Hanukkah is a Jewish festival commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE.
A dreidel, also dreidle or dreidl, is a four-sided spinning top, played during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The dreidel is a Jewish variant on the teetotum, a gambling toy found in Europe and Latin America.
Hanukkah Harry is a fictional character on Saturday Night Live played by Jon Lovitz.
Chrismukkah is a pop-culture portmanteau neologism referring to the merging of the holidays of Christianity's Christmas and Judaism's Hanukkah. It first arose in the German-speaking countries within middle-class Jews of the 19th century. After World War II, Chrismukkah became particularly popular in the United States, but is also celebrated in other countries.
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a 1971 American independent blaxploitation action thriller film written, co-produced, scored, edited, directed by, and starring Melvin Van Peebles. His son Mario Van Peebles also appears in a small role, playing the title character as a young boy. The film tells the picaresque story of a poor black man fleeing from the white police authorities.
In Search of Santa is a 2004 animated Christmas adventure film starring Hilary Duff and her older sister Haylie Duff in their first voice roles. It was directed by William R. Kowalchuk, the production of the film began in 1998 as it was originally to be entirely made in hand-drawn traditional animation and have planned to be released in 1999, but then somehow decided to, not only it was switched from hand-drawn to fully CGI, but to be pushed further to be released on August 25, 2004, in Australia and on November 23, 2004, in the United States. The movie was animated using Alias Maya 3D software.
Motion pictures featuring Santa Claus constitute their own subgenre of the Christmas film genre. Early films of Santa revolve around similar simple plots of Santa's Christmas Eve visit to children. In 1897, in a short film called Santa Claus Filling Stockings, Santa Claus is simply filling stockings from his pack of toys. Another film called Santa Claus and the Children was made in 1898. A year later, a film directed by George Albert Smith titled Santa Claus was created. In this picture, Santa Claus enters the room from the fireplace and proceeds to trim the tree. He then fills the stockings that were previously hung on the mantle by the children. After walking backward and surveying his work, he suddenly darts at the fireplace and disappears up the chimney.
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town is a 1970 American stop-motion Christmas television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions in New York, New York. The film is narrated by Fred Astaire and stars the voices of Mickey Rooney, Keenan Wynn, Robie Lester, Joan Gardner, and Paul Frees, as well as an assistant song performance by the Westminster Children's Choir. The film tells the story of how Santa Claus and several Claus-related Christmas traditions came to be. It is based on the hit Christmas song, "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town", which was written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie for Leo Feist, Inc. and introduced on radio by Eddie Cantor in 1934; and the story of Saint Nicholas.
Hanukkah music contains several songs associated with the festival of Hanukkah.
Hanukkah gelt, also known as gelt, is money given as presents during the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. It is typically given to children and sometimes teachers, often in conjunction with the game of Dreidel. In the 20th century, candy manufacturers started selling Hanukkah-themed chocolate coins wrapped in gold or silver foil, as a substitute or supplement to real money gifts.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie is a 1998 American Christmas animated adventure musical film about the character of the same name, who first appeared in a 1939 story by Robert L. May. The film was the first theatrical feature from GoodTimes Entertainment, long known as a home video company. It stars Kathleen Barr as the voice of the titular Rudolph, and also features celebrity talents including John Goodman, Eric Idle, Whoopi Goldberg, Debbie Reynolds, Richard Simmons and Bob Newhart. The film disappointed at the box-office, recouping only $113,484 of its $10 million budget from its theatrical release.
The animated television series Rugrats has been noted for its portrayal of Judaism, a dynamic rarely represented in American animated programming during the series' broadcast run (1991–2004). Six episodes of the series are devoted to Jewish holidays and to explaining their history, and the Pickles family is shown to be part-Jewish.
Christmas Comes to Pac-Land is a 1982 American animated Christmas television special of the Saturday morning animated series Pac-Man based on the video game, produced by Hanna-Barbera. It premiered in prime time on ABC on December 16, 1982. The film was ranked #38 in the Nielsen Ratings published the next week.
Saving Santa is a 2013 animated comedy film created and written by Tony Nottage and directed by Leon Joosen, produced by Tony Nottage, Terry Stone, and Nick Simunek. The film was released direct-to-video.
Thanksgivukkah is a holiday name portmanteau neologism given to the convergence of the American holiday of Thanksgiving and the first day of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah on Thursday, November 28, 2013. It was the result of a rare coincidence between the lunisolar Hebrew calendar and the Gregorian calendar. Because the calendars are not calculated the same way, Hanukkah appears from year to year on different dates on the Gregorian calendar, ranging from late November to early January.
Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas is a 2014 American stop-motion animated Christmas musical television special produced by Warner Bros. Animation, directed by Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh and written by Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Bob Martin and Thomas Meehan. It is based on the 2003 film Elf and the Broadway theatre musical Elf: The Musical. While Ed Asner reprises his role of Santa Claus from the film, the rest of the cast consists of Jim Parsons, Mark Hamill, Kate Micucci, Max Charles, and Rachael MacFarlane. The special premiered on December 16, 2014, on NBC.
Santa Claus and the Magic Drum is a 51 minute long Finnish-Hungarian animation released in 1996. The story is based on a 1995 children's book of the same name by Mauri Kunnas. The film has been recorded in Finnish, English (British) and Swedish. It was made for TV broadcasting and was first shown on Christmas Eve 1996, and has been broadcast on YLE TV2 nearly every Christmas Eve since. Santa Claus and the Magic Drum has been sold to over 40 countries.
Jonathan Kesselman is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer, who first gained notice as the writer and director of The Hebrew Hammer (2003).
A Hanukkah film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on the celebration of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Films in this style may incorporate the religious aspects of Hanukkah, such as lighting the menorah or the story of the Maccabees, along with cultural aspects of Hanukkah, such as spinning dreidels, or eating traditional foods such as latkes, sufganiyot, or gelt.
Throughout the history of Christianity, Jewish peoples have been historically religious minorities in countries that were majority or even officially Christian. Over time, a unique relationship evolved between the Jews and the major Christian holiday of Christmas, including the creation of separate traditions and the intersection of Hanukkah and Christmas, among other convergences. Some practices perpetuate out of a feeling of otherness, while others are merely lighthearted activities that are accessible when shops are closed around Christmastime.
