Christmukkah: an Unexpected Discovery
Postcard from the Jewish Museum in Berlin
I sat down with Zac (that would be Zac Bentz, Birdbath co-founder/co-editor; my child) to parallel write our own Birdbath articles. I decided to write about the lovely experience I have most Decembers related to the fact that I am Jewish and my husband is not. I love the quiet, yet powerful energy and meaning of Hannukah (miracles, lights, rededication, overcoming oppression, the deepest commitment to belief and identity). My husband…well let’s just say he has been called “Mr. Christmas.” He’s all about making this holiday time a magical experience with lights of all types, yummy homemade cookies and limpa bread, very thoughtful gifts, the latest groovy holiday music, and fine meals made with deep love.
About 8 minutes into this writing experience, my mind was blown! My original goal was to highlight how lovely it can be to celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas as a family. It is not uncommon in blended Jewish/Christian (or otherwise Christmas-celebrating) families to refer to these winter holidays as either Christmakkah or Hanukkahmas. It is so rare for me to write either of these words that I went online to look up their spelling. And here, my Birdbath friends, is where I made an unexpected discovery. What I discovered is something that you may be aware of, but I was not. It left me smiling to myself in wonder and led to a significant and spontaneous redirection of my writing. Here’s what I learned:
“Chrismukkah is a pop-culture portmanteau neologism referring to the merging of the holidays of Christianity’s Christmas and Judaism’s Hanukkah. It first arose in the German-speaking countries within middle-class Jews of the 19th century.”
What? From the 19th century?? This is not just a cute and relatively modern term to acknowledge the blending of these two holidays?
Before I go much further I want to acknowledge that I had never seen the word “portmanteau.” Had to look that up too. Here what I found. It’s either:
1. A large leather suitcase that opens into two hinged compartments, or
2. A word formed by merging the sounds and meanings of two different words, as chortle, from chuckle and snort.
Do you see why my mind was blown? I am learning so much from what I thought was going to be a simple and fun parallel writing experience with Zac. I used my 54-year-old intellect to deduce that the definition most applicable was #2: the one about merging sounds and meanings. But then, I wondered whether we could put all those merging sounds and meanings into the suitcase with two hinged compartments. We don’t want chuckles and snorts running around with nothing to contain them, after all.
Having a moment to sit with this new historical realization about Chrismukkah and my new vocabulary word, I continued my research into the history of the portmanteau neologism. I further learned:
“Chrismukkah, according to the Jewish Museum Berlin, was first used in 19th century Germany by German Jews. Except the term was in German, not English: Instead of Chrismukkah, they called the holiday Weihnukkah. Like how Chrismukkah is a combination of Christmas and Hanukkah, Weihnukkah is a combination of Weihnachten, Christmas in German, and Hanukkah.
In his blog, Jim Wald, a professor at Hampshire College states, “…the concept goes back over a century to a time when increasingly assimilated German Jews appropriated Christmas celebrations in their own secular manner. On the one hand, the assimilation was a sign of social acceptance and economic and political integration. On the other hand, it led to a decline in the Jewish population. The intermarriage rate rose from 15 percent at the beginning of the twentieth century to 44 percent on the eve of the Nazi seizure of power in 1933.
I am no longer feeling the urge to say much about my personal experience of Chrismukkah (I prefer to spell it Christmukkah- with a “t.” Why not get Christ all the way in there?) because I’m marinating in this interesting new-to-me twist of it all. It stirs in me a complex mix of thoughts and feelings about assimilation and recognition and other aspects of my Jewish identity that feel way too heavy and complex to go into right now.
The responsible thing to do is also offer this: What I have done is the most simple, unrefined, spontaneous online research that is risky at best and could end up being totally inaccurate.
I will end by offering this: I love that my husband gets excited to find the latest, funniest, most enjoyable Hanukkah music on Spotify, makes sure we have Hanukkah cocktail napkins, has learned the Hebrew prayer we say as we light the menorah each of the eight nights, hangs beautiful blue lights, and engages in a plethora of meaningful actions that say, “I fully embrace Hanukkah as an important December experience…no matter when it occurs in the Gregorian calendar. I, in turn, soak in and contribute to the love-filled, warm, inviting, cozy, meaningful (though non-religious) traditions that make up my husband’s love of Christmas.