Happy Whatever!

I found this amus­ing, and hope it does­n’t offend any of my Jew­ish friends.

1. Christ­mas is one day, the same day every year: Decem­ber 25. Jews also love Decem­ber 25th. It’s anoth­er paid day off work. We go to the movies and out for Chi­nese food and Israeli danc­ing. Chanukah is 8 days. It starts the evening of the 24th of Kislev, when­ev­er that falls. No one is ever sure. Jews nev­er know until a non-Jew­ish friend asks when Chanukah starts, forc­ing us to con­sult a cal­en­dar so we don’t look like idiots. We all have the same cal­en­dar, pro­vid­ed free with a dona­tion from either the World Jew­ish Con­gress, the kosher butch­er, the local Sinai Memo­r­i­al Chapel (espe­cial­ly in Flori­da), or anoth­er Jew­ish funer­al home.

2. Christ­mas is a major hol­i­day. Chanukah is a minor hol­i­day with the same theme as most Jew­ish hol­i­days. They tried to kill us, we sur­vived, let’s eat.

3. Chris­tians get won­der­ful presents such as jew­el­ry, per­fume, stereos…Jews get prac­ti­cal presents such as under­wear, socks, or the col­lect­ed works of the Ram­bam, which look impres­sive on the bookshelf.

4. There is only one way to spell Christ­mas. No one can decide how to spell Chanukah, Chanukah, Chanuk­ka, Chan­nukah, Hanukah, Hannukah.

5. Christ­mas is a time of great pres­sure for hus­bands and boyfriends. Their part­ners expect spe­cial gifts. Jew­ish men are relieved of that bur­den. No one expects a dia­mond ring on Chanukah.

6. Christ­mas brings enor­mous elec­tric bills. Can­dles are used for Chanukah. Not only are we spared enor­mous elec­tric bills, but we get to feel good about not con­tribut­ing to the ener­gy crisis.

7. Christ­mas car­ols are beau­ti­ful. Silent Night, Come All Ye Faithful…Chanukah songs are about drei­dels made from clay or hav­ing a par­ty and danc­ing the horah. Of course, we are secret­ly pleased that many of the beau­ti­ful car­ols were com­posed and writ­ten by our trib­al brethren. And don’t Bar­bara Streisand and Neil Dia­mond sing them beautifully?

8. A home prepar­ing for Christ­mas smells won­der­ful. The sweet smell of cook­ies and cakes bak­ing. Hap­py peo­ple are gath­ered around in fes­tive moods. A home prepar­ing for Chanukah smells of oil, pota­toes, and onions. The home, as always, is full of loud peo­ple all talk­ing at once.

9. Women have fun bak­ing Christ­mas cook­ies. Jew­ish women burn their eyes and cut their hands grat­ing pota­toes and onions for latkes on Chanukah. Anoth­er reminder of our suf­fer­ing through the ages.

10. Par­ents deliv­er to their chil­dren dur­ing Christ­mas. Jew­ish par­ents have no qualms about with­hold­ing a gift on any of the eight nights.

11. The play­ers in the Christ­mas sto­ry have easy-to-pro­nounce names such as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. The play­ers in the Chanukah sto­ry are Anti­ochus, Judah Mac­cabee, and Mat­ta what­ev­er. No one can spell it or pro­nounce it. On the plus side, we can tell our friends any­thing and they believe we are won­der­ful­ly versed in our history.

12. Many Chris­tians believe in the vir­gin birth. Jews think, “Joseph, Bubela, snap out of it. Your woman is preg­nant, you did­n’t sleep with her, and now you want to blame G‑d. Here’s the num­ber of my shrink.”

13. In recent years, Christ­mas has become more and more com­mer­cial­ized. The same holds true for Chanukah, even though it is a minor hol­i­day. It makes sense. How could we mar­ket a major hol­i­day such as Yom Kip­pur? For­get about cel­e­brat­ing. Think observ­ing. Come to syn­a­gogue, starve your­self for 27 hours, become one with your dehy­drat­ed soul, beat your chest, con­fess your sins, a guar­an­teed good time for you and your fam­i­ly. Tick­ets are a mere $200 per per­son. Bet­ter stick with Chanukah!

–Author Unknown