Press Release - Christmas and Chanukah Merger:
Continuing the current trend of large-scale mergers and acquisitions, it was announced today at a press conference that Christmas and Chanukah will merge. According to reliable industry sources, the deal has been in the works for about 1300 years, ever since the rise of the Muslim Empire.
While not all details were available at press time, it is believed that the overhead cost of having twelve days of Christmas and eight days of Chanukah was becoming prohibitive for both sides. By combining forces, reporters were told, the world will be able to enjoy consistently high quality service during the Fifteen Days of Christmukah, as the new holiday is being called.
Massive layoffs are expected, with lords a-leaping and maids a-milking being hardest hit. Under conditions of the agreement, the letters on the dreydl,currently in Hebrew, will be replaced by Latin, thus becoming unintelligible to a much wider audience. Also, instead of translating to "A great miracle happened there," the message on the dreydl will be the more generic: "Miraculous stuff happens."
In exchange, it is believed that Jews will be allowed to use Santa Claus and his vast merchandising resources for buying and delivering their gifts. One of the sticking points holding up the agreement for at least three hundred years was the question of whether Jewish children could leave milk and cookies for Santa even after having eaten meat for dinner. A breakthrough came last year, when Oreo cookies were finally declared to be Kosher. All sides appeared happy about this.
A spokesman for Christmas, Inc., declined to say whether a takeover of Kwanzaa might be in the works as well. He merely pointed out that, were it not for the independent existence of Kwanzaa, the merger between Christmas and Chanukah might invite antitrust scrutiny as an unfair cornering of the holiday market. Fortunately for all concerned, he said, Kwanzaa will help to maintain the competitive balance. He then closed the press conference by leading all present in a rousing rendition of "Oy, Come All Ye Faithful."