Thanksgivukkah?

I’ve never tried cranberry sauce on a Hanukkah latke. But it looks like this is my year. For the first and only time in our lifetimes, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah are hitting calendars at exactly the same time. How in the world could two beloved holidays merge into one? Olga Lara, a graduate student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, explains: “The earliest possible day Hanukkah can ever occur is November 28, and the latest possible day Thanksgiving can ever occur is November 28. This year all the mathematical stars have aligned in perfect intersection. If you’re a math geek, you could spend hours figuring it out.”

There’s a complicated formula that got us to this intersection, having to do with the Jewish lunar calendar and the American Gregorian calendar and the fact that Passover must occur in the spring, coinciding with Good Friday, and therefore every 11 years the Jewish calendar adds a month, called Adar 2, to ensure that Passover will fall in the spring. Suffice to say, this year Hanukkah falls on Thanksgiving.

Personally, I was feeling a bit disappointed. I love displaying the years of turkey decorations my children have brought home from school. But I also love hanging their Hanukkah paper chains and dreidels. I love turkey and dressing. But I also love latkes and chocolate Hanukkah gelt. In what alternate universe do these happiest of treasures fit together? And where does that put Thanksgiving football?

“I feel cheated for you,” my friend Kristen Berger (who happens to be Catholic) told me. Right?

“Cheated? No. Happy? Yes,” says Allan Fradkin, father of a law student in Austin and a college student in Connecticut. The Hanukkah-Thanksgiving concurrence “allows those families with kids away at college and out-of-towners who might be visiting for Thanksgiving to celebrate Hanukkah together as well,” he says.

Bonnie Winograd’s family is ahead of the curve. Years ago, when some cousins went off to college, they created a Hanukkah tradition of celebrating the holiday during Thanksgiving weekend. “We celebrate on Sunday morning, usually at noon,” she says. “Given that each college schedule is different, it’s really the only time that we have when everyone is in town and available.” Now that her own daughter is in college in New York, Bonnie says she’s “thrilled to be able to celebrate with Nicole when it’s actually Hanukkah.”

Ali Katz has young boys at home, but she’s taking the confluence of the two holidays in stride. “We’ll have Thanksgiving lunch and Hanukkah dinner,” she says. That means traditional turkey and dressing, followed by latkes (think fried hash-brown pancakes) and the chocolate coins called gelt. The food coma taken to new heights.

There are those who have taken the concept a tad farther. A New York fourth grader is selling “Menurkeys,” as in menorah-turkeys, a mash-up of the traditional Hanukkah 8-light candelabra and a decorative turkey. One website touts his invention with the tag, “Thanksgiving and Hanukkah overlap this year; accessorize accordingly.”

The combo-holiday name Thanksgivukkah has its own Facebook page and Twitter account. And a story in the Wall Street Journal predicts that because Hanukkah shopping will take flight before Thanksgiving, a possible second Black Friday is possible. The same article warns retailers of “shopping season fatigue” by Christmas if they push the holiday shopping season too early.

But Olga, the seminary student, says there’s a happy significance to be found in this rare convergence of holidays. “Thanksgiving and Hanukkah both celebrate freedom – the Pilgrims’ freedom in their new land and the Jews’ freedom to rebuild a destroyed temple,” Olga says. “They both celebrate family and home. And, most importantly, they both celebrate the notion of giving thanks. Hanukkah celebrates how grateful we are to have the right to worship as we please, and Thanksgiving celebrates how grateful we are for our freedoms and liberties. This is a wonderful opportunity to bring together all those aspects of both holidays.”

For me, things hit home – and I lightened up – when my sister, who comes to town with her family from Dallas for Thanksgiving, said, “I’m happy because we’ll already be in Houston and I won’t feel like we’re missing something or need to travel again.”

So this year we’ll do a little of everything. Thanksgiving leftovers, a Rice-Tulane football game and a Hanukkah latke party. All in one day.