Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Eid ul-Adha, and Happy Kwanzaa

UPDATE: This was the last post of this blog. Army craziness got the better of me and left me with no time to write. This blog will remain up, but many pictures for the template are no longer being hosted where they were originally, nor will this blog be updated again. Thanks for reading. -Ben

Now that I've gotten all those politically correct seasonal greetings out of the way, it's time for an update.

Unfortunately due to a busy schedule and a broken PC my sea of blogging posts have mostly dried up. It's been over a month since I've posted, although earlier I retro-blogged some old posts that I had started but not finished.

Last week I was in Eilat on vacation and I hope to share some anecdotes about my tip in the next couple of days. For now though I'm going to keep this post simple and just share some holiday feelings I've had.

This year's holiday season had almost zero Christmas in it. Unlike past years, I didn't here the word Santa Clause at all while I was in Eilat. Even when I was watching Fox News, I only got a Happy Chanukah and a Happy holidays, no Merry Christmas. Really the only Christmas I saw or heard was the sale of some decorations in Jafa (where my base is) and the Christmas greetings my (Religious Jewish) friends and I seem to share every December 25th. Next year in New York my experience will no doubt be a much different one.

This holiday season I learned some interesting things. Among them, that not everyone celebrates Christmas on December 25- many Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas on it's Julian Calendar Date, January 7th (Check out who's listed first in the "Births" section).

Another holiday related thing I stumbled on is the following video:

I thought this video was quite inspirational. It is the PS22 Chorus singing Esa Einai (Psalm 121) to a Reb Shlomo Carlebach tune. The PS22 Chorus is made up of about 60 Staten Island public school 5th graders. I thought this video was a truly great display of multiculturalism and diversity. I believe Reb Shlomo would have been proud to see his work sung in this way. I wish my Hebrew was as good as their's when I was in 5th grade!

Oh, and check out 'Lil Eminem's mad Toprock skillz!

Happy Holidays!