This Thanksgiving, members of the "tribe" will experience a phenomenon that won't (thankfully -- pun intended) occur for the next 70,000 years.
On Thursday, November 28, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah collide.
This holiday-in-a-holiday has created a whirlwind of strange new pseudowords and souvenir items that mesh both occasions -- with tragicomical results.
For instance, there's the Menurky, a turkey-shaped menorah that turned a child's cutesy school arts-and-crafts project into a Kickstarter campaign that raised $48,345:
Not leaving behind an opportunity to make money from nothing, people have gotten busy selling T-shirts and posters and (of course) setting up a Facebook page.
Then there's food. Ever heard of the turbrisket or the triskit?
They're turkey-stuffed briskets or brisket-stuffed turkeys (depending on the internet recipe). By the way, we consulted with chef Danny Serfer of Blue Collar on this one, and he said the best way would be to make a turkey basted with brisket juice and then make pulled-brisket stuffing to go with it. A brisket inside a turkey would probably just dry out. Actually, he was kind of repulsed by the idea and just humored us.
And then there's the romantic comedy. Thanksgivukkah is the story of Avi Rosen, a nice Jewish boy who marries a shiksa. Everyone forgets to tell her parents he's a Jew (because there wouldn't be a movie without that plot line) and when the holidays roll around, panic ensues.
Watch for Penny Marshal as Avi's mother (who eats her meal in the garage), and Fred Willard as the father-in-law who's utterly confused about why his new son is wearing a yarmulke on his Pilgrim hat -- or why he's wearing a Pilgrim hat in the first place. And are those latkes or tiny turkey-cakes?
It's actually Funny or Die's hilarious spoof of the insanely stupid holiday meet-the-parents movies, made brilliant by a stellar cast. Watch this and take a chill pill during Thanksgivukkah.
After all, if we make it through Thursday, we won't ever have to worry about it again in our lifetime -- and we can go back to decorating the tree with blue and silver ornaments.
L'chaim and gobble gobble.
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