Happy Holidays!

Recently we received a question about an older blog post that featured the naked mole-rats eating their way through a jack-o-lantern during Halloween. The reader asked how the naked mole-rats celebrate Christmas. This is actually the first time we’ve gotten this question, and it got us thinking.



One might argue that naked mole-rats should celebrate Kwanzaa, since it is the first holiday created specifically for African Americans and our naked mole-rats are from Africa. But there is a big candelabra, called a kinara, involved with all Kwanzaa celebrations. We fear that it might be too dangerous to keep a candle inside our naked mole-rats’ home.



The seven principles of Kwanzaa are: Unity, Self-Determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity, and Faith. Naked mole-rats certainly embody at least a few of those principles, and Hairless Houdini is definitely working on the self-determination one.


The opposing argument would be that they celebrate Festivus, which falls on December 23rd. As we all know, Festivus is celebrated every year with the traditional airing of grievances, followed by the feats of strength. These are two activities that the naked mole-rats perform with each other pretty much on a daily basis.



After giving it some thought, we think naked mole-rats definitely would celebrate “Festivus for the rest of us”. It has been called “another way to celebrate the holiday season without participating in its pressures or commercialism”. You can celebrate Festivus (or any holiday) with the naked mole-rats by visiting them at Pacific Science Center today and looking for their shiny, unadorned aluminum Festivus pole. We’ll leave it up for the duration of the holiday (one day).


Many happy holidays to all of our readers from the naked mole-rats and the entire Life Sciences Team!