Well, apparently there was plenty of oil for a fire, only most of had been desecrated or contaminated or something - was no longer holy. So there was only a day supply of oil that was still sacred and whole bunch of contaminated oil. But somehow that one days worth of holy oil, in the same building as a plentiful supply of not-so-holy oil managed to keep burning for eight days. Obviously a miracle occurred - because no other possible explanation springs to mind.

That was always my understanding, but Jessica seems to be saying there was a retcon in order to have sukkot late (a version I am completely unfamiliar with).

It's also b.s., because you're taking a result and using it to explain the cause. One of the (many) factors divorcing this particular holiday from its origins in our culture is how it's talked about and taught.

The non-religious Christmas customs have been practiced and dominant in this culture long before we went and got all eccumenical about thirty years ago. Trees? Cookies? Santa? Holly? Egg Nog? Huge. Heck, they're (except for Santa) dominant IN CHURCHES. About the only public religiosity I can think of is manger scenes.

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The reason it is a kids holiday is cause the when the Torah was about to be destroyed, the Maccabees buried it and had the kids play games above it. The Syrians did not think of searching for the Torah under the feet of the children. So the torah survived, and kids get money and sweets and things to play with in celebration of their having saved the Torah.

I didn't know this part. I love it!

Oh and Cindy - fine you can point to one or two examples where Christianity gets treated unfairly. But overall a certain subset of Christians spends a hell of a lot of time bullying non-Christians. I actually think the religion on public property should either be non-existent or multi-cultural. Open to any religion who wants to put on a display or presentation or open to none. In this case it seems to be open to Judiasim and no-one else. I know a loca city council that did that too - put up a menorah but no Christmas tree. But as was the case at the airport (which is a hell of a lot bigger venue than a school or a small-town city hall) most case like that are still Christian. Some of the stuff a certain brand of Christian has pulled for a long time seems to have spread. I'm against it in all cases. But there is still one hell of a lot more happening with Christians (not all Christians but some) pushing other people around. The Christian bullying is not a result of the tiny non-Christian minority pushing them around.

I don't know if you got to read the whole conversation or not, but I agree with all of this, Gar.

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Oh, I don't dislike Hanukkah (festival of fried potatoes!), I just get cranky that it's treated in the mainstream American consciousness as The Big Important Jewish Holiday when...nsm. It's a very nice holiday, but it's not the Jewish equivalent of Christmas just because they're both (sometimes) in December.

I was always taught that the miracle of the oil was a retcon - a story that grew after the fact, and had very little to do with the holiday's actual origins. (As I suspect is true of most festival holidays - humans rarely need a miraculous excuse to party, but it sure does sound good to have a story to tell at next year's bash...)

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I don't get why you think I'm being hypocritical. Is it an objection to a secularized Christmas? That I make claim to my (pagan) tree, xmas lights, Christmas novelty songs etc. with no interest whatsoever in Jesus Christ as my personal savior?

What? I would apologize for coming off like that, except I don't even know what I said that could be interpreted that way. I think your reasoning is b.s. I don't think you're being hypocritical, and since when did any of our personal observances come into this?

I don't like twisty arguments, so I'll just bow out.

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Narrator, [Monk casting spoiler for tonight's episode] Sarah Brown (Real!Carly Manning) is going to be on Monk, tonight. It's on USA at 9:00pm/8 Eastern. I've never watched it, but I might tune in, to see that performer.

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History is written by the winners of course. Maybe they should've asked the kids to write papers on Someone Else's Holiday Stuff, for diversity's sake. And to avoid exoticizing Chanukah too much.

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Unless they're personal gifts other than company gifts.

They weren't company gifts, so I'm guessing personal. I've received company gifts before, but never gifts from my supervisors. I didn't know! Now I feel like a horrible person for not having gifts for them!

Did you get them for being a great person or a great employee?

Ha! Um. I guess they like me since they want to hire me, but I don't particularly think I deserve gifts for my performance on this job.

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So my mother is going CRAZEE with the stockings. She's making extra.

And now I need to call my brother because he just warned us to be careful opening a box due soon. Heh.

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but what they do on Christmas is totally divorced from its origins

I agree with this. We rarely hear anything about the Pagan origins of our Christmas traditions. It's like a war on Juleltid.

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Characterization of the Hoho2 gene (pdf)

A genetic analysis of Santa....

In this paper we unequivocally identify and characterize the genetic determinant of the famous white beard of Santa Claus to be the ortholog of human KRT6B. The newly discovered gene is named Hoho2 for Human ortholog for hair ougmentation 2. The Santa gene Hoho2 is synthesized and codon optimized for codon expression. Successful heterologous protein expression is shown in three separate systems; E. coli, reindeer, and human. We further show that the bearded phenotype is tissue specific in mammalians, but not in prokaryotes. A Hoho2 specific RNAi knockout was constructed and shown to specifically disrupt the facial beard phenotype. Trans-complementation of the gene could be achieved using a synthetic RNAi resistant variant, indicating that the phenotype is truly a direct consequence of the Hoho2 gene and not due to indirect or off-target-effects on the phenotypic display.

A little over my head....

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