps wrap some presents, eats sweets, plays driedel and "monkey see, monkey do" with the kids, knocks over some purple applesauce, then makes the children help clean it up. Later the Man lights the menorah, and George wraps some latkes up for a sick friend after doing all the dishes with his disgusting, feces-tossing monkey paws.

That's the entire book. The most religious element is that the menorah exists without explanation, and the mitzvah or good deed is supposedly important. No mention of Macabees, or miracles, or Judaism or religion of any kind. Just being a good person as a general idea.

And that's pretty fantastic.

Honestly, I'm probably going to miss Hanukkah this year because my non-practising aunt and shiksa mother decided to hold the get together at one in the afternoon. Last year, we ate pork chops and picked our presents (read: "checks") off of a Christmas tree. We are not what you would call "observant." Frankly, my grandma forcing me to say the candle prayer is about as religious as we get, since I'm the only bar-mitzvahed male in the house. My dad could do it, but no one wants to invite him.

Why not Christmas?

Fake-Hanukkah is so much better than the awkward, tongue-biting I remember from the Real Hanukkahs of my childhood. Mostly because of all the drinking now. It's great. So how come even with Santa Claus and mistletoe and reindeer, and all the gifts and cheer and good will that has nothing to do with Jesus, JESUS STILL GETS ALL THE HYPE.

I mean, I get it, he's the "messiah." The "Son of God" is an important business title. Fine. "Macabee" isn't as glorious as being a Mason these days. Whatever.

But come on, all the best things about Christmas have nothing to do with Christianity, they're Pagan and generally just about being a good dude to the other dudes in your life.

Be a dude.

"Be excellent to each other." - Abraham Lincoln

Jewish Holidays: Explained!

"So, yes, basically, our existence is God's version of Jackass.
Or Fear Factor. It depends if Joe Rogan is busy or not. But he never is."

Since I can't find the explanation I was sure I had already written on this very topic–despite prodigious searching I should say–I can only surmise that my burgeoning, bourbon-fueled artistic insanity is clouding my judgement. Thus, I present:

A Layman's/Gentile's Guide to Jewish Holidays

Passover - This is the one where we celebrate that time we were enslaved, and then God performed miracles to get us out of slavery, then killed all those people who were coming after us and it was through divine intervention that we didn't die. The happy ending is that we were kind of ungrateful and then wandered a desert for 40 years before God helped us kill and rout everyone who had moved into our house since we were originally enslaved.

Chanukah - The one celebrating that time some people we threw out of living in our old place came back and tried to kick us out, and we narrowly fended them off, but they trashed our temple and it was only through divine intervention that we didn't die, and then God let our lamps go long.

Purim - That one time we miraculously caught the guy trying to kill/enslave us beforehand, and didn't die.

Yom Kipur - High Holy Days, where we atone for all the past year's sins, and thank God that we haven't died before doing so.

Rosh Hashana - New Year's Day, where we finish Yom Kipur, read the last page in the torah, and then rewind it back to the beginning and reread page one, thankful to God we have lived another year but solemn in our understanding that we could die at any moment.

Sukot - Jewish Arbor Day. We celebrate a bountiful harvest and remember years past when instead of plenty, we starved to death en masse, and thank God that we ourselves haven't died.

Bar-/Bat-Mitzvah - Batman's 13^th Birthday, where Jewish children become legal adults and, traditionally, were expected to leave home, get a job, and start a family, because we didn't really expect to live all that long. Traditional gift is money, because we really need to to get out and make more little Jews in case the rest of us die suddenly, which, again, is to be expected, really.


Basically, we're just celebrating no one successfully exterminated our culture. Every time.

Look, we get a lot that a lot. Lot of genocide. You can pretty much trace our migratory patterns by it.

By which I mean you literally can do just that:

Israel from Eastern Europe (Holocaust)
Eastern Europe from Russia (Pogroms)
Russia from Western Europe (Spanish Inquisition)
Western Europe from Holy Land (Muslims)
Holy Land from Desert Slavery (Egyptians)
Desert Slavery from Holy Land (Also Egyptians)
Holy Land from Desert Slavery (Babylonians actually let us go)
Desert Slavery from Holy Land (Babylonians were kind of dicks at first)
… (Repeat several times. Reason: Palestinians/Philistines/other not-Jews)

Before that, it's pretty much just God trying to kill us then sending a couple of us to live somewhere else. Lot, Noah, Abraham, Adam & Eve.

We're just really, really glad we're not dead yet.

Double Dippng on Christmas

I never really saw a problem with double-dipping so long as you rotate whatever it is you're dipping between bites.

The same applies to religious celebrations. One of these days, I'm going to get so many extra vacation days, being multidenominational. "I can't come in today, it's Yom Kipur." "Nope, I'll be out all week for Lent." "Sorry, it's the Vernal Equinox. Gotta don my robe and antlers."

Is it fair that in the span of six weeks one year I got to celebrate my birthday, bar-mitzvah, Chanukah, and Christmas? Not at all. Was it one of the best things ever, giving me ample funding to survive without student loans well into my adulthood? Yes. Do you probably hate me now? A little bit, likely.

But hey, what do I know, I have no religion anyway. It's all wasted on me. To me, Christmas is about the spirit of love and giving and being kind to all manner of people, forgiving those past wrongs against us and saying, "Let us all be better from now on." Chanukah is the celebration of exactly that, except with blue and fire instead of green-and-red and a pine tree, celebrated one evening, likely the Saturday closest to an official start date.

Christmas is not about honoring the birth of a religious figure several months and about seven years off from the actual event, as set by doctrines established in the third century. It's about Santa Claus and snow and Coca Cola and love. And let's be honest, Chanukah isn't about a miracle of being rewarded with less than unrealistic deadlines because we overcame impossible odds with only blessing and sheer determination. It's about not feeling left out at Christmas.

So yes, hate me for celebrating both holidays and getting twice as many presents. However, if you value actual faith in your culture and religion, pity me, because I worship only the consumerism and commune only by giving of my own pocket. I am repulsed both by the baby Jesus and anything more ceremonial than a latke.

Plus, I only get presents from half the family at each holiday, so bug off, that's one holiday, total.

On Holiday Good Taste

I drove past a cafe yesterday that still had it's menorah up in the front window.

I'm not saying you have to take your Chanukah decorations super fast. Hell, I love my Christmas decorations to stay up until New Year's. Even the Halloween junk stays up for weeks. I just take off the spiders and cobwebs and leave the pumpkin and cornstalks for Thanksgiving. Seriously, store, go ahead and leave your menorah up as long as you want.

I'm just saying if you're going to do that for weeks on end, maybe you should light up the last four nights too.