In Case, You Are Wondering, It’s Thanksgivukkah…

Hope your Thanksgiving was great yesterday. I mean, mine was. Kale and mustard greens with hot sausage, quiche, mashed red and blue potatoes, among others. And of course, a bird that had meat falling off the bone. I was so full, I didn’t have room for the pumpkin pie and egg nog, and crashed not long after.

Yeah, that’s why Thanksgiving has another day—Friday—on which folks can recover and merely nosh on the leftovers while watching old movies, Scandal episodes already aired, and of course, the football games.

Yes, I think that I am going to fit pretty well into the role of the maiden aunt who has big throwdowns of food during the holidays. But I am going to have to plan better…

…and for some, the holiday is really extended. If you are Jewish, and keep the holy days, this is Hanukkah or Chanukkah, the Festival of Lights. Far from being the “Jewish Christmas,” Hanukkah is a yearly remembrance of how a menorah was kept alight for eight days without the use of oil that had been defiled under the rule of the Seleucid Greeks. Remember that Hanukkah commemorates the miracle of the menorah and not the subsequent military victory that overthrew the Seleucid overlords as well as their Hellenistic Jewish supporters.

The last time a convergence of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah occurring at the same time in the United States, it was 1888, smack into the Gilded Age. And there was a lot of immigration from areas of Jewish habitation: Poland, Eastern Europe, Russia. Many of these new immigrants sought to fit in their new land, and readily adopted Thanksgiving as a custom to keep along with their religious observances.

Which could explain the phenomenon known as the menurkey: a menorah shaped in the figure of a turkey. Asher Weintraub, you’re a genius.

No, I am not into braving braying hordes at the mall; I’ve been on both sides of that racket, and besides, I do not have disposable income. However, I am into making coffee, surveying the snow outside, and taking it fairly easy while job hunting online. I’ll have a couple of articles for you to check out today, if you subscribe to all or some of the above. Take care.