#but then they get in on the Christmas festivities and that becomes the only religiously-rooted practice you ever see them participate in

[sarahsupastar]

This is so so common in ensemble TV shows. The core cast can be a group of 6+ wildly diverse characters with varied established religious beliefs (usually, at least 1 Jew, at least 1 athiest, a few varieties of Christian, and maybe a Muslim if one of the actors is Middle Eastern)

and INEVITABLY when December comes around the show has to do a holiday (read: Christmas) episode. and for the sake of making that episode happen, allllll the non-Christian characters wind up joyfully participating in the Christmas festivities & feeling the Christmas spirit

normalize not celebrating xmas. like every single piece of media involving xmas in any way shape or form has everyone celebrating it like no matter their religion they just like do it for the spirit or the holiday or whatever and if they originally don't it ends w them giving in out of consideration and being guilted. like if you love xmas, that's great. i love bubble tea and i love rosh hashanah, but i don't expect everyone to love them or even experience them. it's not sad for me if someone doesn't enjoy them bc i'm not a self obsessed prick who assumes everyone else enjoys and celebrates the same things i do. pls be respectful this year, pls acknowledge xmas IS NOT a secular holiday, please do not other and exclude those who do not celebrate it. and btw this goes beyond inclusive language.

(goyim and christians/atheists can rb and add if you want but do not clown i am begging you)

[spock-smokes-weed]

I’m trying to write a post about how the “Christmas is basically just yule” thing is really stupid but I kept getting too long and convoluted so this is my take two

When we’re talking about the roots of holidays a lot of them have pagan roots. Especially Christian holidays because most people were pagan in the places Christianity spread to. But just because it has pagan roots does not make it pagan. We’re talking 1000 years of separation between the original context of these holidays and modern day christmas. The first case of a winter celebration becoming one about christ occurred as early as the 4th century in Rome. And if we want to talk about Yule specifically, the shift started in the 10th century.

And Christianity didn’t “steal” pagan holidays like we would think of in today's context. There is a number of reasons why these shifts happened and it’s historical malpractice to say that “Christianity stole them”. That’s definitely a part of it, but when we’re talking about history there’s never one individual reason for mass cultural shifts like this.

All of this to say that there is a discussion to be had about Christmas’ roots in paganism and the long history of celebrations surrounding the birth of Christ, but if you’re going to engage with them you have to separate it from our modern understanding of Christianity.

I know a lot of former Christians still love Christmas and want to keep celebrating it because hey it’s really fun, and want an easy excuse with “it’s basically pagan anyway.” I need you to understand how tone deaf that sounds. Our modern day Christmas is still fundamentally about the celebration of the birth of Christ. There’s a lot more to the holiday, but that’s what’s at the core of it. And it’s a massive blind spot when you try to call it a secular holiday or a pagan one.

It’s only “secular” because we live in a predominantly Christian society. Sure a lot of people celebrate it in a non-religious way, and a lot of non-Christians celebrate it, but you cannot ignore that it is a Christian holiday.

There are just as many non-Christians who don’t celebrate, and who don’t get anything out of the festivities because it’s not what they believe in. There are people who’ve never had any connection to Christmas other than it being something that clogs up the whole month of December.

If you want to celebrate Christmas, go ahead, no one will judge you. If you want to celebrate it in a non-religious way then I think that’s also fine. But do not ignore its religious roots. Do not give non-Christians a hard time for being annoyed during christmas because it just makes you look like an asshole. If you want to celebrate a pagan holiday then celebrate Yule. Yule is still around. But don’t pretend like Christmas and Yule are one in the same.

[jewishshadowhunters]

Hanukkah

Hanukkah/Chanukkah, is the Jewish festival of rededication, also known as the festival of lights. It is an eight day festival, beginning on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev (the ninth month of the Jewish year, occurring in November/December.)

It is probably one of the best known Jewish holidays, not because of any great religious significance, but because of its proximity to Christmas.

Many non-Jews, or secular Jews, think of this holiday as the Jewish Christmas and adopt many of the Christmas customs.

It is bitterly ironic that this holiday, which has its roots in a revolution against assimilation and the suppression of Jewish religion, has become the most assimilated holiday in our calendar.

The Story of Hanukkah

It begins with the reign of Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered Syria, Egypt and Palestine, but allowed the lands under his control to continue observing their own religion and retain a certain degree of autonomy.

Under this relatively benevolent rule, many Jews assimilated much of Hellenistic culture. They adopted the language, customs and dress of Greeks in the same way that today, Jews in America blend into the secular American society.

More than a century later, a successor of Alexander, Antiochus IV was in control of the region. He began to oppress Jews severely. He place a Hellenistic priest in the Temple, massacred Jews, prohibited the practice of the Jewish religion, desecrated the Temple by requiring the sacrifice of pigs (a non-kosher animal) on the altar.

Two groups opposed Antiochus: a nationalistic group led by Mattathias the Hasmonean and his son Judah Maccabee, and a religious traditionalist group known as Hasidim, the forerunners of the Pharisees (no direct connection to the modern movement known as Hasidim).

They joined forces in a revolt against the assimilation of the hellenistic Jews and the oppression by the Seleucid Greek government. The revolution succeeded and the Temple was rededicated.

As recorded in the Talmud, at the time of the rededication, there was very little oil left that had not been tainted by the Greeks. Oil was needed for the menorah (candelabrum) in the Temple. It was supposed to burn through the night, every night. There was only enough oil to burn for one day, yet, miraculously, it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of oil for the menorah.

An eight day festival was declared to commemorate this miracle.

It is not the military victory, that we remember during Hanukkah, it is the miracle of the oil. Jews do not glorify war.

Traditions

Hanukkah is not a very important religious holiday. It is far less important than Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Pessah/Passover, and Shavu’ot. It is not mentioned in the Jewish scripture, the story is related in the book of Maccabees, which Jews do not accept as scripture.

The only religious observance related to the holiday is the lighting of candles. They are arranged in a candelabrum we call a menorah (or sometimes hanukkiah), that holds nine candles. One for each night, plus a shammus (servant; candle used to light the others) at a different height.

On the first night, one candle is placed at the far right. The shammus candle is lit and three berakhot (blessings) are recited: l’hadlik neir (a general prayer over candles), she-asah nisim (a prayer thanking G-d for performing miracles for our ancestors at this time) and she-hekhianu (a general prayer thanking G-d for allowing us to reach this time of year). The third blessing is only recited on the first night of Hanukkah.

Here is a link to the text of the blessings.

Then, the first candle is lit using the shammus candle, and the shammus is placed back in its holder. Candles are lit any time after dark but before midnight. They are allowed to burn out on their own after a minimum of ½ hour, but if necessary they can be blown out at any time after that ½ hour.

On Shabbat, we light the Hanukkah candles before the Shabbat candles, before the candle lighting time (18 minutes before sunset). They cannot be blown out on Shabbat.

Each night, another candle is added from right to left (like the Hebrew language, read from right to left). Candles are lit from left ro right, to pay honor to the newer thing first.

The shammus candle is needed to keep ourselves from using the Hanukkah candles for something useful. The Hanukkah candles are for pleasure only, they should not be used for any productive purpose.

It is traditional to eat fried foods on Hanukkah because of the significance of oil to the holiday. For Ashkenazi Jews (like Simon), this usually includes latkes.

Gift-giving is not a traditional part of the holiday but was added in places where Jews had a lot of contact with Christians, as a way to deal with children’s jealousy of their Christian friends. It’s extremely unusual for Jews to give Hanukkah gifts to anyone other than their own young children.

The only traditional gift of the holiday is “gelt’, small amounts of money.

In Ashkenazic homes, playing dreidel, a gambling game played with a square top is tradition. Most people play for matchsticks, pennies, M&Ms or chocolate coins. It is explained as: in the time of Antiochus’ oppression, those who wanted to study Torah (an illegal activity) would conceal it  by playing gambling games with a top, whenever an inspector or official was in sight.

A dreidel is marked with four Hebrew letters, Nun, Gimel, Hei and Shin.They stand for the Hebrew phrase ‘Nes Gadol Hayah Sham” which means “A great miracle happened there”.

They also stand for the Yiddish words nit (nothing), gantz (all), halb (half) and shtell (put), the rules of the dreidel game.

Everyone puts in one coin. A person spins the dreidel. It it lands on Nun, nothing happens, On Gimel, you get the whole pot, on Hei, you get half of the por, and on SHin you put one in. hen the pot is empty, everyone adds one in. We then keep playing until one has everything. Then, we redivide it, because nobody likes a poor winner.

[sideprince]

Not to keep hopping on this post every time it's on my dash, but I can't get behind the "Christmas is older than the Statute of Secrecy" argument and I've seen it a couple times now. Christmas wasn't a significant holiday in Britain (and most places) until the Victorian period. During various periods in British and American history, it was even banned (by the Puritans, surprise surprise).

In Medieval England holidays and feast days were pretty much a monthly occurrence, based around the needs of the harvest schedule, and of varying cultural significance. Advent calendars, sending cards, and gift giving didn't become a widespread part of Christmas observance until the mid-late 19th century. There's also a connection between the rise of the cultural significance of Christmas happening in the Victorian Era, the rise of industrialization before labor laws and regulations were passed, and the extent of British colonialization during that period. Christmas was an opportunity for those who worked 7 days a week to take a short break; it was also a way for a global colonial power to homogenize the culture of countries they had colonized (obviously not the only way, but it was a convenient part of that cultural mechanism and thus played up in significance). Plus, in a time when mass production was a new and boundless horizon of financial possibilities (for those who stood to profit off it, at least), there was a great benefit in a holiday that could be centered around gift-giving.

So the idea that the Statute of Secrecy had a great impact on whether or not wizards celebrate Christmas to the extent they do doesn't make a lot of sense. It would have been interesting if, instead, another holiday had remained more significant in the wizarding world while it became less so in the muggle world, like Michaelmas or the Carnival before Lent, or Good Friday, or Midsummer's Eve. I say these ones specifically because there's a lot of medieval imagery in Harry Potter and these were significant festivals in medieval England. Michaelmas in particular would have been a interesting choice, because it was abolished in the 18th century, after the Statute of Secrecy was passed, and so it would be a statement on Wizards retaining their own culture and the ways the muggle world both affected wizarding culture and had limited influence over it. (And obviously the most relevant choice would have been Yule, which, while celebrated by medieval Christians, is more overt about its pagan roots than Christmas.) If anything, the significance of Christmas implies a closer tie with the muggle world, as the elevation of the holiday to a culturally significant one is so historically recent. We could therefore infer that wizarding cultural trends follow muggle cultural trends, at least when it comes to larger cultural shifts, which would also imply a relatively close relationship between the two cultures.

I also feel I have to point out, re: the reblog before this one, that we don't know if Harry was baptized, only that he has godparents. It's not specified what the practice around naming godparents is in the wizarding world, but the words "baptism" and "baptised" don't occur in the HP books whatsoever - I checked to be sure. In the same vein I disagree with the idea that "christian wizards migth see Jesus' story as 'knowledge' more than 'beliefs', in other words, be more devote than christian muggles." These points assume a personal interpretation of both the HP and Christian canon to be a universal one, and with no textual proof either cited, or, tbh, any that I could even infer given knowledge of the text.

Although Harry Potter as a story has strong Christian undertones, such as the whole thing being a Christ allegory, that imagery doesn't have the same role in-universe. The Christ allegory is a Doylist element, but the Watsonian elements don't even acknowledge the existence of Jesus or even of any kind of significant religious body. We don't even see muggle characters like the Durlseys ever go to church, which could imply a deliberate choice on the author's part not to contrast a pagan wizarding world with a Christian muggle one.

So the idea that wizards might have any opinion on Jesus, let alone one that might lead them to consider themselves more knowledgable or devout that muggles, has absolutely no basis in the books. It also is a perspective I find somewhat problematic in the way it takes for granted the presence of Christianity and a cultural perspective on Christ as a figurehead in the wizarding community of HP in a way that excludes other religions and beliefs. While the story is clearly written from the perspective of its white British author, it also includes characters (albeit minor ones) from diverse backgrounds, such as the Patil twins who might be Hindi, Anthony Goldstein who we can presume is Jewish, etc. Even so, it seems to be a significant point that these characters' (and others') religion isn't mentioned, because religion itself isn't mentioned at all. There's a conversation to be had (and it's been talked about a lot) that from a Doylist perspective a lot of the author's personal religious influence worked its way into the text and is projected onto it, but from a Watsonian perspective religion isn't mentioned in the HP universe, let alone specific religious figures like Christ.

question to the void: what watsonian explanation is there for wizards celebrating christmas?

[dcarevu]

Christmas With The Joker

“It’s not relentlessly cheerful, is it?”

So, only one episode in, and they do a Christmas special. One episode into this series that they wanted to be dark, serious, and adult…and they do a Christmas special. A Batman. Christmas. Special. Huh. Well, it is becoming that time of year. So let’s sleigh right into: Christmas With The Joker

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

Villain: The Joker Robin: Yes Writer: Eddie Gorodetsky Director: Kent Butterworth Animator: Akom Airdate: November 13, 1992 Episode Grade: B  This episode holds the distinction of being the very first episode of Batman The Animated Series I ever saw. I had seen Mask Of The Phantasm prior (which was a glorious place to start), and eventually Warner Brothers started releasing these Batman TAS VHS tapes each featuring a particular villain. My mom bought me one featuring the Joker, which included this episode, along with The Laughing Fish. I picked it out specifically because of the screenshot of the Joker wrapped up in his straightjacket shown on the back, and I assumed this was from his origin episode. I didn’t get an origin episode, but I did get a Christmas special that I now watch every single year. I absolutely love it. 

 I’ve always been someone that enjoys the darker side of Christmas. Carol Of the Bells. A Christmas Carol. That one Twilight Zone episode featuring a drunk Santa Claus that ends up making Christmas magical for everyone. It’s funny, because despite this, I very much enjoy the more innocent side of Halloween (think of cute Beistle die cuts or Scooby Doo). This episode fits right into this archetype, and maybe that is why I love it so much. Of course, this isn’t the only reason. We also get the first appearance of the Joker, voiced by Mark Hamill (yes, that Mark Hamill), and overall a very entertaining episode, Christmas concept aside.

So it’s Christmas Eve, and Dick Grayson (Robin) is home for the holidays. All he wants to do is spend the night relaxing to Christmas dinner and It’s a Wonderful Life, but Bruce isn’t about to let up his night watch just because of the following day. He just knows that something will happen, and right as he finally gives in to Robin’s movie request, we see that the Joker has somehow interrupted pretty much every channel broadcast, and is airing a Christmas special all his own. Featuring a kidnapped Commissioner Gordon, Detective Bullock, and Summer Gleeson, a news reporter (I had no idea it was her before reading it on the DCAU wiki. Kinda cool that it’s not simply some unnamed character!). Batman, aware of the Joker’s love of destructive games sets out with Robin to find his broadcast, and put an end to the Christmas Eve havoc. Throughout the episode he gets sidetracked by an exploding train track (done by the Joker of course), a barrage of cannonballs being fired straight into the city (done by, again, the Joker), and a barrage of Christmas-themed dangers at an abandoned toy factory. At the end of the episode, with the Joker found, and the kidnapped three dangling above a vat of acid, the Joker has Batman open up a special present addressed specifically for him (complete with bat wrapping paper). “Don’t do it, Batman!” shouts Robin, but Batman knows that it’s the only way to save the three and Gotham City as a whole. What’s inside? A pie in the face, what else? Immediately afterward, although Joker tries to run, he slips on a roller skate and nearly falls into the acid himself…but is caught by Batman on the way down. Everyone is saved, and the two heroes even get to finally watch their Christmas special in peace.

Let’s talk about the two big things with this episode: Robin and the Joker. The idea of using an older Robin was obviously a way to bring some realism to the character, and to not ruin the tone that they were going for. Robin is historically kind of a goofy character, and was meant to be a role model for the kiddies. Wanting to avoid specifically kid elements in their show, they used a college-aged Robin. I think it works sometimes, and not so much at other times. It is a little weird seeing such an old character wearing the Robin outfit, but they also made an effort to tone down the silliness of it a little bit. Thank god we didn’t get those little elf shoes and those freshly-waxed legs. While Robin’s usefulness varies throughout the show, I think in this episode they work pretty well together, and for an episode like this, it gives Batman someone to talk to, and introduces some comic relief. Hearing Batman referred to as a Scrooge and seeing him bag on Robin’s choice of movies is pretty funny, and I feel like these two have similar exchanges about Christmas as a lot of us do in real life. The action scenes with Robin were also pretty good, and I never really felt like either of them had nothing to do/were a damsel in distress. That’s the one thing about Robin that bugs me sometimes, and it wasn’t until much later when they got consistently good at having more than one superhero on screen at once, balancing everything out. I will admit, some of it did get a little too corny for my liking…particularly the way Batman would bark things like, “Easy, Robin!” But it also reminded me a little bit of the Adam West show in a charming way that I accept much more with a Christmas episode. So take these comments how you take them. 

 And the Joker? Fantastic debut. He’s funny. He’s menacing. He’s batshit insane. He’s charismatic. He’s everything a classic, definitive Joker should be. I love Heath as much as anyone else, but being a great Joker vs being a definitive Joker are two different things. I wouldn’t get rid of either of them, and I think they both perfectly represent the type of character they are meant to be. I think the Joker changed a lot throughout this show. He giggles unlike later in the series here, and he’s clearly mentally unstable in a different, albeit very fun way. But then there are moments like where he laughs in someone’s face because he knows that her mother is on a train that is headed straight for a blown up bridge. He’s that character that you love to hate, and as much as you want Batman to sock each and every one of those yellow teeth out of his mouth, you also can’t help but root for him to keep getting away just so that you get more of him. It is kinda weird for me picturing this episode’s version of the Joker with Harley, and Harley Quinn may be the main reason why the Joker’s personality changed a little bit and got a hair more serious. In this episode he’s like, well, a cartoon character. More than usual. He has a stylized personality as much as he has a stylized look.

When I mentioned earlier that this episode fits alongside a lot of the darker aspects of Christmas, to clarify a little bit more, it’s not just because you have a psychotic killing clown and a scary guy dressed as a bat. It also has the vintage aspect to it. You have the “dark deco” 30′s aesthetic already in place. Then you add the vintage-looking wintery landscape...the Nutcracker music...and even the dark, snowy city that almost makes me think of Victorian England. I think all of this creates the old-timey Christmas feel without shoving religious morals, or Santa Claus, or greedy marketing down our throats. It succeeds in being a Christmas special almost exclusively through vibes, and mention of it being the holiday. Okay, and Robin’s green and red pajamas are pretty festive as well. The DCAU would do a couple more Christmas episodes later, another one of them being Batman, and while this one is also great, it communicates Christmas in a vastly different way than this one, a way which is much more modern. Both can be great, but this is the Batman Christmas special I will come back to year after year.

 As far as my girlfriend Char’s impressions, she really liked this episode too. As someone who has never seen a single episode of the DCAU before this blog, she said that she expected and was hoping for Harley Quinn, but wasn’t necessarily disappointed that she didn’t show up. Picturing a world of Batman TAS before Harley’s existence is something that I feel like we all sorta gloss over since it’s almost like she’s always existed. And while the show got better with her first appearance, I’m glad that they could do a solid Joker beforehand. Char loved the Joker’s representation, and was surprisingly very much in line with what she expected from the character. She said that he was very creepy, but in a very entertaining way. She also noted his design, particularly his color pallet (wait till she sees TNBA). Some more comments about Harley Quinn were made, and she’s scared for Harley after seeing what a maniac the Joker is. She ships Harley and Poison Ivy, something that I see a lot. I don’t necessarily disagree 100%, but, well, we’ll save a lot of that conversation for later. 

 An older Robin was something that Char was really into, and I got the impression that she never really cared for the super young Robin, as, well, yeah, it is kinda strange. Back when the character was introduced, maybe not so much, nut nowadays? Yeah. What the hell, Batman. Also, Loren Lester provides a voice that she always sorta pictures with the character, and again, she noted how definitive everything seemed. 

 Some other stray observations she made: She agreed with me on some of Batman’s lines being corny, but she also found them a little bit creepy.It was a unique Christmas special. Batman and Robin sorta feel like father and son, but only sorta. This is something the show will get into much more as we go on. She thought the Joker would make a hilarious game show host if he weren’t, well, evil. She noted how shitty the star on the tree at the very beginning was. Apparently Arkham Asylum needs a better interior decorator. And lastly, she loved the ending. As do I. It’s so unsettling, yet so perfect. Better than what I expected when I saw the screenshot on the back of the VHS as a kid. Char’s grade: B

Major Firsts: The Joker, Robin, Summer Gleeson, Arkham Asylum, Xmas episode, we see the Batmobile has a TV, a musical number (The Joker sings) Next time: Nothing To Fear

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

The Hopes And Fears Of All The Years, Part One

HAPPY BIRTHDAY @mossdonnatella!!! A silly and delightful AU for a silly and delightful friend--one that only you would ever have requested. To understand this fic, you have to know the Goat Guy story. 

Penelope x Schneider, One Day At A Time. Also on AO3.

“Ah!  You are back again!  Have you married your son off yet?  I can raise my offer to nine goats and three chickens for your son to marry my daughter.”

The woman rolled the ‘r’ in ‘raise’ dramatically, which fascinated Schneider enough that he almost didn’t noticed the daughter a few feet away. Her curls were still springing in every direction, but she seemed taller this year. 

She offered him a small smile, and a shrug, clearly accustomed to the way her mother liked to tease the customers. 

1992.

Schneider’s upbringing was not especially religious. Father wasn’t a spiritual or sentimental man; after he remarried, his new wife was indifferent to faith. And Schneider’s mother didn’t have any beliefs he was aware of--certainly none that had taken root in him during his first few years.

His second stepmother, who became a severe and sometimes cruel presence in his life when he was nine, wouldn’t even let the staff celebrate the holidays. If she had a religion, Schneider wanted no part of it.

But right before his fourteenth birthday, his father met Mila on a business trip and things changed for the better.

Mila was from exotic Los Angeles. She was kind to him. And when she and Father married, it was understood that she would travel back home to California several times a year.

It was her idea to take Schneider along in the winters, giving him a break from the cold and pulling him into her cheerful Christmas traditions.

Caroling displays downtown, fake snow surrounding the palm trees...his third stepmom really loved Christmas.

And though he put slim odds on her surviving the first year of marriage to Father, Schneider loved her. So he went willingly, to the weirdly warm part of America where she showed him off at festive concerts and introduced him to the confusing spectacle of Catholic Mass.

Her favorite event, she told him that year, was Bethlehem.

“The church goes all out,” Mila said, patting her hair in front of the hall mirror. "Started doing it back when I was a girl. They rent this massive building, and fill it with animals and stalls and everyone is in costume and in character.”

“Costumes?” Schneider slouched next to the door, waiting for her to finish getting ready. He was hoping the mouthwash he’d used and the expanse of Father’s towncar between them would keep Mila from catching the alcohol on his breath. The maid needed to learn to hide her stash better. “What kind of characters?”

"Well, like people in Bethlehem.” Mila sighed at his blank expression. The boy’s father wouldn’t let her take him to church regularly, he called it ‘nonsense.’ She suspected it would do Schneider good to believe in something.

“It’s like an old-fashioned town marketplace. When you enter, they give you pennies and you can trade them for little presents,. Then there are real sellers with food and crafts you can buy with your own money.”

Schneider nodded. Mila patted his cheek on their way out. “And they have the best apple cider you’ve ever tasted in your life. You’re going to love it, sweetie.”  

Compared to Vancouver in December, L.A. was a tropical paradise, but Mila made him wear a coat and hat anyway. The hat was brown and knitted and his neck itched.

“Just remember,” Mila told him as they waited to enter, those around him shivering in what apparently passed for cold there. “Everybody’s in character. It might seem weird at first but I promise, it’s fun.”

The place was buzzing with crowds of people once they got in. Schneider couldn’t figure out where to look. Loud men walked the aisles with trays of snacks, their accents reminding him that he was far from home. Colorful booths were full of clothes and handmade gifts and old books. 

As they strolled past the booths, his gaze was drawn to one selling ponchos. The woman standing inside it was gesturing broadly while she spoke rapid Spanish with a customer. She was petite, inches shorter than Schneider since his recent growth spurt, but her volume carried down the corridor. 

The ponchos were cool...though he couldn’t imagine wearing one back in the ‘Couve. They were as bright as the Latin lady’s laugh, which rang out as he and Mila arrived at the stall.

“Ay, welcome, friends!” She startled Schneider by pressing her lips to both his cheeks.

“What a handsome young man. I think this must be your first time to my stall. I am sure I would remember ju.”

He shot Mila a panicked look, but she just smiled and nodded as if to say, Play along.

“Um, thank you. I like your...stuff.”

“What a flatterer. You know, you seem strong--and intelligent. You would make a very good husband for my daughter. This is your mother? I’ll give you six goats for your son’s marriage to my daughter.”

Schneider spotted a teenage girl half-hidden behind a stack of ponchos, looking absolutely mortified. That must be the daughter, he thought, watching her glare in her mother’s direction like she would rather be anywhere else in the world. He couldn’t blame her. 

He was so embarrassed that he didn’t even bother to correct the woman about him and Mila not being related. 

His stepmom shook her head with a polite chuckle. “That’s a very kind offer, of course, but we could not possibly accept. He’s far too young to be married.” 

With one last glance behind him at the women and their ponchos, Schneider followed Mila as she moved on.

1993.

Surprisingly, Mila was still his stepmom when Christmas arrived again.

Schneider heard her screaming at his dad sometimes, about his former nannies and babysitters and women at the office. But he was still stinging from how easily Father had dismissed his dream of becoming an entertainer, and he didn’t want to know about their problems. 

He had figured out the ideal ratio for watering down wine in the cellar to make the bottles look the same, and the estate’s cook took so many casual swigs of sherry and Schnapps during meal prep that Schneider’s attempts to drown his feelings were easy to hide.

Mostly, leaving for Los Angeles again was a relief. 

Now that he knew what to expect, Schneider was actually excited for his second trip to Bethlehem. Mila was right, that apple cider was amazing...and he wanted to see if the man who built music boxes was still there. This year he was determined to buy one and see if he could figure out how it worked.

Before the apple cider though, and before the woodworking stalls, they came upon a cheerful array of ponchos, and he realized the woman from last year was beckoning him closer.

“Ah!  You are back again!  Have you married your son off yet?  I can raise my offer to nine goats and three chickens for your son to marry my daughter.”

The woman rolled the ‘r’ in ‘raise’ dramatically, which fascinated Schneider enough that he almost didn’t noticed the daughter a few feet away. Her curls were still springing in every direction, but she seemed taller this year. 

She offered him a small smile, and a shrug, clearly accustomed to the way her mother liked to tease the customers. 

Schneider was bewildered by the woman’s attention. Somehow, a year later, she still remembered him and the woman she had been trying to give goats to? He didn’t think he’d ever remained in someone’s memory for an entire year.

He was certain Father forgot for long periods of time that he even had a son. And after bringing him into the world, his mother had vanished and never looked back. 

Mila refused the offer again. “Not enough goats,” she said with a wink in his direction.

Schneider exchanged mortified looks with the daughter, and he and his stepmom went in search of cider. But when the woman at the poncho waved farewell, adding a phrase in Spanish he didn’t understand, her smile stayed with him.

1994-1997.

It happened again. And again. For two more years, Mila took him to California for Christmas and they went to Bethlehem and without fail--without shame--the poncho lady tried to trade goats for his marriage to her daughter. 

Then Mila caught Father with Rebecca, and a vengefully tossed mint julep was the end of that.

Though Schneider was far too old for a nanny, Rosa was somehow back in the picture before business took them all to America. Father married her as soon as the divorce papers were dry.

Before things fell apart, Pepperdine had been Mila’s idea. A Christian school to help him clean his life up, in Malibu, where he’d be near her family.

He went anyway, after she was gone, because the tuition was paid and it didn’t really matter anymore, where he was or what he did. 

But it was too weird to talk to Mila, let alone see her, now that she wasn’t his stepmom. Father called her ‘that woman’ and berated Schneider over any ties they still had to each other, real or imaginary.

Drinking until he couldn’t spell his own name was easier than fighting about it. Lines of cocaine that turned him into somebody else entirely washed the worst of it away.

He stopped returning Mila’s calls, and he let his student visa expire, and he happily forgot all about Bethlehem along with everything else that used to make him happy.

Until he landed in rehab, and it was Mila--not Father, not Rosa, not the bros of Full Sail, but Mila, who he hadn’t spoken to in more than a year--who showed up and yelled and hugged and sat by his side while he cried.

She wasn’t his stepmother anymore, but she was the closest thing he had, at twenty, to a real parent. 

After he left the detox center, she invited him to join her again at Bethlehem.

[warlocks-and-phoenixes]

OH! OH! I made one up specifically for my Big Bang fic! It’s called Matronsfeast: essentially the MCD world’s equivalent of Christmas and New Years combined, celebrated on Irene’s birthday. The festivities traditionally include family/friends/loved ones getting together for a feast, afterwards gathering around a fire (historically a camp/bonfire, in the modern age usually a fireplace) and telling stories, singing songs, eating sweets, and in some traditions exchanging gifts, as everyone counts down the minutes until midnight, when the calendar (based around Irene’s birth) moves into the new year.

It was started by the Divine Warriors spending Irene’s birthday in her home village, with the day happening to coincide with the village’s mid-winter feast holiday, and they spent the whole night afterwards around the bonfire, doing the things that would become the regular traditions. It was later turned into a story where the warriors rode for ten days straight, facing bandits and unyielding weather (not untrue but a bit exaggerated), before finally arriving in the village, where the villagers rejoiced at their arrival and prepared a feast (historians, being historians, got a few things incorrect.) It’s considered the most important holiday within the Faith of the Matron, though many celebrate it non-religiously as well; an alternative name being Bonfire’s Eve.

There’s def also different holidays around the year for the other four divine warriors, and also a more mainly-religious one for the day that the Destroyer was said to have been banished, but this one is only one I’ve fleshed out and given a name for so far. There’s definitely also an equivalent for Halloween (which may have roots in a traditional Elven holiday/myth?), and the solstices hold importance to both witchs as well as the Werewolves in winter and the Meif’wa in summer. That’s what I’ve got so far.

bc it’s the holiday season for a bunch of ppl

what kind of holidays do u think wld be celebrated in mcd, such as historical events, religious celebrations? or if u already have any holidays in ur rewrite then pspspsps

or just things they celebrate/don’t celebrate in general like birthdays

[mysticallymanic]

Ancient Origins of Halloween

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.

This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes.

When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of bobbing for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

All Saints' Day

On May 13, 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.

By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In 1000 A.D., the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It’s widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday.

All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.

Halloween Comes to America    

The celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies.

As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” which were public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing.

Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the 19th century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.In the second half of the 19th century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing the Irish Potato Famine, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally.

History of Trick-or-Treating

Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.

In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes.

Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything “frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Because of these efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.

Halloween Parties    

By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide Halloween parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague some celebrations in many communities during this time.

By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated.

Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats.

Thus, a new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country’s second largest commercial holiday after Christmas.

READ MORE: Who Invented Candy Corn?

Halloween Movies

Speaking of commercial success, scary Halloween movies have a long history of being box office hits. Classic Halloween movies include the “Halloween” franchise, based on the 1978 original film directed by John Carpenter and starring Donald Pleasance, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Tony Moran. In “Halloween,” a young boy named Michael Myers murders his 17-year-old sister and is committed to jail, only to escape as a teen on Halloween night and seek out his old home, and a new target.

Considered a classic horror film down to its spooky soundtrack, it inspired 11 other films in the franchise and other “slasher films” like “Scream,” “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Friday the 13.” More family-friendly Halloween movies include “Hocus Pocus,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Beetlejuice” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”

6 Images

All Souls Day and Soul Cakes

The American Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives.

The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as “going a-souling,” was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food and money.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry.

On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits.

On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.

Black Cats and Ghosts

Halloween has always been a holiday filled with mystery, magic and superstition. It began as a Celtic end-of-summer festival during which people felt especially close to deceased relatives and friends. For these friendly spirits, they set places at the dinner table, left treats on doorsteps and along the side of the road and lit candles to help loved ones find their way back to the spirit world.

Today’s Halloween ghosts are often depicted as more fearsome and malevolent, and our customs and superstitions are scarier too. We avoid crossing paths with black cats, afraid that they might bring us bad luck. This idea has its roots in the Middle Ages, when many people believed that witches avoided detection by turning themselves into black cats.

We try not to walk under ladders for the same reason. This superstition may have come from the ancient Egyptians, who believed that triangles were sacred (it also may have something to do with the fact that walking under a leaning ladder tends to be fairly unsafe). And around Halloween, especially, we try to avoid breaking mirrors, stepping on cracks in the road or spilling salt.

Halloween Matchmaking and Lesser-Known Rituals

But what about the Halloween traditions and beliefs that today’s trick-or-treaters have forgotten all about? Many of these obsolete rituals focused on the future instead of the past and the living instead of the dead.

In particular, many had to do with helping young women identify their future husbands and reassuring them that they would someday—with luck, by next Halloween—be married. In 18th-century Ireland, a matchmaking cook might bury a ring in her mashed potatoes on Halloween night, hoping to bring true love to the diner who found it.

In Scotland, fortune-tellers recommended that an eligible young woman name a hazelnut for each of her suitors and then toss the nuts into the fireplace. The nut that burned to ashes rather than popping or exploding, the story went, represented the girl’s future husband. (In some versions of this legend, the opposite was true: The nut that burned away symbolized a love that would not last.)

Another tale had it that if a young woman ate a sugary concoction made out of walnuts, hazelnuts and nutmeg before bed on Halloween night she would dream about her future husband.

Young women tossed apple-peels over their shoulders, hoping that the peels would fall on the floor in the shape of their future husbands’ initials; tried to learn about their futures by peering at egg yolks floating in a bowl of water and stood in front of mirrors in darkened rooms, holding candles and looking over their shoulders for their husbands’ faces.

Other rituals were more competitive. At some Halloween parties, the first guest to find a burr on a chestnut-hunt would be the first to marry. At others, the first successful apple-bobber would be the first down the aisle.

Of course, whether we’re asking for romantic advice or trying to avoid seven years of bad luck, each one of these Halloween superstitions relies on the goodwill of the very same “spirits” whose presence the early Celts felt so keenly.

[daclanarchived]

@the-one-photographer-quinn ;

It was a wintry evening, a bit chillier than expected for Christmas Eve in the city. As the door is opened to the Fabray home, a person stood there with a beaming smile, green and red elf hat amongst their winter gear. “One package for Quinn Fabray from their Secret Santa -- not me, of course. Merry Christmas though!”

When everything finally settles down and it’s time to unwrap presents, behind the twine and plain-looking brown packaging, were three objects...

The first lay underneath a much more festive paper decorated with angel wings and golden trumpets. The book was rather hefty, with some light wear and tear admittedly. It was a compendium of habits and rituals that banished negative energy and encouraged positivity from one’s self and home. There were added variations for all different religious practices.

Another came with its own present shape. Within the red and white box lay two fully paid “Renew And Relax Package” gift certificates from the Metamorphosis Day Spa in Manhattan, addressed personally in Quinn Fabray’s name. It also included two $100 vouchers that can be redeemed for any additional treatments.

The final object was a card that, when opened, revealed a polaroid amongst the writing.

Hey Quinn!

I know we only met a few times briefly online, but I’m your Secret Santa. It’s been great getting to know you better the past week though I’m still seriously sorry I started on the activity late. I hope you enjoy the presents nonetheless, and a little note about the book: it’s the copy I was given as a moving out token when I left Lima a few years ago. I don’t ever get a chance to talk about it online, but I was raised a very religious person. Aside from prayer and weekly mass, this helped me remain grounded and focused on the person I want to become since I’d just started being on my own without the help of my moms, who’d been my previous role models. I’m giving it to you as a little early blessing for your new house with hopes that you continue pursuing what (and who) makes you happy. Remember: I’m rooting for you!

Merry Christmas, Aaron Daclan

[nathanjhill]

Armor of God (Ephesians 6)

Ephesians 6:10-17

Lately, on the radio and on the occasional bit of TV I watch, I have noticed advertisements for a company promising to protect your precious online identity. Hackers, security holes, data breaches, and incompetent employees are around every corner - from your favorite Black Friday shopping website to your local gas station, and if you aren’t careful, poof - your credit card number, social security, home address, personal information, and frequent flyer numbers are in someone else’s hands. All of which can wreck your holiday spirit and maybe even your life.

So this company promises their services to become a sort of armor against the wiles of credit card skimmers and the cybernetic arrows of Russian hackers.

This is no laughing matter in our world anymore - most of us here have already been hacked at least once from one of these major breaches. Business and government institutions spend big money to firewall sensitive data and give an illusion of security, but there are always holes and backdoors and weak passwords. And every time we jump over to the newest security measure it seems like, that one isn’t good. Why, I remember when having a picture on your debit card was supposed to be the height of protection - and now, I don’t think they even bother with that anymore.

While being secure on the internet is a legitimate concern for us, we live in a world where services that promise to protect us perk up our ears. We pay attention, even if we are feeling good about our situation - home alarm systems, anti-theft devices, community policing programs, neighborhood watch, and on and on. Even if we have not been the victim of a crime, there is a deep anxiety that danger is lurking around every corner.

And even though I am an optimist at heart, I don’t disagree. If it’s not our experience, we know a family member or neighbor who has been a victim of crime. We know lives that have been shattered from the unexpected or the pain we so easily can inflict upon each other.

There are few safe places anymore - schools and colleges are the staging ground for violence. Churches and mosques across the world are riddled with blood and bullets. Our own homes have erupted in domestic violence, spouses turning weapons on each other. And you may have seen this article about a supposed plan from North Korea to drop a nuclear bomb into the super volcano in Yosemite National Park, which sounds like a bad James Bond movie and not real life.

Whether we like it or not, we must admit there is a danger in this world. There is struggle. There are people who are desperate and immoral. There are shadowy faceless entities out there that want to destroy us - there are governments and institutions and businesses that will trample on us if they can get ahead. Each day, whether we like it or not, when we wake up to go about our day or go online, we face risk - we step into enemy territory.

Eugene Peterson, in his commentary of Ephesians, says it plainly - “Christians live in hostile country.”

No, he’s not talking about the so-called War on Christmas or arguments over religious freedom or the idea of there being some kind of religious war in our world.

Peterson instead makes the case that from the beginning of the church - from the time of Jesus and his disciples - throughout history - Christians have had enemies. Sometimes, those enemies have come from within the church. Sometimes, they have been forces and military power from the outside. But on an even larger scale, Christians face the undeniable reality that not only are we to believe differently than the rest of the world but we are to behave differently. We are to live counter to the ways of this world - the ways of greed, selfishness, pride, hate, and abusive power. And that has made many Christians a target.

Paul in Chapter 6 of his letter to the Ephesians is writing to early churches who know that life is a struggle. Some historians make the case that the early church was mostly comprised of working class or poor people. A common critique of early churches were that they were nothing but a bunch of widows and orphans. There was persecution from Roman authorities - Christians lived counter to the Roman religious traditions, so they could stick out like a sore thumb when everyone else was partying at some festival or the other. This made daily life a grind, a challenge, a risk - week to week, only their practices of community, of worship, of prayer, of the Lord’s Supper, of receiving God’s abundant love could sustain them and nourish them.

So Paul pauses first to encourage these early Christians to stand firm - to stay strong in their challenge times - and then casts an image of their daily struggle as something far bigger than just a game of survival. Remember, as I have reminded you throughout this series, Ephesians never keeps the volume knob at 5 - Paul always wants to blast his message up to 9, 10, or even 11. In Verse 12, he proclaims, “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Wow. Think about this - Paul was saying that for those early Christians, their normal weekly grind to get through a difficult day, perhaps as a slave in a Roman household or as a poor daily laborer or even a widow or orphan was vastly more important than they might realize. Your life, your actions, your story was the setting of this grand struggle between good and evil - a stage for God to wage war against the darkness that seeks to consume Creation.

There was unfortunately no identity theft protection or credit score or public defenders to protect you from the forces of evil in those days, but Paul speaks in this powerful and poetic way and describes a suit of armor that these early Christians may put on to resist being ensnared by the evil and violence and abuses of power around them.

The belt of truth around your waist

The breastplate of righteousness

Shoes to help your proclaim the gospel of peace (maybe for running)

The shield of faith to hold back the flaming arrows of the evil one

The helmet of salvation and finally the sword of the Spirit

For early hearers of this letter, these images would have been familiar - everyone had seen a powerful and mighty Roman centurion, the image of stability and military competence. The Empire was protected and maintained through the power of its military, its armies, its forces at work against their enemies. These centurions could be terrifying - and no doubt, early Christians may have faced their wrath.

But the irony here is that the armor of God is nothing like what centurions wear. They are not fashioned of iron and bronze - we do not wield a sword into battle like soldiers do. Our armor comes from and is rooted in God and in the practices of our daily faith. Our armor too does not dazzle in the sun or terrify our neighbor - but it is there nonetheless, girding us, equipping us, helping us stand firm as we face each day and try our best to be the soil for God’s resurrection to burst forth.

The armor of God enables us to love more boldly - to witness to what is good and true - to hold back evil that seeks for each of us to give up and let it give sway over our lives and the lives of our neighbors.

Paul was reminding these early Christians - and perhaps us - that being a Christian is not a journey that will ever be free of conflict - to practice resurrection is to plunge our lives into the midst of the tectonic shifts of heartbreak, pain, loss, and fear all around.

I know this is not an easy idea today - who wants more conflict in their lives?

What is Paul suggesting then?

One - God is with us in the conflicts we face. The truth is a powerful gift to deal with conflict, but some people do not want to hear the truth. Righteousness does not mean that you are right - it means that you seek right relationship with your neighbors and with God. The gospel of peace is not something you can do with out your feet, moving among neighborhoods and families and lives. The shield of faith challenges us to remember that it is only God who we can trust to know our truest identity that of a child of God. It is the helmet of salvation that keeps our eyes and minds directed to the bigger picture of what God is doing to redeem the world. And it is the sword of the Spirit that guides our words, our tongues, and our lips.

We enter into conflict as Christians not with over-confidence - but with the humble spirit that we are woven into God’s story and if we listen and seek God’s way in the mess of it all, God will lead us through.

Remember the words of the Psalmist -

“The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?”

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

Those whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.

But the second more subtle and convicting “good news” I read in this final chapter of Ephesians is this - as Christians, if our life of faith does not draw us toward conflict, we may be doing it wrong. Again, I don’t think Paul is thinking of Facebook arguments or church board meeting fights or picketing your non-Christian neighbors. The conflict Paul is thinking of is the kind that creates the healthy room for growth and tension in our lives - where we are stretched to love in greater capacity, where we are asked to step out in faith into a new role or new way of doing things together, where we are called upon to risk our lives for the well-being of others and our neighborhoods, where we draw boundaries at work or at home on who we are and what kind of life we truly shall lead with integrity and compassion.

The armor of God gives you permission to take Jesus with you - into all those nooks and crannies of your lives - and the more you make room for Jesus, the less room there is for the forces of evil and darkness all around. No room for hate, no room for abusive domineering power, no room for intimidation, no room for inequality or injustice, no room for white supremacy, no room for the status quo. We cannot follow Jesus and not face the ways in which this cosmic struggle between good and evil is about our souls and our lives just as it is our neighbor’s.

The good news is that it is in this space of conflict where your life might become a witness to someone else who thinks they are going through it all alone.

I have been grateful for this six week study of Ephesians - I hope it has been interesting to you. But one of the things that I have really come to see in this expansive view of the theology of this letter is how important church is to our journey of faith. And it’s struggle because church can be just as messy as out there. Right now, our church (UCC) is in the midst of some real conflict as we are being stretched to love more abundantly and boldly. There have been some instances where we are not holding back our anger. We have been a little impatient or fed up. We are going through some transition. We are not communicating well. My tendency as a pastor (and sometimes as am middle child in my family) was to shy away from conflict. /Why can’t we just all get along?/ But God has really been working in me to see that this conflict - among different leaders, around our vision - is an opportunity for growth, for each of us to see and wonder if God is doing something bigger than we can ever imagine. This is a time to reconnect, to listen, to love, to discover why it is that God has brought us together. It is a time to put on the Armor of God.

Yes, we are often afraid - for good reason in this world, but family of God, when I look at you, I don’t just see a bunch of nobodies - I see a mighty company of God’s finest, equipped and blessed and prayed up to go into this world and proclaim the good news that there is something greater than the violence and decay around us - there is a love that can bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim release to the captives, and give sight to those who struggle to see.

We are equipped to go about God’s work - may we enter in with courage together!

[tipsycad147]

Pagan Origins of Christmas Traditions

Megan Black 

With the holiday approaching, I thought it would be fitting to write a little something about the traditions of Christmas and their roots in paganism. Now, before I continue, I just want to say that this is not a stab at Christmas and Christianity. It is merely an observation and educational opportunity. Please do not go around to those who celebrate Christmas with these traditions and tell them that they are a “secret pagan” or that they need to stick to their own traditions.

Roots in Saturnalia - Holly, Gift-Giving, and Frivolity

Holly is the sacred plant of Saturn, and the Romans used holly not only for decoration but as a gift given to others during Saturnalia. They did this to mark friendship and good fortune in the year ahead.

People decorated their homes with wreaths and other greenery, and shed their traditional togas in favour of colourful clothes known as synthesis . Even slaves did not have to work during Saturnalia, but were allowed to participate in the festivities; in some cases, they sat at the head of the table while their masters served them. 

Many of the Christmas traditions are derived from the ancient Saturnalia festival, including giving gifts, singing carols, and even the day that Christmas is celebrated on. Saturnalia was traditionally celebrated from December 17 through December 23, but on the Roman calendar, it ended on December 25 

It is interesting to note that during Saturnalia, the Romans would loosen the ties that bound their Cult Statue of Saturn to represent His liberation, and then each household would choose a mock king to be the King of Misrule. This person would then go around and it was their mission to be rude to guests, chase people around, and cause all around mischief

Santa Claus

The jolly man we know as Santa is based on a real person named St. Nicholas through Sinterklaas. St. Nicholas was the patron saint of children, and he was known for his secret gift-giving across the land. The feast of Sinterklaas is still celebrated in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and many others. Sinterklaas is one of the main sources for our legend of Santa.

There is also another theory out there that Santa is loosely based on the Norse God Odin. It is said that Odin would fly across the sky with all the Gods on one night in winter, bestowing gifts upon those who were in His good favour, and causing mischief for those that were not. It is also interesting to note that Santa has eight reindeer (nine counting Rudolph), and Odin rides on an eight-legged horse named Sleipnir

Christmas Carols

The origin of Christmas carols is two-fold and goes back to England in the 1700′s - wassailing the neighbours and wassailing the crops. Both involved singing to someone or something else, and they both involved wishing goodwill upon the recipient for the new year. However, the tradition of wassailing your neighbours does not have such an innocent past.

The tradition of wassailing your neighbours came about as a way for the peasant class to beg their more wealthy neighbours for gifts and good cheer without it being deemed as begging. In the Here We Come A-Wassailing, we can see how this is demonstrated in the lyrics

We are not daily beggars that beg from door to door But we are friendly neighbours whom you have seen before. Love and joy come to you, And to you your wassail too; And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year

An older tradition was that of wassailing the crops in orchard-producing England to encourage good growth and a prosperous new year. I do not think this tradition happens anymore on a large scale, but it would not be uncommon for it to still be practised.

This tradition of singing to your neighbours has changed from one of disguised begging to one of a true blessing. It is not practised much here in my area where people go door to door, but I have seen it down in common public places like parks and public events. It is always nice to see and brings a smile to everyone’s face.

Celtic Origins and Winter Solstice

The last things I want to talk about here are mistletoe, the Yule log, and Christmas trees. These three traditions have most of their roots in the Celtic practices surrounding Druidry and the Winter Solstice celebration. We cannot deny the influence that the ancient Celts had on the Romans and their feast day of Saturnalia. We know that the Celtic people also liked to dance, sing, and have a grand time during the Winter Solstice as a way of bringing the sun back to our side of the world.

Mistletoe has become a staple during the holiday season, but did you know that it has its roots in the mystical belief of the Druids? The Druids believe that mistletoe protects from thunder, lightning, and evil spirits. It is also said that we kiss under the mistletoe because, in ancient times when enemies would meet under the mistletoe, they would be compelled to lay down their weapons and call a truce! Mistletoe, for being so pretty, is believed to have healing powers due to its hardiness. It is technically a parasitic plant that grows on trees, oftentimes from nothing!

There is also the burning of the Yule log. To this day we still call it the Yule log and not the Christmas log or the holiday log. This is a testament to how the old tradition has survived all this time. The burning of the Yule log today is a small reminder of the ancient bonfires that were held to welcome the sun back to our side of the world. Fire from the Winter Solstice bonfire would be taken back to every home, and the hearth fires would be relit with the new fire of the Solstice.

Lastly, and most recognisable, is the Christmas tree. Evergreens are known for being hardy plants that do not die out in the colder months of the year. The Celtic people revered the evergreen trees for this reason and they are associated with life, abundance, health, and rebirth. These trees were decorated during Saturnalia and Winter Solstice, and that tradition has carried over into the modern age.

Does it really matter?

Unless you are a historian, archeologist, or anthropologist, I do not think the Pagan origins of Christmas are all that important in the grand scheme of things. It is good to know why we do the things we do, but that is about it. There are a lot of reasons why these pagan traditions made their way into a Christian holiday. Some of those reasons are simple while some of them are more complex. The pagans who converted - either willingly or forced - grew up with these traditions, and traditions die hard. These traditions might have been brought over from paganism willingly and innocently. However, we also need to acknowledge the acts of the church during this time and their quest to convert everyone around them. The church is not innocent in this, but we also do not live in ancient times anymore. The best thing we can do at this point is to learn from our history, enjoy the traditions we enjoy, and create new ones.

Final thoughts?

Enjoy the holiday season with your family, friends, and loved ones. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Yule, Winter Solstice, Jul, Saturnalia, or one of the many other winter celebrations, we can all acknowledge that it is a magickal time of the year full of happiness, friendship, and mystery. Keep that mindset about you as you do your shopping and celebrating. Shop small and local when possible, and do not get stuck in the capitalistic trap of holiday shopping.

Let love and the return of longer days be the reason for everyone’s season!

What traditions are your favourite around this time of year? Do you celebrate Christmas, Yule, or any other winter holiday? I’d love to hear your experience.

My favourite tradition is the making of sugar cookies with my Nana during Christmastime. I grew up Christian, so we celebrated Christmas both secularly and religiously. I haven’t made cookies with my Nana in many years since we live apart, but I continue the tradition with my own daughter. This year, they will be Yule cookies for the Winter Solstice and the return of the Sun!

https://forum.spells8.com/t/pagan-origins-of-christmas-traditions/602

[pets-beaty]

via How Webs

What is Easter Meaning 

easter meaning: Easter is one of the most important and holiest of all festivals on the Christian calendar. It is a celebration of death and of being born again while Christians celebrate the crucifixion and then rise from the death of Jesus Christ.

easter meaning

Today, Easter is celebrated with a church service on Good Friday and the giving of small Easter gifts on Sundays.

As with many other Christian celebrations, many of our Easter symbols and traditions today have their roots in paganism. When the emperor Constantine of Rome converted to Christianity and decided that it was the only religion of the empire, the Christian religious leaders integrated many of the pagan rituals that were at the time with those of Christianity.

However, just like any other vacation, it's important to sit down and plan all your ingredients before you visit the stores. You may also be planning to buy a lot of some Easter goodies and gifts for your family - but don't worry, the stores won't be too busy like Christmas. As you know, Easter is not as big as Christmas or commercialized, so the crowds just aren't there. However, this does not mean that you can leave it up to the last minute to plan.

Come with me while I take a look at some of the most common Easter symbols and traditions and how they came about.

The word "Easter" - easter meaning

It is said that the word Easter comes from the name of a beautiful pagan goddess of spring, Eostre. Eostre was honored during the spring equinox, the time when we now celebrate Easter.

Easter egg

Over the centuries the egg has been considered as the ultimate symbol of rebirth and new life. In all cultures throughout the centuries the egg has symbolized the beginning of everything, especially new life.

For Christians, it symbolizes the death and rebirth of Christ, but more so, it also celebrates their new life in Christ when they become Christians.

Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny is actually an Easter Bunny. Hares have long symbolized the moon and it is the first full moon after the spring equinox that sets the date of Easter every year. The hare is a nocturnal creature that appears with the moon at night and was thought to have neither blinked nor closed its eyes.

easter meaning: According to legend, the Easter Bunny was originally a large beautiful bird that belonged to Eostre. One day she chose wishfully to transform her bird into a hare. Because the Easter Bunny still thinks he is a bird, he continues to fill nests with eggs which he then leaves in our gardens for children to find at Easter.

Hot cross buns

One of the oldest and tastiest traditions of Good Friday is eating warm cross buns. These spicy sandwiches, marked with a white cross, are said to have originated in pagan times. The early Romans, Greeks and Egyptians marked their bread with symbols that honored their gods and goddesses.

The habit of eating warm cross buns has given rise to much superstition.

Some believed that a warm cross bread that was kept from one Good Friday to the next would bring happiness to the household, while others believed that hanging a warm cross bread over the fireplace made all the bread baked there perfect. Still others believed strongly that eating some hot cross buns on Good Friday that protected the whole family and the house from any type of fire.

Shop ahead

easter meaning: When planning your awesome Easter, there is no such exact thing as being over-prepared. If you leave your groceries until the last minute, you are bound to forget things or stay behind with the sediment on the islands. To prevent this, you want to make a list of all the things you need and refer to it often. If you can do this successfully, you will not only get what you need on time, but you can also keep to your budget. Armed with your list you leave the stores with only what you need and not many impulse purchases that will kill your budget.

It is a pity that you cannot buy your Easter meals 12 months in advance, but what prevents you from entering Easter decorations or Easter art for next year. We all know that Easter decorations and the like will be so much cheaper a week or two after Easter. This means that you can get all new decorations and Easter art and crafts at a great discount on the price and be 100% prepared for Easter 2010. But remember people, just because what Easter decorations are are cheap - doesn't mean you have they all needed. Thanks for reading about easter meaning. Please share it to others for spreading information and knowledge about that.

https://ift.tt/31FkaU7 August 15, 2019 at 07:27PM https://ift.tt/2IPp48y https://ift.tt/2KBstLd

[lopezdorothy70-blog]

Christmas Is a Time for Acts of Generosity

In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Carole Cusack, professor of religious studies at the University of Sydney.

To those who celebrate it, Christmas is as important as the history of Christianity itself. The religious and cultural celebration connects millions of people throughout the world who speak a variety of languages and come from different backgrounds but share the same religion and calendar. Christmas, however, has evolved throughout the years to become a worldwide fiesta that is both religious and secular, integrating a range of pre-Christian and pagan traditions into the festivities.

As the annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, Christmas is observed by most on December 25. It has become so popular that many non-Christians around the world mark it by exchanging gifts, putting up decorations and “inviting” Santa Claus to their parties.

There are few celebrations like Christmas in which gift-giving, enforcing familial bonds, generosity, charitable giving and social communion are encouraged. Many Christmas-related rituals in different countries have been inscribed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity. One example is the men's group Colindat, shared by the Republic of Moldova and Romania. Each year and prior to the advent of Christmas, groups of young men gather in villages across both countries, go from house to house, perform festive songs, and receive gifts and money from the hosts. The rite of Kolyady Tsars, which belongs to Belarus, is also an example.

Christmas has a strong presence in Western popular culture and literature. Such notable books as A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot, A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling are either entirely about Christmas or have stories happening in a festive setting.

In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Professor Carole Cusack, an Australian historian of religion, about Christmas, its roots and traditions.

The transcript has been edited for clarity.

Kourosh Ziabari: Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ Christ, celebrated by millions of people across the world. Where did Christmas originate from? Is there any indication as to the date of the first Christmas celebration and its form and shape?

Carole Cusack: December 25 is the date on which the world celebrates Christmas, the festival in honor of the birth of Jesus Christ, the savior of the Christian faith. Yet it is well-known that Jesus was not born on December 25, and that date, deep midwinter in the Northern Hemisphere, was a time of magic and celebration since at least the Neolithic era. This was because the Winter Solstice, usually falling between December 20 and 24, marked the shortest day of the year, and monuments like Newgrange in Ireland and Maes Howe in the Orkneys demonstrate that people watched carefully for the date, as after it passed the powers of darkness, chill and death were retreating and the power of sun, warmth and life gained momentum.

The tradition of celebrating Jesus' birth on December 25 started in the fourth century. The celebration of the birthday of Mithras, the sun god of the Persians whose mystery religion was popular among soldiers in the Roman army, was also celebrated on December 25. Mithras was often perceived as a rival to Jesus Christ, and Christians took advantage of the popularity of the 25th December date to celebrate the birth of their own influential religious figure on the same day.

Ziabari: Christmas was historically associated with revelry and drunkenness and it's reported that Puritans banned it in the 17th century until being restored as a legal holiday in 1660. Are these accounts, attributing misbehavior and irresponsible drinking to Christmas, true?

Cusack: The northern European midwinter festivals included Yule, which celebrated the rebirth of the year as the sun returns after the solstice. The evergreen conifers that are still used as Christmas trees were green and palpable signs of life amidst the winter snows. The tradition of the Yule log, which burned on the night of the festival and smoldered for days afterwards, perhaps relates to the tree that upholds the world in Germanic and Scandinavian mythology, Yggdrasil, which is an ash tree. Feasting and drinking raised people's spirits and assisted them to make it through the remaining two months of winter and look forward to spring.

In the Middle Ages Christians celebrated with special food and drink. The Puritans were against drinking, dancing, sport, theatrical productions, and most forms of human entertainment and enjoyment. They have inheritors today; the Presbyterians of the Scottish island of Lewis do not sing hymns or do anything on the Sabbath. It's difficult if you are a visitor on the island even to find something to eat on Sunday. Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate birthdays or Christmas, either.

Ziabari: There are many non-Christians who cherish Christmas today as well as millions of Christians who celebrate the festival. Does this mean that Christmas is not merely a religious occasion and has crossed the boundaries of ideology and faith?

Cusack: Christmas has become a cultural event, associated with the giving of gifts and lavish meals with friends and family. Many religions have festivals around that time. Chanukah, which means dedication in Hebrew, is an eight-day long “festival of lights,” in which each day is marked by the lighting of a candle in the menorah - multi-branched candlestick. The festival commemorates the victory of Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers over the Seleucids, and the reclamation of the Temple in Jerusalem for the worship of Yahweh. The Jewish calendar date at which it begins is the eve of Kislev 25, which generally falls in December. Special prayers and blessings are recited each day.

Buddhist communities around the world hold Bodhi Day gatherings on December 8. This commemorates the enlightenment of the Buddha, born Siddhartha Gautama. Vesak is the festival that celebrates his birth. Buddhists put fairy lights on Bodhi trees or ficus religiosa, and hang ornaments representing the Three Jewels of Buddhism - the Buddha, the Dharma or law, and the Sangha or monastic community. Rice and milk are eaten to recall the meal the Buddha ate after he abandoned strict asceticism.

Ziabari: What are some of the most notable Christmas traditions that continue to be observed today? Why are they important?

Cusack: The popularity of decorating a pine tree as part of Christmas also has its origins in non-Christian traditions from the northern parts of Europe where Yule was celebrated at the mid-winter solstice. The traditional Christmas tree is an evergreen, whose green branches defy the chill winter and point to the ultimate victory of the sun.

The idea of giving gifts may be traced to the Bible, in which the infant Jesus was presented with gold, frankincense and myrrh by the Three Wise Men, named in apocryphal texts as Caspar, Balthasar and Melchior. This received a boost in the Middle Ages, when Boxing Day, December 26, became a holiday when masters gave their apprentices and other employees “boxes,” that is, gifts.

Ziabari: What do you think is the most important message that the celebration of Christmas sends?

Cusack: The message of Christmas now is largely about gathering with friends and family. The consumerist aspects are deeply integrated into the Western celebration, though Asian countries are generally less materialistic.

In South Korea, Christmas is a public holiday even though around 70% of the population is not Christian. There are many Christmas trees with twinkling lights, often with a red cross on the top, and lavish Christmas displays in shop windows are common. For many non-Christians, it is fashionable to attend a Christmas church service, and groups of people walk through neighborhoods singing Christmas carols. Christmas cake, though not European-style fruit cake but either sponge cake with cream or an ice-cream cake, is a popular seasonal indulgence. But Christmas present-buying and giving to everyone at the office or at school is not part of the Korean Christmas.

Ziabari: As you noted, family gatherings are pivotal to Christmas. How do you think Christmas bridges the gaps between the family members and goes to heal family wounds at a time that families have become vulnerable to conflict and tensions of the digital, industrial age?

Cusack: The television comedy series Seinfeld introduced the world to the tradition of Festivus in Season 9, which aired in December 1997. It is traditionally held on December 23 and has the slogan “A Festivus for the rest of us!” Based on the Seinfeld episode, the celebration has an aluminum pole which is undecorated, contrasting with the traditional Christmas tree, and at the dinner there is an “airing of grievances,” in which everyone complains, and also the “feats of strength,” in which the host must be pinned. Festivus has more loosely been adopted by those who are not religious as a festival for anyone who just likes getting together with friends or family at a ritual occasion.

Ziabari: Does the legacy of Christmas as a cultural celebration that connects many people with different backgrounds and belongings need protection? Is Christmas susceptible to oblivion?

Cusack: The only people who advance this type of argument are generally Christians who feel threatened by multi-culturalism. For those who believe multi-ethnic, multi-faith communities are more interesting and more open-minded, these sorts of ideas are not important. Christmas is a celebration in a civic sense as well as a religious sense, and in that civic space a large number of different communities can participate.

Ziabari: What do you think about the reflection of Christmas and customs associated with it in English literature? Why is Christmas so prominent and omnipresent in the work of writers such as Charles Dickens?

Cusack: Prior to the 20th century, the majority of Western people lived in poverty and the sadness of their exclusion from society created great and moving literature. Think of The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson, a heartrending tale of a pious, orphaned child who dies in the snow on New Year's Eve. She has visions of a Christmas tree and feast before a shooting star heralds her death and her grandmother comes to take her to heaven. In the 21st century, there is still terrible poverty, and Christmas represents a time when generous acts are possible as in Dickens' A Christmas Carol. In Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, the four March girls, who are not well off, give up all their Christmas treats to a poverty-stricken family.

Ziabari: To the people of countries in which Christmas is not celebrated, Santa Claus and Christmas trees are the most significant representations of the festival. Where did they come from?

Cusack: The figure of Santa Claus, the jolly bringer of presents to good children, is derived from St. Nicholas, a fourth-century Christian bishop in the Greek city of Myra, now in modern Turkey. Two famous stories are told of him that associate him with gifts and children. First, he rescued three girls from a life of prostitution by giving their father three bags of gold for their dowries. Second, he brought back to life three young boys who had been murdered and pickled by an evil inn-keeper.

Santa Claus has associations with the North Pole and elves and reindeer are his companions in general Western folklore. In the Netherlands, St. Nicholas, or Sinterklaas, brings children presents on December 5, the day before the feast of St. Nicholas, December 6.

Ziabari: And any final thoughts?

Cusack: Here are a few other celebrations that happen at the same time as Christmas; one ancient, two modern.

Saturnalia was the Roman winter solstice festival, which was characterized by giving gifts, charity to the poor, the decoration of trees and special family dinners. The state canceled executions, war was never declared at this time, and the rich were expected to pay several months' rent for the poor or perform other acts of generosity. It started outs as a festival in honor of Saturn to celebrate the planting of autumn and winter crops, and in the first century AD the date was fixed at December 25.

Two final modern December holidays are given in conclusion. The first is Zamenhof Day, a festival in honor of Ludwig Zamenhof, the inventor of the “universal language” Esperanto, celebrated on December 15, Zamenhof's actual birthday. The second is Kwanzaa, an African-American festival established in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga. It is celebrated from December 26 to January 1, mostly in America, though it has spread to Canada.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer's editorial policy.

The post Christmas Is a Time for Acts of Generosity appeared first on Fair Observer.

[battybat-boss]

Christmas Is a Time for Acts of Generosity

In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Carole Cusack, professor of religious studies at the University of Sydney.

To those who celebrate it, Christmas is as important as the history of Christianity itself. The religious and cultural celebration connects millions of people throughout the world who speak a variety of languages and come from different backgrounds but share the same religion and calendar. Christmas, however, has evolved throughout the years to become a worldwide fiesta that is both religious and secular, integrating a range of pre-Christian and pagan traditions into the festivities.

As the annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, Christmas is observed by most on December 25. It has become so popular that many non-Christians around the world mark it by exchanging gifts, putting up decorations and “inviting” Santa Claus to their parties.

There are few celebrations like Christmas in which gift-giving, enforcing familial bonds, generosity, charitable giving and social communion are encouraged. Many Christmas-related rituals in different countries have been inscribed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity. One example is the men's group Colindat, shared by the Republic of Moldova and Romania. Each year and prior to the advent of Christmas, groups of young men gather in villages across both countries, go from house to house, perform festive songs, and receive gifts and money from the hosts. The rite of Kolyady Tsars, which belongs to Belarus, is also an example.

Christmas has a strong presence in Western popular culture and literature. Such notable books as A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot, A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling are either entirely about Christmas or have stories happening in a festive setting.

In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Professor Carole Cusack, an Australian historian of religion, about Christmas, its roots and traditions.

The transcript has been edited for clarity.

Kourosh Ziabari: Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ Christ, celebrated by millions of people across the world. Where did Christmas originate from? Is there any indication as to the date of the first Christmas celebration and its form and shape?

Carole Cusack: December 25 is the date on which the world celebrates Christmas, the festival in honor of the birth of Jesus Christ, the savior of the Christian faith. Yet it is well-known that Jesus was not born on December 25, and that date, deep midwinter in the Northern Hemisphere, was a time of magic and celebration since at least the Neolithic era. This was because the Winter Solstice, usually falling between December 20 and 24, marked the shortest day of the year, and monuments like Newgrange in Ireland and Maes Howe in the Orkneys demonstrate that people watched carefully for the date, as after it passed the powers of darkness, chill and death were retreating and the power of sun, warmth and life gained momentum.

The tradition of celebrating Jesus' birth on December 25 started in the fourth century. The celebration of the birthday of Mithras, the sun god of the Persians whose mystery religion was popular among soldiers in the Roman army, was also celebrated on December 25. Mithras was often perceived as a rival to Jesus Christ, and Christians took advantage of the popularity of the 25th December date to celebrate the birth of their own influential religious figure on the same day.

Ziabari: Christmas was historically associated with revelry and drunkenness and it's reported that Puritans banned it in the 17th century until being restored as a legal holiday in 1660. Are these accounts, attributing misbehavior and irresponsible drinking to Christmas, true?

Cusack: The northern European midwinter festivals included Yule, which celebrated the rebirth of the year as the sun returns after the solstice. The evergreen conifers that are still used as Christmas trees were green and palpable signs of life amidst the winter snows. The tradition of the Yule log, which burned on the night of the festival and smoldered for days afterwards, perhaps relates to the tree that upholds the world in Germanic and Scandinavian mythology, Yggdrasil, which is an ash tree. Feasting and drinking raised people's spirits and assisted them to make it through the remaining two months of winter and look forward to spring.

In the Middle Ages Christians celebrated with special food and drink. The Puritans were against drinking, dancing, sport, theatrical productions, and most forms of human entertainment and enjoyment. They have inheritors today; the Presbyterians of the Scottish island of Lewis do not sing hymns or do anything on the Sabbath. It's difficult if you are a visitor on the island even to find something to eat on Sunday. Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate birthdays or Christmas, either.

Ziabari: There are many non-Christians who cherish Christmas today as well as millions of Christians who celebrate the festival. Does this mean that Christmas is not merely a religious occasion and has crossed the boundaries of ideology and faith?

Cusack: Christmas has become a cultural event, associated with the giving of gifts and lavish meals with friends and family. Many religions have festivals around that time. Chanukah, which means dedication in Hebrew, is an eight-day long “festival of lights,” in which each day is marked by the lighting of a candle in the menorah - multi-branched candlestick. The festival commemorates the victory of Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers over the Seleucids, and the reclamation of the Temple in Jerusalem for the worship of Yahweh. The Jewish calendar date at which it begins is the eve of Kislev 25, which generally falls in December. Special prayers and blessings are recited each day.

Buddhist communities around the world hold Bodhi Day gatherings on December 8. This commemorates the enlightenment of the Buddha, born Siddhartha Gautama. Vesak is the festival that celebrates his birth. Buddhists put fairy lights on Bodhi trees or ficus religiosa, and hang ornaments representing the Three Jewels of Buddhism - the Buddha, the Dharma or law, and the Sangha or monastic community. Rice and milk are eaten to recall the meal the Buddha ate after he abandoned strict asceticism.

Ziabari: What are some of the most notable Christmas traditions that continue to be observed today? Why are they important?

Cusack: The popularity of decorating a pine tree as part of Christmas also has its origins in non-Christian traditions from the northern parts of Europe where Yule was celebrated at the mid-winter solstice. The traditional Christmas tree is an evergreen, whose green branches defy the chill winter and point to the ultimate victory of the sun.

The idea of giving gifts may be traced to the Bible, in which the infant Jesus was presented with gold, frankincense and myrrh by the Three Wise Men, named in apocryphal texts as Caspar, Balthasar and Melchior. This received a boost in the Middle Ages, when Boxing Day, December 26, became a holiday when masters gave their apprentices and other employees “boxes,” that is, gifts.

Ziabari: What do you think is the most important message that the celebration of Christmas sends?

Cusack: The message of Christmas now is largely about gathering with friends and family. The consumerist aspects are deeply integrated into the Western celebration, though Asian countries are generally less materialistic.

In South Korea, Christmas is a public holiday even though around 70% of the population is not Christian. There are many Christmas trees with twinkling lights, often with a red cross on the top, and lavish Christmas displays in shop windows are common. For many non-Christians, it is fashionable to attend a Christmas church service, and groups of people walk through neighborhoods singing Christmas carols. Christmas cake, though not European-style fruit cake but either sponge cake with cream or an ice-cream cake, is a popular seasonal indulgence. But Christmas present-buying and giving to everyone at the office or at school is not part of the Korean Christmas.

Ziabari: As you noted, family gatherings are pivotal to Christmas. How do you think Christmas bridges the gaps between the family members and goes to heal family wounds at a time that families have become vulnerable to conflict and tensions of the digital, industrial age?

Cusack: The television comedy series Seinfeld introduced the world to the tradition of Festivus in Season 9, which aired in December 1997. It is traditionally held on December 23 and has the slogan “A Festivus for the rest of us!” Based on the Seinfeld episode, the celebration has an aluminum pole which is undecorated, contrasting with the traditional Christmas tree, and at the dinner there is an “airing of grievances,” in which everyone complains, and also the “feats of strength,” in which the host must be pinned. Festivus has more loosely been adopted by those who are not religious as a festival for anyone who just likes getting together with friends or family at a ritual occasion.

Ziabari: Does the legacy of Christmas as a cultural celebration that connects many people with different backgrounds and belongings need protection? Is Christmas susceptible to oblivion?

Cusack: The only people who advance this type of argument are generally Christians who feel threatened by multi-culturalism. For those who believe multi-ethnic, multi-faith communities are more interesting and more open-minded, these sorts of ideas are not important. Christmas is a celebration in a civic sense as well as a religious sense, and in that civic space a large number of different communities can participate.

Ziabari: What do you think about the reflection of Christmas and customs associated with it in English literature? Why is Christmas so prominent and omnipresent in the work of writers such as Charles Dickens?

Cusack: Prior to the 20th century, the majority of Western people lived in poverty and the sadness of their exclusion from society created great and moving literature. Think of The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson, a heartrending tale of a pious, orphaned child who dies in the snow on New Year's Eve. She has visions of a Christmas tree and feast before a shooting star heralds her death and her grandmother comes to take her to heaven. In the 21st century, there is still terrible poverty, and Christmas represents a time when generous acts are possible as in Dickens' A Christmas Carol. In Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, the four March girls, who are not well off, give up all their Christmas treats to a poverty-stricken family.

Ziabari: To the people of countries in which Christmas is not celebrated, Santa Claus and Christmas trees are the most significant representations of the festival. Where did they come from?

Cusack: The figure of Santa Claus, the jolly bringer of presents to good children, is derived from St. Nicholas, a fourth-century Christian bishop in the Greek city of Myra, now in modern Turkey. Two famous stories are told of him that associate him with gifts and children. First, he rescued three girls from a life of prostitution by giving their father three bags of gold for their dowries. Second, he brought back to life three young boys who had been murdered and pickled by an evil inn-keeper.

Santa Claus has associations with the North Pole and elves and reindeer are his companions in general Western folklore. In the Netherlands, St. Nicholas, or Sinterklaas, brings children presents on December 5, the day before the feast of St. Nicholas, December 6.

Ziabari: And any final thoughts?

Cusack: Here are a few other celebrations that happen at the same time as Christmas; one ancient, two modern.

Saturnalia was the Roman winter solstice festival, which was characterized by giving gifts, charity to the poor, the decoration of trees and special family dinners. The state canceled executions, war was never declared at this time, and the rich were expected to pay several months' rent for the poor or perform other acts of generosity. It started outs as a festival in honor of Saturn to celebrate the planting of autumn and winter crops, and in the first century AD the date was fixed at December 25.

Two final modern December holidays are given in conclusion. The first is Zamenhof Day, a festival in honor of Ludwig Zamenhof, the inventor of the “universal language” Esperanto, celebrated on December 15, Zamenhof's actual birthday. The second is Kwanzaa, an African-American festival established in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga. It is celebrated from December 26 to January 1, mostly in America, though it has spread to Canada.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer's editorial policy.

The post Christmas Is a Time for Acts of Generosity appeared first on Fair Observer.

[ruminativerabbi]

Breaching the Wall Between Church and State

A case currently before the Supreme Court is one that Jewish citizens should take very seriously…despite the fact that it appears to have nothing to do with Jews at all.

The case has to do with Lutherans, and specifically with a church in Missouri, the Trinity Lutheran Church in the town of Columbia. At first blush, the whole issue seems wholly unremarkable. The church operates a daycare center and a preschool on its premises, and maintains a playground in which the children can play outdoors. But the playground has a surface that could be dangerous if a child falls, and so the church had the idea of replacing the hard surface with a rubber one. That sounded like a sensible plan forward and so, upon hearing that the State of Missouri was actually offering grants to playground operators to make that specific improvement using the rubber salvaged from recycled tires, the church applied for one…only to be turned down cold because the state’s constitution specifically prohibits the state from spending any public funds “directly or indirectly in the aid of any church.”

This understandably irritated the church leadership and prompted them to sue the State of Missouri on the grounds that the state’s prohibition was in violation both of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. To a non-lawyer like myself, neither argument feels too compelling. The First Amendment forbids Congress from “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion, but that feels like quite the stretch here: the State of Missouri is not forbidding the church from having a rubberized surface in its playground, just declining to pay for it. Nor is it obvious in what sense having one or another sort of playground could be described as the “exercise of religion” in the first place. Moving along, the Equal Protection Clause argument prohibits any state from denying “to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” which means that the law must always be enforced evenly and fairly, and specifically that the rights and freedoms enshrined in our laws cannot be imagined to apply to some citizens but not to others. But bringing the Fourteenth Amendment to bear in this context too feels a bit tenuous: to say that the State of Missouri is denying equal protection under the law to the members of the Trinity Lutheran Church by declining to buy them something sounds like weak argument to me! And then, just to muddy the waters a bit more, the Governor of Missouri, Eric Greitens, announced last week that Missouri will no longer discriminate against religious organizations in the evaluation of grant applications, including applications for improvements like the resurfacing of outdoor playgrounds. That sounds as though it obviates the need for a court decision, since the change in policy has in effect decided the matter in the church’s favor. But neither side apparently wishes for the Supreme Court not to reach a ruling, the one side fearing a change back to the earlier policy under some future administration, and the other side—in effect defending a state policy that no longer exists—feeling themselves nobly fighting to maintain the traditional separation between church and state. This, is, however, hardly a question just for Missourians to worry over.

To understand the larger picture here, it’s necessary to know something about the so-called Blaine Amendment. This goes back a long ways. In 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant called for a constitutional amendment that would formally prohibit the federal government from using public money to fund “sectarian schools,” by which expression he meant non-public schools run by religious organizations. Shortly after that, Congressman James G. Blaine, a Republican from Maine, proposed just such an amendment. It was, to say the least, contentious. Congress, in fact, was split: the bill passed in the House of Representatives by a whopping 173 votes, but failed to clear the two-thirds majority in the Senate necessary for a proposed amendment to be sent to the states for ratification.  There is, therefore, no specific constitutional amendment that prohibits the use of public money to fund religious schools.

But on the state level, things were and are different. In the wake of the failure of the Blaine Amendment on the federal level, all but ten of the states approved similar amendments to their own state constitutions. (For the record, the ten are Arkansas, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and West Virginia.) And most of those amendments remain in effect to this day. An effort to get rid of the “Blaine” amendment in Florida in 2012, for example, failed, as have similar efforts over the years in New York, Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Massachusetts. Only one state, Louisiana, had such an amendment once but doesn’t now, but that didn’t come about as the result of a successful effort to repeal the law but rather by the adoption in 1974 of an entirely new state constitution. As far as the Missouri playground goes, then, it is in a state that has a “Blaine” amendment in its constitution and that theoretically prohibits the state from approving the expenditure of public funds for improvements to religious institutions, including schools.

Judging the matter from where I personally sit and look out at the world is complicated.

On the one hand, the children who attend the preschool in the Trinity Lutheran Church are citizens of Missouri whose parents pay the taxes that fund the government’s initiatives on behalf of the state’s citizenry, including its children. So, you could argue, why shouldn’t they benefit from a program designed neither to foster religion in general nor to promote any specific kind of religious observance, but merely to make some of Missouri’s children a bit safer when they play outdoors? When put that way, it sounds more than reasonable for the church to get its grant! On the other hand, though, the arguments against using public money to redo the surface of that playground also sound cogent to me: by not extending grant money to churches even when they operate in a way that does not specifically promote religion, Missouri is—or, rather, was—guaranteeing that none of its citizens would end up indirectly breaching the traditional war between church and state by being forced to see their tax money funneled to religious institutions that are traditionally supposed in our country not to rely on public funds. It’s also interesting to me that none of the authors of any of the essays and articles I’ve read in the last week about this topic appears to know much about preschools…or at least not enough to wonder out loud if it is conceivable that a preschool or a daycare run by a church does not teach religion to the children enrolled there. We have a preschool at Shelter Rock and we certainly do our best to teach the boys and girls about our festivals, our rituals, and the basic tenets of our faith as part of the educational program we offer. Are we supposed to imagine that the programming at the church’s preschool does not teach, thus promote, Christianity at all? Not a single Bible story? Not a tiny Christmas tree? I don’t think so!

Related to all of this—and not even in a particularly subtle way—is the whole question of parochial school vouchers.

For all the years Joan and I lived in British Columbia, we found it natural for the province—the Canadian equivalent of the state—to pay for the secular education of children in Jewish day schools and other parochial settings, thus leaving their parents’ tuition payments to cover the costs connected with the specifically religious instruction also offered by the school. This arrangement is not at all contentious: British Columbians are all used to the idea that it only makes sense that the children of all citizens who pay their taxes receive the benefit of a free secular education, not just those who send their kids to schools run by the province and not by religious societies. (Why this only applies in some provinces is one of the mysteries of Canadian life, one with roots in the original efforts of the nation’s founders to bring Quebec into the original confederation in 1867. Perhaps I’ll write about that some other time.) And it’s not a bad arrangement at all: all children are served, all taxpayers receive some bang for their buck, and the province plays no role in the religious education of the children in parochial schools.

Here, on the other hand, the wall between church and state is supposed to be impenetrable and fully opaque. The siren call of tuition vouchers—in effect, the imposition of the Canadian system on the American one—is more than seductive…surely, we would all like nothing more than for day school education to cost less, ideally dramatically less, and thus become accessible to larger numbers of children! Could it be possible for the government to underwrite the cost of children’s secular education without breaching the wall between church and state? That, and not whether there should be such a wall in the first place, is the right question for our Jewish community to be asking.

I know from first-hand experience that such an arrangement can and does work in B.C. But it is also true that, at least in my opinion, no good can ever come to the Jewish community from any effort to breach the wall meant by our Founders to keep the spiritual and religious lives of Americans completely away from government control. We have all made our peace with the petty chinks in that wall that characterize American life at its least inclusive: a calendar of federal holidays that specifically includes Christian festivals, the almost universal presence of Christian symbols in post offices and other governmental venues in the weeks leading up to Christmas, the apparently annual White House seder (I’ll write about my strongly negative feelings in that regard on some other occasion), federal postage stamps celebrating the religious holidays of some faiths (including our own) but not others, and the use of Bibles as part of the oath-taking ceremony in court and in public investiture ceremonies, including the presidential inauguration. (To be fair, not every president has taken the oath of office with his hand resting on a Bible. But only John Quincy Adams, Franklin Pierce, and Theodore Roosevelt chose not to do so.)  We can and do live with all of that. But diverting public funds to underwrite church-run schools, daycare centers, youth groups, senior centers, etc., is in a different category entirely and is not something to which we should quietly acquiesce.

The Canadian system may well be something we could and should consider. But, in the end, the question is whether that could be done without weakening the wall our founders erected between church and state, which consequence will never be in our best interests. We are a tiny people who constitute less than 2% of the population in these United States. There are ten times as many American Catholics, and almost twenty-five times as many American Protestants, as there are American Jews. It’s true that we occupy a much larger place in the American psyche than our numbers would appear to justify. But, in the end, we are a small minority that flourishes precisely because the government keeps out of religious affairs and leaves us to chart our own course forward as we see fit. It will always be in our best interests to maintain that specific aspect of the status quo. The Supreme Court should not work at cross-purposes with our founders’ clear vision of not only a division between church and state, but an ironclad wall between the two.

[topworldhistory]

From the earliest Fall feasts to the first Thanksgiving football game to the Macy's Day parade, here's the full background on how the U.S. holiday evolved to the tradition it is today.

There’s no holiday that’s more quintessentially American than Thanksgiving. Learn how it has evolved from its religious roots as Spanish and English days of feasting and prayer to become the football-watching, parade-marching, gut-stuffing event it is today.

1541: Spanish Explorers Hold a Feast

English settlers weren’t the first to celebrate a thanksgiving feast on American soil. According to the Texas Society Daughters of the American Colonists, the very first thanksgiving was observed by Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. Accompanied by 1,500 men in full armor, Coronado left Mexico City in 1540 and marched north in search of gold. As the company camped in Palo Duro Canyon in 1541, Padre Fray Juan de Padilla called for a feast of prayer and thanksgiving, beating out the Plymouth Thanksgiving by 79 years.

1598: A Second Early Feast Among Spanish 

A second Texas town claims to have been the real site of the first Thanksgiving in America. In 1598, a wealthy Spanish dignitary named Juan de Oñate was granted lands among the Pueblo Indians in the American Southwest. He decided to blaze a new path directly across the Chihuahua Desert to reach the Rio Grande. Oñate’s party of 500 soldiers, women and children barely survived the harrowing journey, nearly dying of thirst and exhaustion when they reached the river. (Two horses reportedly drank so much water that their stomachs burst.)

After 10 days of rest and recuperation near modern-day San Elizario, Texas, Oñate ordered a feast of thanksgiving, which one of his men described in his journal: "We built a great bonfire and roasted the meat and fish, and then all sat down to a repast the like of which we had never enjoyed before…We were happy that our trials were over; as happy as were the passengers in the Ark when they saw the dove returning with the olive branch in his beak, bringing tidings that the deluge had subsided."

August 9, 1607: Colonists, Native Americans Feast in Maine

There are also competing claims as to what was the first feast of thanksgiving actually shared with Native Americans. In 1607, English colonists at Fort St. George assembled for a harvest feast and prayer meeting with the Abenaki Indians of Maine.

But some historians claim that the Spanish founders of St. Augustine, Florida shared a festive meal with the native Timucuan people when their ships came ashore way back in 1565.

READ MORE: Did Florida Host the First Thanksgiving?

First Thanksgiving Meal (TV-G; 2:38)

November 1621: The Plymouth Feast

According to American tradition, this is when Thanksgiving really began. Archival evidence is slim, but according to a letter from Plymouth colonist Edward Winslow dated December 11, 1621, the colonists wanted to celebrate their first good crop of corn and barley grown with generous assistance from the native Wampanoag Indians.

So the English colonists sent out four men to kill “as much fowl” as they could in one day, and invited King Massasoit and 90 of his men “so we might after a more special manner rejoice together.” The king brought five deer to the three-day party, which 19th-century New Englanders would later promote as the origin of modern Thanksgiving.

READ MORE: Who Was at the First Thanksgiving?

November 23, 1775: Boston Patriots Call for Thanksgiving

In the run-up to the Revolutionary War, a group of Boston patriots published a pointedly anti-British proclamation for a “Day of public Thanksgiving” throughout the Massachusetts Colony to be held November 23, 1775:

“That such a Band of Union, founded upon the best Principles, unites the American Colonies; That our Rights and Priviledges . . . are so far preserved to us, notwithstanding all the Attempts of our barbarous Enemies to deprive us of them. And to offer up humble and fervent Prayers to Almighty GOD, for the whole British Empire; especially for the UNITED AMERICAN COLONIES."

READ MORE: Who Were the Sons of Liberty?

December 18, 1777: 13 Colonies Celebrate a Thanksgiving

To celebrate the victory of American Continental forces over the British in the Battle of Saratoga, commander-in-chief George Washington called for Thursday, December 18 to be set aside for “Solemn Thanksgiving and Praise.” It was the first time that all 13 colonies celebrated a day of thanksgiving in unison.

How the Battle of Saratoga Turned the Tide (TV-14; 2:22)

READ MORE: The Battle of Saratoga

November 26, 1789: George Washington Calls for Day of Thanksgiving

George Washington, now serving as the first President of the United States, took Congress’s recommendation to call for a national day of thanksgiving and prayer in gratitude for the end of the Revolutionary War. Washington observed the holiday by attending church and then donating money and food to prisoners and debtors in New York City jails.

November 1846: Sarah Josepha Hale Lobbies for National Holiday

Sarah Josepha Hale, who started championing a national Thanksgiving holiday in 1827 as the editor of Gody’s Lady’s Book, began her 17-year letter-writing campaign in 1846 to convince American presidents that it was time to make Thanksgiving official.

READ MORE: How the 'Mother of Thanksgiving' Lobbied for a National Holiday

Sarah Josepha Hale.

September 28, 1863: 'Mother of Thanksgiving' Appeals to Lincoln

Hale, now 74 years old, penned an impassioned plea to President Abraham Lincoln to set aside a specific day for annual Thanksgiving celebrations nationwide. "It now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution." Hale wrote a similar letter to Secretary of State William Seward, who may have been the one to convince Lincoln it was a good idea.

October 3, 1863: Lincoln Proclaims Thanksgiving Holiday

To a country torn apart by the Civil War, President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving Day, according to Hale’s longstanding wish.

“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States… to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” read the proclamation, written by Seward, “and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.”

November 30, 1876: First Thanksgiving Football Game

The very first Thanksgiving football game was played between Princeton and Yale in 1876. American football was in its infancy, but the sport and the Thanksgiving tradition quickly caught on. By 1893, 40,000 spectators showed up to watch the Princeton-Yale Thanksgiving game in New York’s Manhattan Field.

READ MORE: Why Do Americans Watch Football on Thanksgiving?

November 27, 1924: First Macy's Parade

Originally called the “Christmas Parade,” Macy’s department store in New York City launched its first-ever parade on Thanksgiving Day, 1924. The six-mile parade route featured live elephants and camels from the Central Park Zoo. The animals were replaced by oversized rubber balloons in 1927.

‘Andy the Alligator’ in the 1933 parade seems dwarfed in size compared to the balloons of today.

View the 13 images of this gallery on the original article

READ MORE: The First Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

November 23, 1939 - FDR Moves the Date

In 1939, Thanksgiving was set to fall on November 30, leaving only 24 shopping days until Christmas. Fearing that the shortened Christmas season would impact the economy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order moving it a week earlier to November 23. Critics called it “Franksgiving” and Congress officially moved the holiday back to its current place in 1941.

WWII Thanksgiving (TV-PG; 1:01)

READ MORE: Thanksgiving History Facts and Trivia

November 19, 1963: First Turkey Pardon

While claims have been made that Abraham Lincoln or Harry Truman were the first presidents to pardon a Thanksgiving turkey, the credit belongs to John F. Kennedy, who spared the life of a 55-pound gobbler in 1963. “We’ll just let this one grow,” joked JFK. “It’s our Thanksgiving present to him.” The impromptu turkey reprieve was just days before Kennedy’s fateful trip to Dallas.

While Kennedy was the first to send a gift turkey back to the farm, it was President George W. Bush in 1989 who began the annual White House tradition of officially pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey. 

READ MORE: A Brief History of the Presidential Turkey Pardon

Get the history behind the holiday. Access hundreds of hours of commercial-free series and specials with HISTORY Vault.https://ift.tt/2OwTRdT

from Stories - HISTORY https://ift.tt/35tW54R November 22, 2019 at 12:26AM