It’s beginning to look a lot like Xmas

Hanukkah may play second fiddle to Christmas in America, but there is plenty to make Jews jolly this time of year. Television talk show hosts are trotting out silly segments and consumer websites are hawking gaudy merchandise aimed at generating some yiddishe cheer.

The Ellen Show host Ellen DeGeneres played an amusing “Saint Nick or Rabbi Pic” game last week. She showed close-up photos of men’s beards, and challenged the audience to guess whether they belonged to Santa Claus or an ultra-Orthodox rabbi.

(It’s not always easy to tell the difference, just as the people who first came up with the idea of beard comparisons knew. Only they called it “Hasid or Hipster.”)

We can always count on Ellen for a chuckle (or a ho, ho, ho!), but apparently not for correct information about Jewish holidays. In introducing the segment, she said that Hanukkah and Christmas overlap this year. In fact, the eight-day long Jewish holiday, which begins Tuesday evening, ends the day before Christmas this year.

However, once you are squared away with the correct dates for Hanukkah, you can enjoy all the holiday kitsch. It’s not enough nowadays to just gather round the table to light grandma’s heirloom Menorah.

No my friends, those days are gone. Now you’re not doing it right unless you make the holiday more kid-friendly by lighting a MenorasaurusRex — let alone more Christmas-friendly by lighting a Menorah Tree. And you of course place it next to the fireplace, from which your Hanukkah stocking hangs and on which your Maccabee on the Mantel sits.

And if six years ago you thought that this was cutting edge in all things dreidel:

…then it’s time for you to upgrade to something more hardcore. Go out and get yourself a Dr. Dreidel spinning top.

Designed by Hannah Rothstein, it features images of super-rich rapper and music executive Dr. Dre on each side. His expression corresponds to the letter: For Gimel (take all) he’s happy; for Hay (take half) he’s mildly smug; for Nun (nothing happens) he’s bored and deadpan; and for Shin (put one in) he has a gun to his head.

True, it’s disappointing to lose your chocolate gelt, but Dr. Dre is clearly overreacting. Right?