Skip to main content

Humor: Christmas

On the morning of December 26, a Catholic boy, a Protestant boy and a Jewish boy were talking about what their families did for Christmas.

The Catholic boy said, "It was wonderful. We all went down to my grandfather's church, and we said mass, and we gathered around the altar and sang Silent Night."

The Protestant boy said, "It was wonderful. We all went down to my grandfather's house, and we gathered around the fireplace and roasted chestnuts and sang Jingle Bells."

The Jewish boy said, "It was wonderful...We all went down to my grandfather's department store, and we gathered around the cash register and sang What a Friend We Have in Jesus."
* * * * *

Most Jews don't celebrate Christmas. For those who don't, the everpresent question of "What are you doing/did you do for Chistmas" at this time of year is an awkward one. This joke has some fun with that awkward question.

The joke reminds me of something that actually happened to me many years ago. One of my co-workers was being a little too aggressive in trying to convince me that Christmas was my holiday too, and that I was required to celebrate it. I jokingly created the Jewish conspiracy theory of Christmas: Yes, I told him, Christmas is a Jewish holiday. After all, look at what pulls Santa's sleigh: eight reindeer, plus Rudolph to light the others (like the Chanukkah menorah, which has eight candles and a ninth that is used to light the others). But I explained, Jews celebrate Christmas by selling presents, not by buying them.

Comments

KleoPatra said…
HA!!!! i like it! Good ones!
Unknown said…
beautiful!
Traveler Editor said…
Good jokes.
Just wanted to say,I recently discovered your site and have enjoyed it.
Very well done.

Popular posts from this blog

Did Moses know he was a Hebrew?

It seems to be a common notion, perpetuated by movies like Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments  and Disney's Prince of Egypt , that Moses grew up as a high-level member of Pharaoh's household with no idea that he was a Hebrew. But does that notion fit in with what it says in the Bible, or what Jewish tradition teaches about Moses? This week's Torah portion is Shemot, the beginning of the book of Exodus, so it's a good time to examine this question. We actually know very little about Moses' childhood from the Bible. Pharaoh had ordered all male children to be thrown into the Nile River at birth (Ex. 1:22). While that order was in effect, a boy was born to a man of the tribe of Levi and his wife, also of that tribe (Ex. 2:1-2). The parents are later identified (Num. 26:59) as Amram an Yocheved (that "ch" is pronounced like a throat-clearing noise). Yocheved could not bear to throw her beautiful new son to his death, so she hid him away for three mont

Being Jewish at Christmas

Last March, I heard a DJ talking about March Madness, the annual insanity surrounding a college basketball tournament. She wasn't interested in it, but everyone in her office was obsessed with it. They had an office pool, a constant barrage of emails and parties to watch every game on TV. The DJ didn't want to be a part of it, but her co-workers pressured her to get involved. They tried to get her to participate in the pool, but she insisted that she didn't even know the names of the teams. Her co-workers assured her that it didn't matter who she bet on, it would be fun to play. They wouldn't take no for an answer. She wasn't trying to spoil their fun, but she wanted to be left alone. As I heard her talk about her frustration, I thought, "Now you know how it feels to be Jewish at Christmas." Think of something that you're not interested in but that everybody else seems to be talking about. Maybe it's a sporting event: March Madness, the Superbo

Afterthoughts about the Blessing of the Sun

I know it's a bit after the fact, and it won't really be relevant again for another 28 years, but this recently came up in a newsletter I received, and I simply had to say something about it. The Blessing of the Sun (Birkat Hachamah) is a blessing recited once every 28 years, commemorating the work of Creation, and specifically the creation of the sun. It was observed this year, 5769, on the morning of April 8, 2009. Now, many have noticed that the year number 5769 is not evenly divisible by 28. Dividing 5769 by 28 leaves a remainder of 1. One explanation that has been offered for the discrepancy, which appears to be a traditional explanation, says: The Sages have already explained to us that during the year of the Flood, the natural order of the world was suspended. That may be so, but it has absolutely nothing to do with why the division leaves a remainder of one. A better explanation is simple mathematics, and should be familiar to anyone who remembers the whole