In a few days, two holidays will be celebrated as it will take place during the darkest time of the year. Darkest because it marks the beginning of the winter solstice which means it will relay only a few hours of sunlight for the whole year.
These holidays are Hannukah and Christmas Eve. Though this time both holidays will overlap each other as Christmas Eve will begin Hannukah. However, this is not the first time for them to overlap since it also happened in 1978 and the next time it will happen is on 2027.
These happen every 30 years according to TIME. It has been pointed out that while both occur on the same date in the lunar calendar, the festive Hannukah occurs on the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev, while for Christmas Eve, it happens on the 25th of December in the Gregorian calendar which is quite interesting and a coincidence.
The reason why Hannukah and Christmas overlapped is because of the time involved which has something to do with the calendar difference of the Jewish calendar also known as the lunar calendar and the Gregorian calendar which is used often by the general public. Both calendars are not accurate because it does not sum up to the exact time the Earth revolves around the sun, but the nearest evidence is that the Gregorian calendar does come very close that the difference can be fixed with a leap day.
According to Travel and Leisure, the Jewish calendar is 11 days shorter than the Gregorian Calendar. Another is that The Jewish year and the Gregorian year have their differences in average length. What this means is that two calendar cycles differ just 6 minutes off each other meaning that the Gregorian date of Hannukah will slowly migrate.
As for the migration of time, Hanukkah will slowly be seen fall on December and January rather than the normal November to December schedule. With this, the overlap between Christmas and Hanukkah will soon become not just a coincidence but likely be very common as the years go by. For more of the latest news and updates stay tuned to Travelers Today.
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