Press Release - Christmas and Chanukah Merger: Continuing the current trend of large-scale mergers and acquisitions,

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."