For the Rest of Us!

Hallelujah!  I found my holiday blog muse!   Instead of Christmas, I thought I’d focus on its alternatives at this time of the year.

Hannukah.   The Jewish equivalent of Christmas, though it falls on different days each year.  It commemorates a Jewish revolt in 165 BC against the Seleucid (Syrians) which restored the Second Temple in Jerusalem. 

It’s 8 days, with a candle lit on the Menorah for each day.  Remarkably, there IS a Channukah “Christmas special”, although it’s very cynical: Adam Sandler’s animated feature “Eight Crazy Nights”.   On “Saturday Night Live”, “Channukah Harry” (John Lovitz) covers for a sick Santa and brings the disappointed children clothes, dreidels and chocolate coins. 

Saturnalia.  There is some dispute as to whether this Roman holiday, occurring around the winter solstice, was expropriated by early Christians for Christmas.   This was a fertility festival devoted to the god Saturn (from which we get the planet’s name and Saturday).  It was several days of partying and debauchery in which roles were reversed (masters served slaves, etc).  I suppose this is the type of festivity which The Golden Bough covered at length (a pagan fertility festival) but as of today I can’t recall.

Festivus.  The fictitious winter solstice festival celebrated by the Constanzas on “Seinfeld”, featuring an aluminum pole, “airing of grievances,” and “feats of strength.”  It takes place on 12/23, originating from Dan O’Keefe’s family in 1966 (O’Keefe was one of the show’s writers).  In essence it's a parody of Christmas meant to satirize the commercialism and pettiness which the otherwise Christian holiday sometimes suffers - turning it into something even more bizarre and grotesque, but still funny.  But people have been poking fun at Christmas for ages, e.g. "Christmas with the Kranks" (John Grisham's rare venture into humor, he's actually pretty funny) and the National Lampoon film (considerably darker and less amusing, to me at least).