Growing up as Americans, we always hear about a holiday that occurs in December but nobody seems to celebrate.  At least nobody I know does….

This is my review of Smaltz (He-brew) Golden Jelly Donut Hanukkah Beer:

 

This holiday is known as Boxing Day Kwanzaa, the first night of which is to be celebrated today.  It is a holiday many were exposed to by a robot on Futurama who was doomed to give away a book called, “What the Hell is Kwanzaa?” every year for 1000 years.

Dooooomed.

So how did this come about?  It all began in 1965 in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA.  A person named Marquette Frye was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol by a police officer named Lee Minikus.  For context:  Watts was the type of neighborhood that had schools that were technically integrated but in 1965 that meant it was 99% black.

“Sorry Robot Satan, I gotta hand these out.”

Naturally, hilarity ensued.

What does this have to do with a holiday people make fun of on carton sitcoms?

In 1966 (Doctor) Maulana Karenga, a professor at Cal State University, Long Beach, and author of the book: Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture started Kwanzaa in 1966 as a way to bring African Americas together following the 1965 Watts Riots.  It is based on seven principles:

Umoja (unity): “To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.”

Kujichagulia (self-determination): “To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.”

Ujima (collective work and responsibility): “To build and maintain our community together and make our brother’s and sister’s problems our problems and to solve them together.”

Ujamaa (cooperative economics): “To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.”

Nia (purpose): “To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.”

Kuumba (creativity): “To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.”

Imani (faith): “To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.”

More information is at the link above.  All of this may sound all too much like an idealistic crossover episode between BET and The Hallmark Channel.  To that I remind you of the Western Front in 1914 and for the record, Watts today is significantly more level headed. Perhaps Karenga’s effort wasn’t in vain.  While it is a mostly secular holiday, there are elements of spiritual origins to the rituals involved and many who celebrate it will celebrate other winter solstice holidays.

Do people really celebrate a made up holiday?  Yes, but not any more made up than Christmas.  After all its a Pagan holiday early Christians adopted for easy conversion, among other reasons.  It is easily proven because actual Christians say this.  Christmas simply has a few century’s head start.

This is actually an interesting beer.  I believe its an amber ale but also has notes of bitter, dark fruit.  Is it jelly donut sweet?  Thankfully, no.  It paired really well with the Christmas cookies I was eating at the time.  Yes I did that for the lulz. Happy Kwanzaa, everyone! Smaltz (He-brew) Golden Jelly Donut Hanukkah Beer: 3.2/5