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Things You Didn’t Know About Holidays 45

Things You Didn’t Know...

About the Holiday Season

With these fun holiday facts, you’ll be the best
conversationalist at all of this year’s holiday
parties.

Why December has so many holidays
While there’s no single explanation,
many experts agree that December holidays date
back to ancient celebrations surrounding the
Winter Solstice, which is the shortest day of the
year but also marks a sort of “birth of light”—
because every day after that grows slightly
longer for the next six months. The winter
solstice occurs in the third week of December.
When the Christian religion began celebrating
the birth of Jesus Christ at the end of the third
century AD, it is believed that church officials
settled on December 25 in order to coincide with
existing pagan festivals surrounding the solstice,
thus making it easier to convince the pagan
worshipers to accept Christianity.

Hanukkah isn’t the Jewish Christmas
Because Hanukkah and Christmas tend children and their families could celebrate while Angeles. Having modeled his holiday on
to fall around the same time of year, people often other American families were celebrating traditional African harvest festivals, he took the
wonder if Hanukkah is a Jewish version of Christmas. It also became a way for the Jewish name “Kwanzaa” from the Swahili phrase,
Christmas. At least religiously speaking, it is community to feel a part of something so “matunda ya kwanza,” which means “first
not. culturally significant in America. fruits.” The extra “a” was added, Karenga has
The Jewish festival of Hanukkah (the said, simply to accommodate seven children at
spelling of which we will discuss below) has So how do you spell that anyway? the first-ever Kwanzaa celebration in 1966, each
nothing to do with the birth of Christ, and the There is no right way to spell Hanukkah. of whom wanted to represent a letter. But there
event it commemorates—the rededication of the That’s because it’s a Hebrew word, and Hebrew may be something more to the number “seven”
Second Temple of Jerusalem, where the Jews uses an entirely different alphabet and includes than that.
had successfully risen up against their some entirely different sounds from the English
oppressors in the Maccabean Revolt—occurred alphabet. Spelling the word in English involves The number 7 comes up a lot in Kwanzaa
a couple of hundred years before Jesus’s birth. the process of “transliteration,” which means There are seven principles and seven
Hanukkah is often referred to as the “Festival of changing the letters of a word into the most primary symbols that emphasize a unique set of
Lights” because according to the Talmud (one of closely corresponding characters of another values and ideals during the seven-day
the Jewish religion’s central texts), when the language. Transliteration is an imprecise art, at celebration of Kwanzaa, which is spelled with
Jews took back their Temple after the battle, best, and Hanukkah presents at least two seven letters.
they had only enough oil left to keep the lights examples of why:
burning for a single day—and yet, miraculously, • The first sound is not actually “ha,” which Speaking of numbers…let’s talk about the
the lights burned bright for another eight nights, involves expelling a puff of air from the number 3,473
thus leaving time to locate a fresh supply of oil. mouth while the tongue stays out of the way. The holidays are a major source of weird
The Hanukkah celebration involves the Rather, it involves placing the rear of the world records. For example:
lighting and blessing of a nine-branched tongue lightly on the roof of the mouth, The largest gathering of people wearing
candelabra known as a menorah or a hanukkiah. which creates a sound that is not spellable holiday sweaters is 3,473, recorded at the
On each of the holiday’s eight nights, another using the English alphabet. Some try by University of Kansas on December 19, 2015,
candle is added and lit; the ninth candle (called spelling the first sound as “Cha.” Others feel when that many people wore brightly colored
the “shamash”) is the helper candle that is used that the “ch” can be confused with the “Ch” sweaters to the men’s basketball game against
to light all the others. Hanukkah doesn’t even in Christmas or in lunch. Montana.
necessarily take place in December. It always • The “k” sound toward the end of the word is
begins on the 25th day of Kislev on the Hebrew easily spelled with a single “k,” but some The number 559
calendar, which can fall anywhere from late prefer to spell it with “kk” in order to The largest display of lit Christmas trees
November to late December in the secular distinguish it from an English word (which was recorded on November 2, 2015, when the
calendar. has no “kk”). Hallmark Channel lit 559 Christmas trees in
New York City’s Herald Square. Now, imagine
But you’re right to see the similarities Kwanzaa is celebrated in addition to if no one bothered to take down these lights?
Jews have always celebrated the Christmas
rededication of the temple and the miracle of the Kwanzaa is a secular (non-religious) The number 6,400
lights, although that celebration bore no festival observed by many African Americans Jelly doughnuts are a traditional
resemblance to Christmas until the late 1800s. from December 26 to January 1 as a celebration Hanukkah treat. The biggest pile of these
That’s when two rabbis in Cincinnati of their cultural heritage and traditional values. delicious treats was recorded on the first night of
intentionally brought a Christmas-y feel to the Kwanzaa is celebrated by African Americans of Hanukkah of 1997, when a 12-foot high
festivities. Growing concerned that Jewish all faiths. Those who are Christian may observe pyramid made of 6,400 jelly doughnuts (called
children seemed increasingly disconnected to it in addition to Christmas. “soufganiyot” in Hebrew), was erected near the
their religion, they developed a new celebration Kwanzaa was created by Dr. Maulana Israeli town of Afula. Afterwards, the doughnuts
for children during Hanukkah that included Karenga (a black nationalist who later became a were distributed to Israeli soldiers serving along
giving presents. National newspapers publicized college professor) in 1966 as a way of uniting the border with Lebanon.
this, and in no time, the Jewish community in and empowering the African African community
America had reshaped Hanukkah as something in the aftermath of the deadly Watts riots in Los (Continued on Page 48)