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...)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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....

Cindy, I'm sorry if we were talking past each other to our mutual aggravation.

Mick Jagger and David Bowie are dancing on my TV - it's the best x-mas ever!