Category: default || By jt3y

Actually, I'm not completely slacking. But the weekend was a blur, and I didn't have the time Sunday to blow an Almanac entry out of my ... I mean, to finely craft the kind of high-quality Almanac rantings to which you, the loyal reader, have become accustomed.

Just one quick note today: Last week, I made several references to Christmakwanukah --- the attempt to shmear together Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. (And a tip of the Tube City hard hat to Alycia, who first gave me the idea.

Well, William Randolph Hearst said that "truth is not only stranger than fiction, it's much more popular." I was astonished to pick up Thursday's Valley Mirror, Christmakwanukah isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Greeting card companies are marketing Chrismukkah cards.

The Associated Press had more on the story (via the Akron Beacon-Journal):

Every December, Zack Rudman and his wife used to send out nonsectarian cards with winter scenes and generic holiday greetings.

Now, the Kansas City lawyer has found a line of cards more suited to a Jewish man and an Episcopal woman with two young children as familiar with the menorah as with a manger scene.

These cards proclaim: ``Merry Chrismukkah!''

Christmas and Hanukkah, two holidays that seem to share little more than a calendar page, are being melded on greeting cards aimed at the country's estimated 2.5 million families with both Jewish and Christian members.

``It's representative of the way people live and the way they spend the holidays,'' said Elise Okrend, an owner of MixedBlessing, a Raleigh, N.C., card company devoted to interfaith holiday greetings. ``And it's an expression of people understanding the people around them.''

MixedBlessing came out with holiday cards intended for Jewish-Christian families about 15 years ago and may be the only company focusing entirely on that market segment.

In its first year, it sold about 3,000 cards. This year, Okrend projects sales of 200,000 off its 55-card line.

Hallmark Cards Inc. says one of its most popular categories of Hanukkah cards combined Jewish and Christian themes. ... American Greetings Corp. had about 10 Hanukkah-Christmas lines this year.

Still, that's not the best blended display of holiday wishes I've seen so far this year. I passed a house in Port Vue this weekend that featured a giant lighted Nativity scene in the front yard. And instead of wise men, Santa and the reindeer were visiting.

Umm, he's "Saint Nicholas," right? Which means that he couldn't actually have been a saint before the birth of Christ, right?

That grinding sound you hear is a paradigm shifting without a clutch.