Category: Holidays

Myths of Modern America

Wash Park Prophet concludes we are a Christian nation only in Gallup polls. The entire entry is worth a read; he ends with this:

Most Americans aren’t really very different, even though we aren’t as trained to recognize it as such. Many Japanese parents teach their children Confucian proverbs. Americans are as likely to offer their children moral guidance form Aesop and the Brothers Grimm and Winnie the Pooh, as they are from the Proverbs or the Book of Job.

This is why there will never be a full fledged theocracy in the United States. While Christianity has made some narrow inroads into the American mythology, for example in the Pledge of Allegiance and the “In God We Trust” motto, which were themselves bad decisions, the Christian majority is illusory. Many nominal Christans in America don’t believe in Noah much more than they do in Batman, and many people who give doctrinaire answers on the phone to pollsters asking about the miracles of Christianity and the Creation story, are about as sincere as a parent asked by a child about Santa Claus. Decorum and good breeding dictate a certain answer, but that answer isn’t always sincere when the truth really counts.

Best line of the day, so far

“Jesus says Christmas shouldn’t be about picking fights and organizing boycotts. All that legalistic nitpicking just reminds him of the Pharisees. Do you really think that if Jesus returns to Earth tomorrow, his priority is going to be organizing a boycott of Target stores? You think he’s going to appear on Fox to say, ‘Worry about genocide and hunger later – first, let’s battle with liberals over what holiday greeting to use’?”

Nicholas Kristof channeling St. Peter in a conversation with President Bush

It’s the Thought That Counts

Scott Adams on gifting:

I asked my fiancé what she wants for Christmas and she was nice enough to e-mail me a specific suggestion for a hard-to-find item.

I copied the product name from her e-mail, pasted it into the Froogle search engine, and found the cheapest one on the Internet. That took about 12 seconds. It took another minute to enter my address and credit card information.

When it comes to gift-giving, they say it’s the thought that counts. So far I had 72 seconds invested in my future wife. I wondered if that was enough.

Adams continues.

Now, that’s the spirit

CONWAY, Ark. – A group of Arkansas college students has set the world record for the world’s largest Christmas stocking.

As official representative of Guinness World Records, Stuart Claxton of England flew in from New York to measure the stocking Saturday. And it met, and surpassed, the mark at 53 feet, 10 inches long and 26 feet, 112 inches wide from heel to toe.

The red, white, green and gold sock with the 30-foot zipper beat the previous record set in December 2004 by the community of Old Town Spring, Texas. The Texas stocking was 40 feet, 6 inches long and 15 feet 6 inches wide, Claxton said.
…

They stuffed it with 600 teddy bears, 570 stuffed toys, more than 1,000 toy trucks, 423 Barbie dolls, 380 baby dolls, 682 books, some 200 board games, 163 sets of Legos, 75 footballs, 11 bicycles and thousands more toys. The toys will be distributed through charitable organizations to children around the state.

Before the measuring, workers pushed wagons and dollies loaded with toys and rode bicycles into the stocking. Promoters also reported more than 500 coats, hats and assorted clothes were donated.

AP via Yahoo! News

Just think what they could have accomplished if the liberals hadn’t ruined Christmas the Holidays.

Stamp out Christmas

2006 Christmas StampContrary to what some people on the internets are claiming, it’s not more anti-Christian secularism. The real reason the Postal Service did not release a new Madonna and Child Christmas stamp this year is because they had an overstock of last year’s stamp and wanted to sell them before the price of postage goes up to 39 cents on January 8 and makes the stamp nearly obsolete.

There will be a new Madonna stamp (no, not that Madonna) next Christmas. Madonna and Child stamps had been released each year since 1966.

You may click on the image to see a larger version of the 2006 stamp based on a painting by 18th century Peruvian artist Ignacio Chacón. Feliz Navidad.

Best line of the day, Scrooge division

“[I]f shivering in the dark outside a Best Buy at 3:30 a.m. in frigid November drizzle waiting for a half-price deal on a cheap-ass Chinese-made DVD player isn’t the very definition of self-immolating karmic torture, I don’t know what is.”

Mark Morford in a column titled: “Eat My Holiday Cheer: Screw joy and togetherness. It’s all about retail, just like Jesus would have wanted.”

The Pilgrims

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after have a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

From the only contemporary account of the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving, a letter by Edward Winslow dated December 11, 1621.

The Thanksgivings before the Pilgrims

To see what the first Thanksgiving was like you have to go to: Texas. Texans claim the first Thanksgiving in America actually took place in little San Elizario, a community near El Paso, in 1598 — twenty-three years before the Pilgrims’ festival. For several years they have staged a reenactment of the event that culminated in the Thanksgiving celebration: the arrival of Spanish explorer Juan de Onate on the banks of the Rio Grande. De Onate is said to have held a big Thanksgiving festival after leading hundreds of settlers on a grueling 350-mile long trek across the Mexican desert.

Then again, you may want to go to Virginia.. At the Berkeley Plantation on the James River they claim the first Thanksgiving in America was held there on December 4th, 1619….two years before the Pilgrims’ festival….and every year since 1958 they have reenacted the event. In their view it’s not the Mayflower we should remember, it’s the Margaret, the little ship which brought 38 English settlers to the plantation in 1619. The story is that the settlers had been ordered by the London company that sponsored them to commemorate the ship’s arrival with an annual day of Thanksgiving. Hardly anybody outside Virginia has ever heard of this Thanksgiving, but in 1963 President Kennedy officially recognized the plantation’s claim.

Rick Shenkman at the History News Network

What historians do know about Thanksgiving

Conclusion from a thoughtful and thorough article in The Christian Science Monitor (November 27, 2002).

There are many myths surrounding Thanksgiving. Here are nine things we do know are true about the holiday.

1. The first Thanksgiving was a harvest celebration in 1621 that lasted for three days.

2. The feast most likely occurred between Sept. 21 and Nov. 11.

3. Approximately 90 Wampanoag Indians and 52 colonists – the latter mostly women and children – participated.

4. The Wampanoag, led by Chief Massasoit, contributed at least five deer to the feast.

5. Cranberry sauce, potatoes – white or sweet – and pies were not on the menu.

6. The Pilgrims and Wampanoag communicated through Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe, who knew English because he had associated with earlier explorers. [In fact, Squanto (or Tisquantum), had spent several years in Europe and England.]

7. Besides meals, the event included recreation and entertainment.

8. There are only two surviving descriptions of the first Thanksgiving. One is in a letter by colonist Edward Winslow. He mentions some of the food and activities. The second description was in a book written by William Bradford 20 years afterward. His account was lost for almost 100 years.

9. Abraham Lincoln named Thanksgiving an annual holiday in 1863.

Thanksgiving regulations

From The New Yorker (published November 24, 2003):

Article XII of the 1663 Jamestown Convention has been amended as of this date to include the following:

1. Thanksgiving-dinner guests are no longer required to play Scrabble, Go Fish, or Monopoly with children under the age of ten. Withholding of liquor is coercion.

9. Reminiscences that touch upon parental favoritism, unpaid personal loans, and arrests of blood relations’ children are discouraged.

10. You are entitled to ten naps per twelve-hour Thanksgiving Day period. Moments after 4 p.m., when time itself seems to have stopped, do not count as naps. Do not commence a nap when a blood relation older than you is addressing you directly.

There’s several more.

Hockey in June. Mistletoe in October. Fruitcakes Are Forever.

But one department store, at least, has resisted the pressure to start celebrating Christmas even before the leaves have fallen from the trees: Nordstrom. The chain, founded in Seattle in 1901, does not unveil its holiday decorations until the day after Thanksgiving.

“We think it is good policy to celebrate one holiday at a time,” said Pete Nordstrom, the president of Nordstrom stores.

From an article in The New York Times

God bless you Nordstrom.

Bah! Humbug!

It appears I have been tagged with a holiday meme. Blame Reecie.

Name 3 people you absolutely miss right this moment that you haven’t seen in some time.
1) Two that matter most at Christmas are Mom and G’ma. Long departed; missed every day, especially this time of the year.
2) No one else. I’d go see them.

Name 3 things you miss about home during the holidays (be it people, smells, foods, whatever).
1) I don’t do a Christmas tree and I miss having one, though not enough to buy and decorate the damn thing. I hate buying and decorating Christmas trees.
2) A real fire in the fireplace, not just fake logs and gas. This year I will have a real fire.
3) For some years I have visited my daughters at Christmas and it’s terrific, especially when my sons can be there too (and the spouses and kids). But it would be nice to have them all at my house one year. I’d get a Christmas tree.

Name 1 holiday memory that you have from childhood that you will never forget.
I can’t remember.

Name at least 1 favorite book or movie that always reminds you of the holidays.
O.Henry’s The Gift of the Magi, which I post on NewMexiKen each year in full. Elf is good. Bad Santa is a fun film, but not as a “Christmas” movie. Don’t make that mistake.

Name your top 3 4 favorite holiday songs that get you in the mood to celebrate.
1) “Jingle Bell Rock” performed by my granddaughter Kiley.
2) The Charlie Brown version of “O Tannebaum.”
3) The Drifters “White Christmas.”
4) The Stevie Nicks version of “Silent Night,” but that’s a whole different mood to celebrate.

If you could go anywhere other than home for the holidays, where would you choose to go and who would you want to bring along?
Bethlehem. I’m mean, why not? At least once. I’d take my children and their spouses and significant other and my grandchildren. And a few friends. London and Rome, too, on the way. Or Kauai.

The Grinch or Rudolph?
Rudolph. He showed the other reindeer, the bastards.

Formal holiday dinner or casual get-together food?
Probably dinner on Thanksgiving (that is what Thanksgiving has become all about). With cranberries. Casual food on Christmas and New Year’s Day. As long as one of those meals includes the traditional lasagna.

Name the best holiday gift you ever received and why.
What, and piss everyone else off. No, way.

Describe the funniest holiday moment you’ve ever had.
I guess when Ken, the oldest, was about 19 months old. He got up earlier than his parents and undecorated the Christmas tree, taking every ornament off that he could reach and lining them all up in a nice row on the sofa.

Another one was when the kids were little and my mother visited just before Christmas to buy presents. When we suggested clothes and underwear and things, she said, “OK, but I’ll have to get them toys, too. I’m not going to be remembered as the underwear grandma.”

Name a holiday memory that truly warmed your heart.
I made my children a puppet theater one year. Nothing elaborate, but kind of cool. Their mom made them a passle of puppets, including one that looked like each of the four of them. Thinking about being Santa for all those years warms my heart pretty good.

Name your top 3 favorite TV specials that frequent the airwaves during the holiday season.
1) A Charlie Brown Christmas.
2) The Christmas Story. The kid will shoot his eye out.
3) A Christmas Carol. I prefer the George C. Scott version.

I own DVDs of all three.

Sledding, snowball fight, snow angels or building a snowman?
It’s been a long time; I’d like to build a snowman.

Eggnog, hot chocolate, or hot cider?
Eggnog.

Candy canes or fruit cake?
Fruit cake. I like fruit cake.

Favorite holiday cookie: frosted sugar cutout, gingerbread, date-nut, or other?
Frosted sugar cutout.

NewMexiKen believes it is much better to receive than to give, so I won’t pass this meme along to anyone in particular. All bloggers are welcome to give it a try and let us know (in the comments) that you did. Happy Holidays.

Veterans

24.5 million
The number of military veterans in the United States. To quote Functional Ambivalent, “Find one and say thanks.”

1.7 million
The number of veterans who are women.

9.5 million
The number of veterans who are age 65 or older.

2.3 million
The number of black veterans. Additionally, 1.1 million veterans are Hispanic; 276,000 are Asian; 185,000 are American Indian or Alaska native; and 25,000 are native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander.

8.2 million
Number of Vietnam-era veterans. More than 30 percent of all veterans served in Vietnam, the largest share of any period of service. The next largest share of wartime veterans, 3.9 million or fewer than 20 percent, served during World War II.

16%
Percentage of Persian Gulf War veterans who are women. In contrast, women account for 5 percent of World War II vets, 3 percent of Vietnam vets and 2 percent of Korean War vets.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Veterans should be proud. Today is one of the holidays Americans celebrate on a date, not a first or second or third or last Monday, or a fourth Friday. Puts it right up there with Christmas and Independence Day. November 11 is, of course, the date of the Armistice ending World War I. More below.

In honor of all veterans

Arizona Memorial

The Allied powers signed a cease-fire agreement with Germany at Rethondes, France on November 11, 1918, bringing World War I to a close. Between the wars, November 11 was commemorated as Armistice Day in the United States, Great Britain, and France. After World War II, the holiday was recognized as a day of tribute to veterans of both world wars. Beginning in 1954, the United States designated November 11 as Veterans Day to honor veterans of all U.S. wars.

Source: Library of Congress

Official Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Day website.

Photo taken by Donna at the Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.