12/07/2023

Chrismukkah - The seventh door


You never stop learning.
I have never seen the TV show The O.C. and had therefore  never heard about Chrismukkah if any of you should wonder.
The first time I actually stumbled upon this word was on a site not TV-related, that of the Jewish Museum Berlin which had a temporary exhibition on the theme from October 2005 to Januar 2006 called "Weihnukka - Geschichten von Weihnachten und Chanukka".
As there still seems to be interest in the topic, they put up a page with the key content which is also available under the English name "Chrismukkah - Stories of Christmas and Hanukkah".
Obviously the concept of combining both holidays - and giving this a name - had been created by assimilated German Jews in the 19th century. Via another article on Hey Alma, I got to a blog post by Jim Wald in The Times of Israel which touches on the question of assimilation and the consequences for the Jewish community in Germany.
As you can imagine, the idea of "Weihnukka" disappeared when the Nazis took over.
And then it was re-introduced it thanks to a TV show? No. I found at least one article about it before the show even started.
Do you have a story to contribute, maybe from experiences of your own?

There you have it. I promised you a crafty advent calendar and sneak in another story, but I had warned you this could happen.
Let's get to the creative part now.
Today's piece had been in the planning and making long before I jumped into the rabbit hole of Chrismukkah. For months, the title of my draft read "Hanukkah!!! - The seventh door (Star of David???)". A Star of David seemed achievable, but my own ideas were boring, YouTube didn't give me anything I liked, and most Google results didn't convince me, either. I kept putting this one off until after my first folded peyote pieces. Then I remembered a tutorial by KrisDesignFSP on Etsy from my first search.
I didn't follow the tutorial exactly. As you can see, I used two different colors for the both sides, but no different "edge" color, and I made the star smaller, both in width as in length, because I wanted to give this to a friend, as a pendant, should she want that, or for use as
an ornament. It was also important for me to ask her if she thought this was okay to show here.
The blog post mentioned above also provides links to articles on other Chrismukkah related things, such as the Hanukkah bush, by the way. That I had also never heard of. I doubt my friend has a Hanukkah bush, though.

Of course my first attempt was too small. I couldn't twist the peyote, combine the triangle, AND zip it up.
My second attempt was slightly bigger, but while the zipping up was not a problem anymore, stitching the triangles together wasn't so easy. You may notice that the star is not completely regular, but my friend is a very sweet lady and likes it as it is, phew! I don't think I could have done a third one ... although it was close as der Dekan actually opened up the cardboard box to steal the star. I caught him just in time, the furry little thief! ;-)


My first try didn't go to waste, by the way. I turned it into a pair of earrings.

And now happy Hanukkah, my friends!

8 comments:

  1. Wow!!! You are Amazing 🥰

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  2. Oh, Cat, I totally love this! Such an intriguing piece. As for the concept of Chrismukkha, I haven’t heard of it - until now - but I totally love the idea. Anything that brings people together honoring each other’s traditions is wonderful.

    Michelle

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    1. Thank you, Michelle!
      I was glad I worked it out. The star in the tutorial is bigger and would make a beautiful ornament, I think. I don't know if you heard about the movement for Christians to put up menorahs this year as a sign against antisemitism?

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  3. Absolutely stunning! Barbra

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  4. This is so beautiful and special. Thank you for sharing the information about the Chrismukkha. I never heard of it before. Your Star of David is an amazing work of art! Never saw anything like it before. I applaud your unusual artistry!

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    1. Thank you very much, Irith!
      I have always given other holidays their spot in my advent calendar if they are during this time and have always asked the advice of the friend mentioned in the post to do Hanukkah justice.
      As linked in the post, I made the star after a tutorial and can't take credit for the design itself.

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