For some interfaith families, a special holiday is when Hanukkah and Christmas overlap

“My parents thought it was unfair not to celebrate Christmas as a Jew, so we always had a Christmas tree with 8,000 dreidels on it,” she said.

Her husband, John Nolan, said he was raised Catholic but no longer practices the religion. They are raising their two children in the Jewish faith and enrolling them in Hebrew school, they said.

“It’s nice that they feel part of both cultures,” Nolan said.

The Christmas-Hanukkah mix, often called “Chrismukkah,” was celebrated Saturday at Mamaleh’s Kibitz Corner in Cambridge, a Jewish restaurant, test kitchen and event space owned by the group behind Mamaleh’s Delicatessens in Kendall Square, Brookline and downtown Boston.

Co-owner and pastry chef Rachel Sundet welcomed them as they stepped in from the cold, shedding their coats and scarves to reveal holiday sweaters underneath. Sundet had a sweater adorned with snowflakes that read, “My latkes bring all the boys to the farm.”

Sundet said she is Jewish and her husband, Tyler Sundet, who is the company’s chef, was raised Lutheran, and they both celebrate the holidays every year.

“Having an opportunity to do something that bridges both traditions is really fun and exciting,” she said. “Especially with the holidays really ramping up this year, it just felt like a good opportunity to throw a fun party that’s a little different and inclusive for everyone.”

Although the Sundet family celebrates both holidays, they probably don’t open presents on Christmas morning. Rachel Sundet said Mamaleh’s is open that day so they will be at work, but they will be home to light their Menorah in the evening and enjoy some Hanukkah food.

For Nolan and Funkenstein, they plan to spend the day at home and open presents in the morning before celebrating Hanukkah at night.

Hanukkah is a relatively minor Jewish holiday commemorating the recapture and rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in the second century BC. Christians consider Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Jesus, one of the two most important holidays in the calendar, along with Easter.

Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, said Hanukkah began to gain a presence in American culture as more Jews migrated to the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries.

“By the midpoint of the 20th century, the broader American culture begins to notice that Hanukkah exists and begins to elevate it somewhat in the popular consciousness alongside Christmas, although not as significant of a holiday in Judaism as ( Christmas) ) is in Christianity,” he said in an interview on Saturday.

Joslyn-Siemiatkoski said many observant Jews are wary of treating the two holidays as equal.

“The story of Hanukkah is really about Jewish survival and self–determination against a culture that tries to assimilate it,” he said. “It’s a real tension within ‘Chrismukkah’ itself, which can have a bit of an assimilationist edge to it.”

Joslyn-Siemiatkosk said a “Chrismukkah” party, like the one hosted by Mamaleh’s, aims to be a “gesture toward pluralism and emphasize that value in American culture.”

“Religious diversity is just a given in the United States, and especially in a place like the Northeast, where you have a high density of Jewish communities sitting alongside the majority–Christian culture, you just tend to have families that are mixed and tight friendship networks that cross over between Christians and Jews,” he said. “So I think what a ‘Chrismukkah’ kind of party is trying to do, at best, is recognize and validate each other, even if the claim isn’t being made that these are the same thing.”

Hanukkah begins on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev, a date that occurs between late November and late December on the Gregorian calendar. The Jewish calendar is based on the cycles of the moon and is out of sync with the Gregorian calendar, which puts Christmas on December 25.

The last time Hanukkah began on Christmas Eve was in 2016, and the last time the first night fell on Christmas Day, as it will this year, was in 2005. The term “Chrismukkah” gained wider popularity in 2003, when the character Seth Cohen in the TV drama “The OC” from 2003-2007 embraced the fusion holiday as a tribute to his Jewish father and Protestant mother.

A 2021 report by the Pew Research Center found that about 63 percent of the American population self-identifies as Christian. Jews, meanwhile, account for about 2.4 percent of the population, according to a 2020 survey by Pew. The 2020 survey also found that about 42 percent of married Jews said they have a non-Jewish spouse.

At Mamaleh’s Kibitz Corner, holiday music played overhead as several families entered the event space, surrounded by Christmas and Hanukkah decor. Tinsel in the traditional Christmas colors of red and green wrapped around support beams, while others had blue and white tinsel representing the colors of Hanukkah. A string of lights adorned with the Star of David hung from the ceiling.

At a table at the back of the room, children decorated Christmas cookies and made decorations. While the children were at work, their parents chatted nearby while eating latkes, mini sufganiyot, cows in a blanket and rugelach.

Jack, the 5-year-old son of Nolan and Funkenstein, placed red stars and frosting on a cookie shaped like a dreidel. He said he likes to celebrate both holidays because his family gets together and they open presents.

“It’s basically an eight day Christmas,” Jack said.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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Nick Stoico can be contacted at [email protected].