December is the time of the year when all of the stores get ready for Christmas and leave Hanukkah in the dust. As a Jew, I have lived my whole life feeling left out during the holiday season. Yes, you see a menorah here and there, but everything revolves around the Christmas tree and Santa Claus. Since 1931, the Santa hype has been on full force when Coca Cola markedly used the fictional character in order to promote sales and to serve as the symbol for Christmas.

Santa, children’s fictional fantasy, flies around on his sleigh, with his 12 reindeer and helpful elves to deliver toys to the well-behaved kids. In the Jewish religion, we don’t have any of those fun characters to celebrate. Instead, we just have a menorah with candles that we light one each night, not exactly as exciting as a magical man flying through the air. Jewish children usually receive gifts on Hanukkah, so they don’t feel left out since the majority of children around the world receive gifts at this time of year.

Still, growing up, I have always wanted to celebrate Christmas. It would be so much fun to get the opportunity to decorate the Christmas tree with all the special ornaments, and get to wake up on Christmas morning and see all the presents under the tree, and find the cookies and milk you left out the night before had been eaten. Instead of having all these fun Christmas traditions, I stand around the kitchen table with my parents and little brother and I read the Hanukkah blessings in Hebrew and English, before lighting the candles. And then we have to wait till our whole family is ready so we can open our presents, one each night, it’s hard to hit pause, when all the other gifts are waiting. Playing dreidel isn’t that big in my family, but it is to many Jewish households, spinning the dreidels and eating potato latkes is a great way to celebrate the lasting of the oil for those eight days, although, let’s be honest, a top... is just a top.

The reason that Christmas is so big during the holiday season is because of commercialization. Any non-Christian is told and reminded, since childhood, that Santa is not real... And all adults know this. But the magic of these stories are so compelling that we all want to buy into what they’re selling, and are therefore willing to suspend our disbelief enough to envision Santa and his sleigh gliding through the sky.