We're going with Hannukmas.

Ah the 'blended' family. What does that mean exactly? A blend of what? I guess it can be anything people normally would prefer to keep in a convenient box: race, religion, birth / adoption / step relatives/nationality. (What am I now, Guadamerican?) To me, blood does not a family make. I mean, sure, literally it does, but it's not the neccessary ingredient for a complete and happy family. The Pirate and Les Monstres had to rework their definition of family when the family changed, and then once again when I came into the picture after The Pirate kidnapped me and forced me to live this difficult life on this beautiful island.

In this family of ours, we aren't very pious. Neither one of us, me or The Pirate, was very pious coming into this, but we do each have some cultural habits that we enjoy. For me, the Christmas Tree is new, and in fact celebrating Christmas with family at all is new. For The Pirate and Les Monstres, Hanukkah is entirely foreign. And so we arrive at the first year of co-holiday celebration, and we've opted to dub it lovingly 'Hanukmas'. Why not Christmakkah? Well because: The Pirate cares not about the birth of Christ. It holds no significance for him or his family. Therefor, we left that part of the word out. It's more 'us'. Plus it involves the word 'mas' by accident which means 'more' in Spanish, and somehow that's significant - we've both got mas of lots these days: mas holidays, mas kids (for me), and in general mas happiness.

I do have to watch myself carefully since I tend to forget that Les Monstres believe in Pere Noel, or Santa Claus. They're under eight years old, so it's par for the course. Growing up in a Jewish home, well, what can I say - I just never thought that guy was real. We just didn't grow up with the stories in the same way as the Christmas kids. I have pretty clear memories of hearing the other kids at school around Christmas talking about Santa, and thinking I knew something they didn't know, and wondering when they would figure it out. It's not meant to be offensive, it's simply my reality.

I slipped once in front of Les Monstres by saying something like, "Oh yeah, who gave you that Playmobil truck last year, dad or was it grandma?" I was met with an incredulous look from The Pirate followed by a slowly spoken, "You mean Pere Noel, riiiiiiiiggghhhhtttt?" Petit Monstre gazed at my facial expression as it went from 'what the ...?' to 'ooooh riiiiiightt', to 'crap, sorry dude'. In the words of Homer Simpson, D'oh!!!!!
Oooooops. My bad. It's difficult to remember something imaginary that you didn't know before, but I'm working on it.

....
p.s. I don't know who that lady is up there in the picture, but it was the best real life sample of Hannukah and Christmas together I could find. Related story and credits here.