Jews have played a cru­cial role in pop­u­lar­iz­ing Christ­mas. They have enhanced the nation­al obser­vance of Christ­mas by com­pos­ing many of the Christ­mas songs beloved by all Amer­i­cans. More sec­u­lar than reli­gious, these songs, among them Irv­ing Berlin’s ​“White Christ­mas,” Wal­ter Rollins and Steve Fletcher’s ​“Frosty the Snow­man,” and, most recent­ly, Paul Simon’s ​“Get­ting Ready for Christ­mas Day,” remind cel­e­brants that Christ­mas belongs to all Amer­i­cans who share in the spir­it of patri­o­tism, gen­eros­i­ty, peace, and good will. Iron­i­cal­ly, oth­er Jews in the Unit­ed States have devel­oped strate­gies to down­play the sig­nif­i­cance of Christ­mas by com­pos­ing poems and songs — in print, per­for­mance, and the media — that sat­i­rize and neu­tral­ize the reli­gious nature of the hol­i­day. Humor­ous songs and comedic per­for­mances offer out­lets for the dis­en­fran­chised to vent dis­ap­point­ment over society’s fix­a­tion with the crass com­mer­cial­iza­tion of Christmas.

Har­bor­ing an appre­ci­a­tion for music, I lis­tened to many Hanukkah record albums and com­pact discs that intro­duced new songs to the pub­lic. This led to my dis­cov­er­ing musi­cal par­o­dies of Christ­mas and Hanukkah that were record­ed on spe­cial­ty labels and even­tu­al­ly recre­at­ed on CDs, DVDs, and YouTube. 

Check out the following:

• Kosher Christ­mas Car­ols (2005)
• ‘Twas the Night Before Hanukkah – The Musi­cal Bat­tle Between Christ­mas and the Fes­ti­val of Lights (Idel­sohn Society)
• Bran­don Walk­er – ​“Chi­nese Food on Christ­mas” 
• “Jew­mon­gous” (Sean Altman)
• “Christ­mas for the Jews Song” (Sat­ur­day Night Live)