No not again

How could it be? Another year already? Oy for Joy and Holy Moses. Chrismukkah #4 is nearly here. And this one will be an early one. Hanukkah starts December 4th. Better get my hybrid act together. Maybe hire a few Chrismukkah helpers... ummm... Schmelves? Groan... can I really do this again? What's it going to take to get in the spirit of this merry mutation. Last year, at least I had the big book tour to look forward to. Lines of admiring fans. Radio interviews on NPR. Nights on the town with editors and publishers. Groupies galore. This year... what is it? Used copies of my book are selling on Amazon.com for .23 cents. Jeezus jewish mother of christ. How the mighty have fallen. We won our trademark battle, but will anyone care? With our patron saint / nemesis "The OC" having been cancelled and off the air, will anybody really care about Chrismukkah? We shall see.

Walmart Embraces Chrismukkah!

Only two short years ago, the fledgling Chrismukkah.com was at the center of the season's hottest holiday controversy after William Donahue's infamous New York Catholic League shot the opening salvo in the "War on Christmas" by denouncing Chrismukkah in a series of nationally distributed press releases:

“We are deeply concerned about the spiritual misrepresentation of a newly created ‘holiday’ called Chrismukkah... Chanukah and Christmas celebrated during the same period should not be fused into some cultural combination that does not recognize the spiritual identity of our respective faiths. Copying the tradition of another faith and calling it by another name is a form of shameful plagiarism we cannot condone. Frankly, those who seek to synthesize our spiritual traditions may be well intended, but they are insulting both of us simultaneously."

Catholic League Press Release

Well, a lot's changed in two years. This season, (under pressure from the Catholic League and other fundamentalist organizations), WALMART put the Christ back into shopping. Walmart axed the too secular "Happy Holidays" as it's official greeting and replaced it with (gasp!) "Merry Christmas."

Yet, in Cyberspace it's a whole 'nother Walmart. I was pleased to learn that Walmart is selling my new mish-mash holiday book on Walmart.com, but their enthusiasm for Chrismukkah didn't stop with there. If you Google "Chrismukkah" you'll see that Walmart is now evangelizing "Chrismukkah" through an aggressive ad campaign promoting themselves as the official Chrismukkah site! Here's a cut and paste of their Google ad:

Wal-Mart Official Site
Chrismukkah
97-cent Shipping. Get Ahead!
www.walmart.com

This year, Walmart's Chrismukkah celebration seems to be under the radar of the Catholic League, who posted a McCarthyesque request that true believers turn in those who would abuse Christmas. This from their website:

"Every December sees its fair share of "Grinches," those retailers, schools, websites, towns and municipalities who refuse to acknowledge Christmas as part of the "holiday season." These Christmas kill-joys are all around.

This Christmas, the Catholic League, Father Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. and the other Franciscan Friars of the Renewal have joined up to put the spotlight on these folks. Should you notice one of these Grinches, please let us know. You may submit the details either by faxing the Catholic League at 212-371-3394, writing to us at 450 Seventh Avenue, New York, New York 10123 or by e-mailing Catholic League

We encourage readers to let the Catholic League know of your outrage over Walmart's Chrismukkah blasphemy.

The first book review is in... and it's not so bad!

Review From the Jewish Forward

A Holly Jolly Hybrid Holiday

by Daniel Treiman | Fri. Dec 08, 2006
Chrismukkah: Everything You Need To Know To Celebrate the Hybrid Holiday
By Ron Gompertz*
Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 144 pages, $17.95*


Ron Gompertz has found the solution to the December Dilemma: He punts.

Gompertz is the self-appointed pied piper of Chrismukkah, a hybrid holiday popularized three years ago by the Fox television series “The O.C.” A New York Jew transplanted to Montana (of all places) and married to the daughter of a United Church of Christ pastor, Gompertz jumped on the Chrismukkah bandwagon (to the apparent chagrin of the creator of “The O.C.”), launching the Web site Chrismukkah.com, where he sells greeting cards and various holiday-related tchotchkes.

Now he’s written a book, “Chrismukkah: Everything You Need To Know To Celebrate the Hybrid Holiday.” In 144 colorful pages, Gompertz serves up a syncretistic smorgasbord of do-it-yourself recipes (“Fa La La Latkes”), drinks (“Yule Plotz Egg Nog”) and decorations (What’s a Chrismukkah tree without “menorahments”?). Gompertz, whose sense of humor is decidedly more ham than wry, also tosses in hybridized holiday song lyrics, a list of Hollywood “half-Hebrews” and some silly stories, including one in which Mrs. Claus divorces her cheating, sleigh-riding husband and is swept off her feet by “Hanukkah Harry.”

“Chrismukkah is a celebration of diversity, a global gumbo of cherished secular traditions,” Gompertz writes. “It’s the good stuff we all enjoy, no matter what our religion: sleigh bells, eggnog, snowmen, twinkling lights, flickering candles, exchanging gifts with family and friends.”

To those who may think that Chrismukkah is nothing more than newfangled nonsense, Gompertz has a ready retort: Tradition! As it turns out, the holiday has a long history in Gompertz’s family. His mother was born in Germany, her father a Lutheran and her mother Jewish. Before Hitler’s rise to power, the family, like many other assimilated German Jews, celebrated both December holidays, a combination that was dubbed “Weihnukkah,” from Weihnachten, the German word for Christmas — in other words, Chrismukkah.

Indeed, as Gompertz notes, the winter holidays have histories of hybridity. Many traditions associated with Christmas — including the fact that it’s even celebrated in the winter — have pagan roots. Santa Claus is himself a mélange of some dozen different folkloric figures. And let’s be honest, what is Hanukkah, as celebrated today, with its eight nights of gifts, if not an effort to one-up (or seven-up, as the case may be) Christmas?

Chrismukkah is certainly fun for the kids. (Really, what kid wouldn’t like a pine tree decked with bagels?) But is it good for the Jews? And is it good for Christmas? Some clearly don’t think so. In 2004, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the New York Board of Rabbis issued a joint statement blasting the made-up holiday for “spiritual misrepresentation.”

True, Jesus plays little more than a bit part in “Chrismukkah,” and the Maccabees aren’t much in evidence, either. But Gompertz has no hidden agenda. “As a brand-new, twenty-first-century pseudoholiday, Chrismukkah is more connected to postmodern pop-culture traditions than the ancient ones,” he writes. Those up in arms over Chrismukkah are railing at the symptom of a much larger problem: Christmas and Hanukkah are so commercialized that they already have been stripped of much of their deeper religious meaning.

Personally, having grown up in a family in which not having a Christmas tree was as central to our Jewishness as lighting the menorah, I was prepared to hate “Chrismukkah.” But it’s hard to hate a book that features pictures of dogs wearing yarmulkes, snowmen made out of matzo balls and delightfully schmaltzy jokes on almost every page — even for a grinch like me. I may not like the hybrid holiday, but I have to give credit where it’s due: Ron Gompertz has written a very merry Chrismukkah book. Ho, ho, ho — and oy, oy, oy.

Daniel Treiman is the founding editor of The Brooklynite magazine and a former associate editor at the Forward.

Happy Chrismukkah to all the Evas in the World

This post is in response to Eva, who doesn't like the idea of Chrismukkah and wrote a series of comments to my last blog entry. Let this serve as a more general response to the similar critical emails we receive each year from both Christians and Jews:

Eva, thanks for your thoughtful reply.

First of all, I'd like to clear up a few things you've accused me/us of. Not that it really matters all that much, but I feel obligated to correct your incorrect assumptions. It's because of people who lack tolerance and holiday cheer that we created Chrismukkah.com in the first place. You don't know us, but you go out of your way to post to the Chrismukkah blog...apparently just to put us down. It saddens me to feel the condescension, anger and resentment in your words, and I can only wonder how your brand of Judaism brought you there.

1 - You oddly assume we are raising our daughter as a Christian, and to celebrate Christmas. Where did you get that from? It's actually the opposite. Michelle and I together decided a few years ago to raise our daughter as a Jew. Our daughter was named in honor of my maternal grandmother, the German-Jewish daughter of pre-Israel Zionists, a woman who married the handsome Lutheran boy next door, only a few years before the Holocaust began. I am on the board of directors of our community temple. I am a proud Jew. I went to Hebrew school, was Bar Mitzvah'd and am very involved in our small Jewish community here in Bozeman. Our rabbi instructed us that Reform Judaism considers one who is raised as a Jew, with Jewish traditions, is indeed a Jew, even if the mother isn't. I know that may not go down well with Conservative Jewish beliefs, but that is what we chose to do.

2 - Yes, I could use a spell checker. Clearly, spelling is not my forte... but I just type, without worrying too much about spelling, typos and grammar. It's just a blog. One I can't imagine many people are interested in reading. It doesn't help that I code in raw HTML, without benefit of a spell checker. And, obviously, I don't have an editor on staff here at Chrismukkah.com.

3- Believe it or not, we have not profited from Chrismukkah. The niche appeal of the site pretty much guarantees we never will. Chrismukkah is a labor of love, a project of the heart. Over the past 3 years, it's been a sort of "mitzvah", as my rabbi calls it. I don't mean to bitch, but you brought it up. Since founding the site 3 years ago, it's cost considerably more to operate the Chrismukkah venture than we receive in sales and royalties combined. While I certainly wouldn't oppose being compensated for the thousands of hours it's taken to build and maintain the website, write and photograph content for the two books, and answer the dozens of emails we receive each day, making a profit from Chrismukkah.com has never been a priority. This is a volunteer project... we receive no compensation.

Why do we do this then? It's a form of social activism, I suppose. Ego motivates me too, no doubt. It's nice to get fan mail, and for every negative comment like yours, there are 10 positive comments. Frankly, it's fun to challenge the status quo and question tradition. Chrismukkah has gotten people talking, allowing expression of diverse opinion, and it's helped bring Jewish intermarriage issues to mainstream cultural awareness. Michelle and I launched the site to express the views of our "real" interfaith family, rather than allowing a fabricated Fox TV family to represent us. While we are typical, in the sense that (until Chrismukkah) we never had a political or theological agenda, we certainly don't believe we represent the beliefs of all interfaith couples. That said, it has been a nice surprise to find how many others share our beliefs and values. We've found that celebrating both December holidays... not literally merging them... but celebrating both, rather than excluding one or the other, we manage to keep peace and harmony within our family. Our family celebrates Hanukkah as most American Jews do - with menorah lighting, latke frying, dreidel spinning, and gift exchanges on each of the 8 nights. We also have a Christmas tree in our living room, in the opposite corner of course, and my wife cherishes the ritual of decorating the tree. I've heard from many Jews who say they refuse to allow their spouse to bring a Christmas tree into the house... that having a tree disrespects their Judaism. I don't believe that's a very good way to make a marriage work.

4 - Agreed. Hanukkah is not an important Jewish holiday... at least it's not relative to the more religious Jewish holidays. Hanukkah commemorates Jewish oppression and the ongoing struggle for religious freedom. But it's not a particularly religious holiday, making it more acceptable to make light of.

5- My family celebrates Hanukkah and Christmas independently. Then we also have our pretend shared family holiday of Chrismukkah. Chrismukkah allows us to enjoy what we have in common, instead of accentuating what makes us different.

6- Not all Jews live in Jewish safe havens like New York. Try living or traveling elsewhere to learn how a broader cross-section of Jews think and feel.

7 - Christmas is not just about Christ. It may well be for religious Christians, but for the rest of us, who, despite not believing in Christ, still can enjoy going to the Nutcracker Suite ballet, holiday music, holiday movies, the lights and decorations downtown, the store windows, and the other festive secular rituals of the season. Not to mention that long ago, our government decided to make Christmas a Federal holiday... just like Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, and MLK Day.

My Lord and Taylor

OK, that was fun. I'm just back from the Chrismukkah promotion trip to New York where I did a series of book signing events at Lord and Taylor. While there, I also did a few interviews, including one inside the hallowed halls of New York's NPR studios. I had lunch with my editor Ann and publicist Claire, walked the streets in a downpour chewing on a folded slice of Rays pizza (orange grease dripping down my wrist) and munched on poppy seed bagels from H&H (it's the water). I slurped awesome hot and sour soup after midnight, got to ride around in big black limos, order room service, sipped glasses of Pinot Noir at the lobby bar, met lots of really cool people, and autographed several hundred books. All of it, ALL expenses paid. It was such an ego trip. And at some point, I realized how much I do miss New York. I wished Minna and Michelle were with me. In-between scheduled events, I prowled the streets of Manhattan... an activity that just isn't as compelling here in Bozeman. It's holiday season in New York City, the streets illed with garlands and green, bell ringing Santas, animated victorian window displays on 5th Avenue, Herald Square grid-locked with busy shoppers and workers readying Macy's for the big parade this Thursday. The empire state building all lit up for the holidays. Now, back home, it's back to a slower routine. I brought the Chrismukkah store orders over to Wanda at the fullfillment service, spent the rest of the day at Eco Auto, catching up on phone messages, posting updates to the website and talking "green car" politics with the people who wandered in. I bought a DVD of "Who Killed the Electric Car" and screened it for anyone who wanted to watch. It's a film that must be seen... it would make an excellent double feature with "An Inconvenient Truth." I don't know what to expect this year. It's still early. I'm very focused on getting the word out about my zero emmissions electric cars, and not so much on Chrismukkah. I'm sure that will change after turkey day. Walmart made the news last week. Apparently, they've caved under pressure and will be wishing shoppers a "Merry Christmas." Forward into the past.

Wakeup Call

It was my birthday yesteday. Worked during the day at Eco Auto (my new "green car" venture) and then had a really great dinner at home... my favorite: Hungarian Goolash over wide egg noodles - with Michelle, Minna and my Mom. This morning, the alarm chirped at 5 AM to signal the official start of the 2006 Chrismukkah season. A week before election day, it's hard to get into the mood, but in a few minutes I'm scheduled to do my first drive-time radio interview of the year. It's with Brian Freeman, a news guy at the Fox station in Miami - WIOD / News Radio 610. I'm a little rusty... haven't talked about Chrismukkah since last December. This strong cup of coffee should help. Minna just woke up early and barely glanced at me as she padded past me typing away here, heading to Mommies and Daddy's room for the early morning snuggle routine. Next week - book signings in New York. Over and out

Chrismukkah Sells Out!

Soon after receiving my first fan mail of the season (see last post), my publisher (Stewart Tabori and Chang) called to tell me my new book (Chrismukkah: Everything You Need to Know to Celebrate the Hybrid Holiday) sold out it's first print run only 4 days after being released. Oy! Yo! Yooy! What this means, I'm not really sure. Is Gersh Kuntzman punking me? Is the New York Catholic League hording copies for holiday giftgiving? Could this be some kind of evil plot by the woman who sent that last email?

Chrismukkah 2006 - "I spit on you and your whole marketing scheme"

Well, it's another Chrismukkah. Who would believe it? I wouldn't have, except I was visited by the scary ghosts of Chrismukkah past in the form of my first "fan mail" of the season. By Chrismukkah 2005, the controversy had pretty much died down as Chrismukkah seemed to receive mainstream acceptance. But now, with my new book (Chrismukkah: Everything You Need to Know to Celebrate the Hybrid Holiday) arriving in stores, there seems to be a fresh audience of narrow-minded folks being exposed to Chrismukkah for the first time. Take this cheery good tidings of an email: "Dear Mr. Gompertz, You think you're doing such a noble thing. After all, there are all those poor interfaith families with nothing to hold on to! You should be ashamed of yourself making money on trying to reduce the already shrinking jewish population. I picked up your book at Borders and felt sick. There is NO correlation between Christmas and Chanukah. There is no way one who knows anything about the two religions could ever rationalize such a thing. One is Jesus as the Messiah (whom, you might remember, we as Jews do not recognize) and there is the Historical holiday of the Maccabeans. What you are doing is justifiying a jewish man's choice to marry out of his religion and allow a shiksa to raise her children that way. To tell you the truth, you should be shot. Your ancestors would be ashamed of you. I spit on you and your whole marketing scheme. I hope your ill-gotten money comes to no good for you." Oy. L'shona tova to you too.

Chrismukkah Eve

Michelle and I just got back from our Chrismukkah evening... Chinese food and church. Michelle was feeling blue. In years past, we'd visit her family in Indiana for Christmas... but this year, for the first time in many, we didn't make it. Michelle felt strongly that her new business needed to stay open this busy week. Michelle hoped for a last minute buying surge. It's been a tough first year for her ceramics studio and gallery. Retail is new to Michelle... and selling doesn't come naturally to her. Meanwhile, I too was very busy shipping out Chrismukkah orders right up until noon today. After a few changes of mind, Michelle decided she did want to attend the evening candle lighting service at the nearby UCC Church, the denomination she was raised in. We all put on our nice clothing and headed out to dinner. Chinese food on Christmas Eve, even if only mediocre Montana Chinese food, is such a familiar ritual for me and it put me in the right frame of mind for the evening. After dinner,we headed over to Pilgrim Congregational Church, which Minna knows from attending "Kindermusik" each week. Michelle enjoyed the service, and I enjoyed her enjoying it, but feeling a bit like a die-hard Yankees fan attending a Red Sox game. We live in a subdivision here in Bozeman and there is a neighborhood tradition each Christmas Eve of putting luminaries out in front of each house. The idea is to get the whole neighborhood to participate in the big light show. I'm generally reluctant to participate in such wholesome organized behavior, but this being our first year living here, and not wanting to alienate all the neighbors, I begrudgingly complied... but with one modification. I put out 9 luminary bags and then piled up a foot tall mound of snow and placed the center bag on it. I'm pretty sure our neighbors didn't notice... but my little act of resistance to conformity and assimilation seemed like the perfect pre-Hanukkah symbol for this evening. Now it's time to start wrapping the presents in preparation for tomorrow "double header." All in all it turned out to be the perfect Chrismukkah Eve... a nice balance for our multifaith home.

3 Days To Chrismukkah

Wow. That was a wild rush. Since my last post on December 14th, life has been tetering on the brink of insanity. Yes, it's Chrismukkah time here at Chrismukkah ground zero. I've just returned from the daily drop to Fed Ex Kinkos and the post office... both of which were nearly deserted. Even the procrastinators know it's too late now. Bozeman is a college town and about half our population has cleared out for the week. Parking spaces are once again abundant and 2 feet of snow has turned to slush. Last Friday, Michelle and I flew to New York for the weekend at the invitation of The Today Show. Minna stayed at home with Nana. A transit strike was threatened for Friday, but thankfully, the union postponed that for a few days. Even so, things started out a little rocky when we arrived at LaGuardia to find that Northwest Airlines had misplaced our luggage somewhere between Minneapolis and New York. Even so, It was first class all the way. Limo pickup at the airport, check into the grand old Essex House Hotel on Central Park South, told the bell captain to expect our luggage, and then cab downtown for a meeting with a big publishing house intereted in doing my cookbook. After the meeting, we had a perfect Chinese meal at a noodle house in the village. Living in Montana, decent Chinese is something I miss more than anything else. We called the hotel to see if our bags had shown up (they hadn't) and then walked over to Saks Fifth Ave to buy new outfits to wear the next day. Did you know that the entry level for a sweater at Saks is $400... cashmere of course. With shoppings bags full and charge accounts near their limit, we headed back uptown to the Essex House to meet publicist Edna K for Absolute and tonics. Our lost bags finally arrived around midnight and we went to sleep relieved and relaxed. Our early morning call came too soon and we rushed down to the lobby and caught the limo down to Studio 1A. They ushered into make-up and then to the Green Room. There we waited for nearly 3 hours while they finished up the live broadcast and then set up to pre-record the Christmas day episode we were there for. All the other guests preceeded us... the "gift returns lady", the Brian Setzer Orchestra, the Mens and Boys Christmas Choir. Between each guest, the union crew took a 1/2 hour break. By the time Michelle and I to hit the soundstage, we were distracted, jittery from too much coffee and unfocused. Campbell Brown did the interview. I don't remember much of it. I don't normally get nervous in such situations, and I've done my fare share of on-camera interviews, but there's just something about The Today Show and having 3 huge NBC cameras sticking in your face. You may watch our "deer in headlights" performance this Sunday (12/25) morning. That is if we don't end up on the cutting room floor. After the taping, we were literally whisked out of the studio and into a crowd of "stage door" groupies. Some whacked out guy thrust a pad of paper and pen at us wanting an autograph. "Actress?" he said to Michelle. We jumped into the waiting limo and cruised back up to the Essex House. After changing clothes and checking out we made our way back down to Saks to return our outfits. Then we went in search of lunch, ending up at the far less popular "overflow" deli across the street from the tourist packed Carnegie Deli (the wait line was down the block.) After downing 5 inch thick hot pastrami sandwiches, we spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring the newly renovated Museum of Modern Art. Feet aching and eyes spinning, we met up with Neil, my old buddy from Jersey, for a quick cup of coffee at Starbucks on 57th. Neil headed down into the subway while Michelle and I cabbed down to Grand Central to catch the 5 PM to White Plains. Cousin Mark picked us up at the station and we had dinner at a fancy-schmancy restaurant in Scarsdale. The next morning Michael J. came over for a brunch of fresh bagels and lox. Another thing I really miss about New York. Before we had a chance to finish our second cup of coffee it was time to go. The car service honked and off we drove to LaGuardia. We checked in and happily allowed ourselves to be bumped up to first class. We spent the 6 hour flight drinking wine and reading the Sunday Times. When we landed in Bozeman, the temperature was 16 below. Back to reality I thought as I scraped the accumulated ice from the windshield. Monday morning was catch up day. We got the orders that had arrived in over the weekend out by mid afternoon. The rest of the week was spent balancing the phone interviews with packing and shipping. By the end of the week, It felt like I had spoken with the nearly every newspaper reporter in the country. Now it's feels like things are finally winding down. The orders are all out. The phone is no longer ringing off the hook. Only one more radio talk show to go. I'm really looking forward to Sunday... a day I understand is some kind of holiday.