This year, the first day of Hanukkah falls on December 24/25 for the first time since 1959. When will it happen next?
Hanukkah starts at sunset, so you need to clarify if you want to know about years where it starts on Christmas Eve, or Christmas night, or both.
According to this website, the next year when it starts on Christmas Eve like 2016 is 2027, and then not again till 2073. Then 2130, 2149, 2179 and 2244.
–Mark
In the year 2149 Hannukah will begin the evening of Dec 25 in the United States.
I saw that on this website, but it omits the Hannukah start dates fo the years 2021 to 2049. Not sure why.
That page is showing the date of the first full day of Hanukkah, so it starts on the prior evening. See at the top it says “Jewish holidays begin at sundown the day before the date specified for the holiday.”
–Mark
Hey I was born in 1959/The Year Hanukkah and Christmas Coincided!
Now all I have to is come up with some profound significance to that. Suggestions?
Ummm, you’re old??? :o
You’re EVERYBODY’S present!
Except presents weren’t part of Hanukkah then. Retailers started pushing that hard in the early 1980s. When I was a kid, “Hanukkah ISN’T Christmas,” I heard again and again. Presents are for birthdays and Purim. My mother gave me gelt and chocolate for Hanukkah (pretty serious gelt, but you can’t unwrap it-- I got like $50 in 1970s money over eight days just from my parents, and more from my grandparents and other relatives). However, my mother now drops about $300 on gifts for my son every winter.
FWIW, I cleaned up on Purim and my birthday.
Presents most certainly were part of Hanukkah for me and my Jewish friends in the early 70s in Los Angeles. One each day.
They don’t come much more goy than this guy, so I’m probably speculating through my hat, but couldn’t that just be the difference between a mother and a grandmother?
Nm
So was I. Is that significant enough?
That’s what I meant by “December 24/25” in the OP – starting on the 24th and continuing into the 25th.
Thanks for the link!
Gelt* is* a present.
And it started in the 17th or 18th-centuries, if not before.
Gelt is the old traditional present. You need it to play dreidel. At some point though it became more common to give regular gifts like toys similar to Christmas gifts.
Yes, I know.
Personally, I’d rather just have that $20 St Gaudens, instead of that sweater, thankyouverymuch…
My mother always made me put half my Hanukkah gelt in the bank, until I was 11, and had a paper route, so the Hanukkah gelt made less of a difference in my income. Customers tipped really big in December. I probably made $200 in 1970s money in December. Some people gave me $10 over and above a paper that cost $5.70/month. A couple of people gave me $20. Nearly everyone gave me a $10 bill and said “Keep the change.” Few people tipped every month, but the December tips were staggering.
I guess whether or not you got Christmassy-type presents depended on how assimilated you were. We weren’t very in the 1970s. Aside from the faculty my parents shmuesed for their careers, they pretty much socialized with Jewish people. My mother was never terribly religious in her personal beliefs-- she’s actually an atheist, I’m pretty sure, but she still wanted her children raised Jewish. It’s a mindset you see in Judaism a lot that is probably foreign to gentiles, especially Christians, with the exceptions maybe of Catholics.
My father is dead, and my mother’s second husband is Lutheran, so without any children to worry about, she didn’t feel any obligation to marry a Jew. She still keeps the home kosher, though, because a lot of her family wouldn’t eat over if it wasn’t, and my stepfather doesn’t care, because the deal is that she shops and plans the meals, and does most of the cooking.
BTW, what does it matter whether Hanukkah and Christmas coincide?
My daughter’s jewish (but not very) friend at school, used to boast that she had two christmases, as well as a birthday. I guess she wouldn’t have been so happy if they coincided.
Who said it mattered? It’s just trivia and the OP is curious. Is that ok with you?
As someone with a near Christmas birthday, I assure you that it totally sucks.
This thing about the one-gift-per… How prevalent was that? Every gentile kid would then say “you’re so lucky,” or something like that.
I think I found the root for the Oldest Hatred.
I, for one, got presents on Christmas.