Winter Holiday Traditions
Hanukkah
Hanukkah (or Chanukah) is a Jewish celebration that lasts for eight days and celebrates when the Second Temple in Jerusalem was rededicated, an event that shows the Jews’ resilience against their Greek-Syrian oppressors. Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Syria’s king, wanted the Jews to worship Greek gods, so he made the Jewish religion illegal. The soldiers he sent to Jerusalem in 168 B.C. killed thousands of people and sacrificed pigs in the altar they built for Zeus. Mattathias, a Jewish priest, led a rebellion that found success when the Jews drove the Syrians from Jerusalem. According to the Talmud, Judah Maccabee, one of the leaders of the rebellion, worked with others to purify the Second Temple, rebuild the altar, and light the menorah. Even though the supply of untainted olive oil was predicted to only keep the candles lit for a day, the candles burned for eight nights, hence the annual eight-day celebration.
At OHS, many students celebrate Hanukkah, and both variety and overlap can be found in their traditions. For example, Jillian Bross, a 7th-grader at OHS, celebrates Hanukkah with her mom’s side of the family, and they “exchange presents, eat Latkes, play games, and hang out in general.” Similarly, Rebecca Shuster, a 9th-grader, also celebrates with traditional foods (latkes, jelly donuts, beef brisket) and family. Shuster’s family plays dreidel, a game where you spin a top, and the letter it lands on determines how many chocolate coins you put in the center of the group. For her family, the adults play an important role in teaching the history of Hanukkah to the kids and explaining the significance behind traditions like lighting the menorah. According to Shuster, Hanukkah “is a joyous holiday where family can come together and have fun.”
Christmas
Christmas began as a celebration celebrating the end of the worst of winter. In Scandinavia, a festival called Yule was celebrated on December 21. It celebrated the return of the sun after a long winter. There were many other celebrations that celebrated the end of a long and cold winter. Christmas is a celebration of the day Jesus was born. The exact date, December 25, is just an estimate of Jesus’s actual birthday made by Pope Julius l. Christmas was originally called the Feast of Nativity and wasn't declared a holiday until June 26, 1870. It was then, in the 1800s that Christmas turned into the holiday celebrated today. The publication of the books The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent. and A Christmas Carol helped to change the perception of Christmas from a raucous festival to a family oriented celebration. Today, Christmas is celebrated in millions of households every year, and has become a major holiday.
Many people have adopted traditions that they will celebrate during Christmas. For Simona Milev, her mother bakes a “huge fluffy bread with various pieces of tinfoil scattered inside.” Inside this tinfoil, Simona’s mother places little fortunes about what the coming year will bring, as well as a Bulgarian coin that promises good fortune and luck. Her family spins the bread on a platter and takes turns choosing pieces to see what’s inside. Another OHSer has a family tradition that involves food. Their mother makes chocolate chip cookies topped with peppermint Hershey's kisses on top. Hannah Xie and Ayuka Yang take a traditional approach to celebrating Christmas, such as decorating, opening presents, and having a Christmas dinner. Lydia Aluka and Molly Torinus both take a somewhat unique approach to celebrating, with Molly and her family gifting each other silly t-shirts, and Lydia and her family going to see the Nutcracker Ballet. Adela Horstings has many different traditions that take over Christmas, starting with Advent, which takes place four Sundays before Christmas. She attends three different masses on Christmas, a “midnight mass, a dawn mass, and a daytime mass.” Each mass tells a different part of the Christmas mystery. Then, “there is an octave (eight days) of Christmas.” The eight-day of the octave is the official Christmas, where there is a feast celebrating the circumcision of Christ. January 6th marks the end of the Christmas season as it is the day that the Magi bring gifts to the infant Jesus.. OHSers have many different Christmas traditions, and all of them are instrumental in making the holiday season special for them and their family.
New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Eve is celebrated on the last day of the Gregorian calendar, December 31st, and is a prelude to New Years Day on January 1st. The new year is welcomed on different days based on different cultures and calendars. For example, for the Babylonians, the first new moon after the vernal equinox marked the start of a new year, and they would celebrate with an 11-day festival called Akitu. For Egyptians, the Nile floods each year and this occurrence is the beginning of the new year, along with when the star Sirius rises. Additionally, the Chinese New Year is determined by the second new moon after the winter solstice.
In addition to resolutions, fireworks, and watching the ball drop, OHS students have many diverse New Year’s Eve traditions that they practice. An 8th-grader, who requested to remain anonymous, shared that they “eat the traditional soba in the cold [and] line up to get a chance to ring the huge bell located at each shrine.” This results in 108 rings to represent “worldly desires.” Finally, they drink a sweet, nonalcoholic Japanese drink made from fermented rice called amazake with their family and use this holiday as a pass to stay up late! Another student, an 11th-grader, who also wanted to remain anonymous, explains that they celebrate New Year’s Eve by eating 7 round fruits (grapes, kiwi, cantaloupe, oranges, etc.) to symbolize abundance. They also flap dollar bills in front of their fridge, wallets, and pantry as they wish for prosperity in those areas, “we open every door, drawer, and cabinet in the house so that all the old energy can escape as we welcome all things new.”
Sources
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/hanukkah
https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/new-years