Though Hanukkah doesn't start until sundown of Dec. 25 this year, the day marks only the second time this century that the Jewish festival of lights and Christmas align.
As Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day, Jews celebrate Hanukkah -- the miracle of the oil in the Second Temple of Jerusalem 2,059 years ago, when consecrated oil was expected to make it through a single night but lasted instead for eight nights. The holiday represents the triumph of light over darkness and the restoration of Jewish religious freedom.
For Allison Hoffman and her family of four, the overlap of Hanukkah and Christmas has meant a jam-packed week of celebrations with family and friends.
Hoffman and her husband were both raised in interfaith families, with one Jewish and one Christian parent. So when it came time for the New Orleans area family to decide what traditions to raise their two children with the answer was clear: All of them.
Celebrating both holidays in the same week has meant some creative scheduling, Hoffman said, to make sure that her 10-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son can enjoy all of their favorite traditions of both: eating brisket, latkes and a Christmas ham, lighting the menorah, playing dreidel and poker, watching "Elf," opening gifts around the tree.
"We had to be very purposeful this year to make sure to carve out time so that all those traditions could be upheld," said Hoffman. "I think it just adds to the richness of the season that it's overlapping."
Catholic and Jewish traditions combine
Each night of Hanukkah, Jewish families around the world light a menorah, adding one candle, symbolizing the eight days the oil lasted. It's a time of family, tradition and hope -- including for the Winkler family of Baton Rouge.
Steven Winkler grew up as the only child in a Jewish family in Dalton, Georgia. He moved to Baton Rouge in 1984 to work at Baton Rouge General, where he met and eventually married Monica Nijoka, one of 16 children in a big Catholic family from the Baton Rouge area.
When Winkler accepted Nijoka's invitation to join her family for Thanksgiving all those years ago, she had omitted the detail regarding the size of her family.
"We were sitting in the kitchen. They had a long driveway. The first car came through -- that was her brother. Then another. You can imagine the number of cars that came in." Winkler said. "Finally, her dad said, 'You didn't tell him, did you?'"
Nijoka says no one has ever tried to convert her to Judaism, which turned out not to be necessary for the Winkler daughters to embrace their Jewish heritage.
In traditional Jewish law, Judaism is passed down through the mother. The Winklers learned that Nijoka's mother's mother was Jewish -- which meant that not only was Nijoka technically Jewish, so was her Catholic mother. The Winklers have three adult daughters who all grew up in a Jewish home.
Growing up, while their mom went to early Mass, the girls attended Shabbat services. They went to Hebrew school and Jewish Sunday school. They had Bat Mitzvahs.
"At the same time, Monica has maintained her beliefs and customs," Winkler said.
Though the family has never had a Christmas tree per say, they do have a Norfolk pine that serves as Nijoka's homage to Christmas.
"I don't want you to think it's easy. I see all the white sprinkly lights, but I made that commitment -- 38 years later, we still don't put up a big Christmas tree," Nijoka said. "The one thing everyone forgets about is it's not really about the gifts you receive, it's about giving to other people."
Even so, for Nijoka, the most important thing is that both religions believe that there is a higher being.
"I participate in the Catholic church, but I can participate in the synagogue also," she said. "We're all praying to the same God."
For Rabbi David Gerber, the holiday season is a time to join with communities of different faiths. His congregation, Gates of Prayer in Metairie, has for years joined with the Catholic church St. Clement of Rome just down the street for an annual interfaith Thanksgiving service.
This year the service was "so crowded we had to add extra seats," Gerber said. "Religion can be a reminder of how much we have in common and how sacred we all are."
Gerber says that the overlapping calendars of Christmas and Hanukkah this year are a unique opportunity to celebrate what's shared between the two religions.
"Christians really light up the world this time of year," said Gerber. "When the sun sets on Christmas, Hanukkah starts and we begin lighting the candles."