Chanukah, the inevitable Robin to Christmas’ Batman. As Christmas rolls around, it often overshadows non-widely celebrated holidays, like Chanukah. What makes matters worse is that this year, Chanukah starts right after Christmas! Because Christmas will outshine Chanukah for the umpteenth year in a row, it’s time to highlight the key differences in the holidays that perpetuate this nonsense.

A notable difference between Christmas and Chanukah is that the latter  lasts for eight crazy nights. This means that Christmas day stands out more than any single night of Chanukah. Another issue that doesn’t do Chanukah any favors is that the holiday falls on different days every year, which can be confusing. If Chanukah had a date as iconic as December 25th, then maybe it would get more attention.

One thing Christmas will always have over Chanukah is, of course, Santa Claus. Despite my parents’ insistence when I was younger that something called the “Chanukah Fairy” existed, Chanukah has no character as iconic as Santa. With countless classic Christmas movies and songs referencing him, western media has ensured that even the most religious non-Christian kids will know the importance of Santa. This leads me into my next point, which is that Christmas completely dominates popular media during the holiday season. Come December, classic Christmas movies like Elf and Home Alone and artists like Mariah Carey flood TV screens and the radio. The most famous on-screen Chanukah moment is probably when Adam Sandler sung “The Chanukah song”, which is great, but still.

All that being said, there are a lot of things that make Chanukah better than Christmas. Back to the whole eight nights thing: if Christmas is so good, why does it only last for one day? In my opinion, more is more, so eight days is always better than one.

One tradition Chanukah has that is a clear advantage over Christmas is dreidel. Dreidel is a fun game that involves spinning a special top with four Hebrew letters on it and taking gelt (chocolate coins) from other players if you land on the right letter. Christmas has few games tied to it as famous as dreidel. Plus, it involves gambling, which is a huge bonus  for me. 

While this may be controversial, traditional Chanukah foods are much better than Christmas’s. Gingerbread is okay, but Christmas ham? Who even likes ham that much? I’m not convinced most people even have ham for Christmas dinner. Chanukah foods are more iconic and delicious, especially gelt and latkes. Gelt’s iconic coin shape (which doesn’t encourage Jewish stereotypes at all) is awesome, and you can snack on them all day. Latkes, or potato pancakes, are also great, and are singular to Chanukah, unlike ham. 

All this being said, it’s about time for Chanukah to take the holiday season. Let’s see a classic Chanukah movie from Steven Speilberg, or a hit Chanukah song from Noah Kahan. Mainstream dreidel competitions can be held, and gelt and latkes can be better advertised. Chanukah is awesome and underrated, and it’s time for it to rise up and claim its place as the best wintertime holiday.