Hanukkah Bush

PARIS: One year, I asked my mother if we could get a Hanukkah bush. She made me watch Shoah the rest of the week.

A Hanukkah bush is a bush or tree (real or artificial) that some Jewish families in North America display in their homes for the duration of Hanukkah. It may, for all intents and purposes, be a Christmas tree with Jewish-themed ornaments.

It is a bone of contention between Jews as to whether it is a distinctly Jewish symbol, or whether it is simply a variation of a Christmas tree. Many rabbis discourage them. The phrase “Hanukkah bush” is not serious, and generally meant to be a tongue in cheek way to say that a Jewish family is following some pleasant secular Christmas traditions without celebrating Christmas itself.

The documentary film Shoah, previously discussed. Paris’ mother obviously takes a fairly hard line approach to Hanukkah bushes.

Eggnog

PARIS: Everything was red and silver and there was eggnog … It’s disgusting … But disgusting in a really great way.

Eggnog is a rich, sweet drink, traditionally made with milk, cream, sugar, egg yolks, and whipped egg whites (which gives it a frothy texture, and its name). Distilled spirits such as brandy, rum, whisky or bourbon are often a key ingredient. Throughout North America and some European countries, eggnog is traditionally consumed over the Christmas season.

Paris’ Christmas With Jamie

PARIS: I met his parents … He bought me a ticket, and I took the train to Philadelphia, and he met me at the station, and I spent Christmas with him and his family … It was perfect. They had a Christmas tree twelve feet tall … And they had tiny wreaths hanging from every doorknob, and mistletoe and candles everywhere.

Paris has never celebrated Christmas (she’s Jewish), and her parents always go out of town for the holidays, leaving her alone with her nanny. This miserable time of year for her is transformed into a veritable Hallmark card come to life when Jamie invites her to spend Christmas with his family in Philadelphia. She loves everything about Christmas, and is virtually floating on air after the holidays.

Philadelphia has been mentioned several times in Gilmore Girls. Paris would have quite a long train trip to visit Jamie – it’s four and a half hours by train from Hartford to Philadelphia, with a change at New Haven.

Blankie

PARIS: You have a problem with it?

FRANCIE: No, I’m just surprised. You seem so attached to those meetings.

PARIS: Well, I finally got a blankie. It’s much better.

Blankie, the baby-talk word for the security blankets that toddlers sometimes like to carry around for self-soothing. A famous example is the character of Linus in the Peanuts comic strip.

Ranch in Texas

PARIS: Well, if there’s nothing really to talk about, what’s the point, right?

LOUISE: You said that one student council meeting a week was not enough.

MADELINE: Yeah, you said that was no way to govern, that meeting once a week was lazy, ineffectual, and if we were going to do it like that, we might as well just buy ourselves a ranch in Texas.

Paris referred in her comment to Prairie Chapel Ranch near the town of Crawford in Texas. It was acquired by former president George W. Bush in 1999, and was known as the Western White House. It was used both as a vacation house, a meeting place, and as a place to host visiting dignitaries.

George W. Bush was considered a lazy president, with some wits remarking that he worked “24/7 – 24 hours a week, 7 months a year”.

Prom Bids

RORY: I don’t think I’ll have the prom bids ready for the supplemental student council meeting this week … They need a little more time to get the details together, so that leaves a little hole in our agenda.

Prom bids are, as far as I can work out, just another name for tickets to the school prom, a formal dance held at the end of the academic year.

Paris is Distracted

PARIS: What did he talk about? … I didn’t take notes. I didn’t pay attention. I’m going to. . .

RORY: Borrow my notes and be just fine. [hands her notes to Paris] …

PARIS: I can’t believe I zoned out for the entire class.

This is continuing the theme of Paris not being able to pay attention to her schoolwork because she has a boyfriend. Unlike Rory, who is on her second boyfriend, and still going strong academically. She is even carrying Paris by giving her notes for the class.

Class

TEACHER: To evaluate the value of a function of X when X equals Pi. You want to start by splitting the intregal into two separate intregals. Now, since the left intregal is a variable of a constant exponent, remember C is a constant, add one and divide by the new power … The right intregal, however, is more complex. You have to use U substitution with U equals 3 feet.

During the credits, Rory and Paris are shown in their AP Calculus class, which covers both Algebra and Geometry.

At the end of last season, Paris insisted on taking AP Calculus with Mr Branch, who is a MIT graduate, so I presume that the teacher in this episode is Branch.

Winter Carnival, Marching Band Letters

RORY: Man, it’s winter carnival time again already … Are you going?

LANE: I have to. We are raising money for the marching band this year, mandatory booth manning is involved … It’s for letters so we can finally have letter carriers. For some reason, the powers that be think that the reason we never win at competitions is because no one knows who we are. The fact that we suck has never occurred to them. What’s wrong with our uniforms?

Another festival – the Stars Hollow High School Winter Carnival, which is held around mid-January. It is always a fundraiser, and this year it’s raising money for the school marching band to have letters spelling out their name at interschool competitions.

Pose Naked on the Cover of Rolling Stone

[Rory, Lane and Lorelai are walking through Stars Hollow. They cross a street]

LANE: Are you serious? …We can really rehearse in your garage?

LORELAI: In exchange for the promise that you never pose naked on the cover of Rolling Stone no matter how much trouble your career is in.

Rolling Stone magazine has quite a tradition of musicians and actors posing nude or semi-clad on their cover. A few examples are John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1968, Madonna in 1991, The Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1992, and Blind Melon in 1993. Most recently from the perspective of this episode, Christina Aguilera had appeared nude on the cover in November 2002.

In this episode, Lane’s problems finding a rehearsal space for the band are solved when Lorelai generously allows them to rehearse in her garage. Given how noisy bands can be while rehearsing, this is an extremely kind offer on Lorelai’s part.