Have a good Christmukkah

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah, a Jewish holiday that is not Christmas. If you don't know what it commemorates wiki it, or you can read about it in the first book of Maccabaeus which is part of the Catholic Bible (recognized as historical but not as canonical by the Jews or the Protestants, don't ask me why.) Ironically enough, the only other place in Scripture Chanukah is mentioned is in the Gospel of John, Chapter 10 verse 22.

It is of course almost two weeks until the traditional Western observance of Christmas. There are Eastern Orthodox churches that celebrate the holiday on two other later dates, but once again if you're curious about that wiki it.

I know there is a lot of controversy and buzz in the Pro-Israel Christian/Messianic Jewish community over whether or not we should celebrate Christmas or Chanukah or neither or both, since there is nothing specific in the Bible to tell us whether Jesus celebrated Chanukah and a lot of people are uncomfortable with Gentiles celebrating this holiday.

Beyond question, there is a lot of pagan garbage in Christmas. The tree comes from a druid tradition, Santa Claus is an amalgamation of several pagan ideas (my personal favorite being how he has a red suit because in 1930, the Coca Cola Company ran the first ever color add in the New York Times, giving Santa a red suit to match the color on the company logo, even though Santa had never had a specifically red suit before that) and even Gi