Diana Wichtel on the merging of festive traditions

The lighted candles on a menorah for the jewish holiday Hanukkah. Photo / Getty Images

Three surnames. His-hers-and-ours children, two called Ben. We were never a very traditional family. But, like most families, we seem to find traditions that suit us, or the traditions find us. There's the obligatory game of Cranium at beach gatherings, the ritual bellowing of Bohemian Rhapsody at the witching hour at family parties.

Now Christmas is upon us, with its non-negotiables: some lights on the house, inflatable Santa in the tī kōuka/cabbage tree, the full turkey and figgy pudding catastrophe. Stockings on the mantelpiece, one as old and tattered as I am.

Last year a new tradition tracked me down, trailing traces of a fractured heritage. I found myself ordering in a hanukkiah, the Hanukkah menorah that is hard to come by here and adding the lighting of candles and the saying of blessings over eight nights to our already rather random seasonal repertoire. My family looked at me as if I'd gone mad. When it comes to religion, we range from agnostic – you don't know what you don't know in this crazy cosmos, right? – to atheism of a "Christopher Hitchens? Hold my beer" variety.

So, somehow, we now celebrate what has come to be called Chrismukkah. The merging of Christmas/Hannukah had a moment in 19th century Germany. It was popularised in the early 2000s by Seth Cohen (father Jewish, mother not) on US teen drama The OC. "Eight days of presents followed by one day of many presents!"

No doubt writing a memoir in search of my Polish Jewish father, who disappeared from our lives when I was 13, opened that door. He was implacably secular but talked of growing up in a religious family. He would have lit the candles, said the blessings. Then, on a quest to explore my partner's Christian/Muslim/Jewish roots going back to the 1800s in Israel, we found ourselves in a hostel in Tel Aviv on the final night of Hanukkah. A happy mix of religions and ethnicities gathered in the bar for the lighting of the last candle by one of the youngest guests. The hanukkiah was made out of beer bottles. It was my kind of ceremony.

It has never been a great time to be Jewish. Most Jewish events I go to have a lot of security. I never wear my stylised Star of David necklace when I travel. Anti-Semitism is rising but racism against Jews isn't always viewed as racism. Jews are too capitalist, too communist, not white enough, too white ... In 2010 there were around 14 million Jews, 0.2 per cent of the world's population. Apparently, they manage to run everything. Some days I look at social media and despair.

For me, lighting the candles is a hard no to all that. And it's fun. There's merchandise: the yamaclaus, a Santa-esque yarmulke; and terrible seasonal knitwear to rival the antlered abomination worn by Colin Firth in Bridget Jones's Diary. As the Chrismukkah carol goes, Oy to the World.

Rituals are also a way to connect to things lost. I once interviewed writer Sasha Sagan, daughter of astronomer Carl Sagan. Like her Jewish dad, she's not religious. She is big on secular traditions. For her, lighting the candles is about mirroring the actions of ancestors whose DNA she carries but who she never met.

So I'll make the same gestures, say the same words as the great-grandmother, grandmother, uncles, aunts, cousins I never got a chance to know; all with a death date listed, when it's listed at all, as 1942, a few years before I was born. We'll offer some of their traditions to new generations. Hanukkah celebrates a miraculous act of resistance. My father went on to make our family after jumping from a train on its way to an extermination camp. That's miracle enough for me.

This year these connections, the continuity, seem more important than ever. So, whatever your tradition, Meri Kirihimete, Merry Christmas, Hanukkah Sameach, Happy Holidays. All the best for a new year.