Tanya’s Christmas tale at Dinner without Crayons completed my day Saturday.
Category: Holidays
Boxing Day
Today is Boxing Day and St. Stephen’s Day in England, Canada, and several other countries. The origins of this national holiday are not certain, but the holiday might have started from an old custom of wealthy estate-owners giving small gifts or money, wrapped in boxes, to their servants and those who worked for them. Servants were needed on Christmas to help with their masters’ holiday events, so they often were given a rest the next day. St. Stephen is honored today for being the first Christian martyr, having been stoned to death for blasphemy.
The Gift of the Magi
This is a Christmas season perennial here at NewMexiKen. Go ahead, read it again. It makes everything about the season seem simpler yet more precious.
Merry Christmas!
The Gift of the Magi
by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), 1906.
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And
sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two
at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and
the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent
imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.
Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven
cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
Best story of the day
As far as I’m concerned
. . . the Grinch was too softhearted.
Idle thought
We’re half-way from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve.
How you doin’?
Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus
13,570,357 views in less than a month.
Link from Tanya.
Poinsettias are our friends
Like Christmas trees, holly, mistletoe and other “pagan plants,” poinsettias have long been used to inject festive, flora-based flair into homes during the holidays. It has also long been believed that the leaves of these beautiful red plants from Mexico are poisonous when ingested by humans. This is simply not true as poinsettias are nontoxic to humans and animals.
Still, eating a poinsettia isn’t the wisest idea as doing so may result in the same effects as drinking two too many glasses of spiked eggnog: an upset stomach and possible vomiting. The poinsettias-will-kill-you myth is believed to have started in 1918 when a child in Hawaii was falsely believed to have died from poinsettia poisoning.
Not only are poinsettias not deadly but they’re also believed to be one of numerous houseplants that are effective in absorbing pollutants for improved indoor air quality.
I don’t have any lettuce so I may try a BPT for lunch — bacon, poinsettia and tomato.
O Tannenbaum
I see that Costco has cut Christmas trees for sale this year. That’s a first I think. They look like nice trees too, and a decent price.
But Donna tells me you have to buy a pack of six trees.
The true meaning of Christmas
I love nativity sets because of all the Christmas decorations they express most closely the true meaning of the season.
This one with penguins is particularly rich in religious symbolism.
Three wise men
Hanukkah
Hanukkah began at sunset yesterday and lasts for eight days.
The story of Hanukkah is the struggle for religious freedom. Over two thousand years ago, the foreign rulers of the Israelites decreed that the Jews bow down to the image of their leader, Antiochus, whose statue was erected in the Temple.
But the Jewish people were forbidden by the law of God to bow to statues or idols. Inspired by Mattathias and led by his son, Judah, a small group of Jews called Maccabees (meaning “hammer”) rebelled. The Maccabees risked their lives to live according to Jewish law and to prevent this desecration of their sacred Temple. Although the Maccabees won, the Temple in Jerusalem, the Jews’ holy place, was destroyed. The Jews had to clean and repair the Temple, and when they were finished they rededicated it to God by rekindling the menorah, the candelabrum symbolizing the eternal covenant between God and the Jewish people and the continuity of tradition through the generations. But there was only enough olive oil to fuel the menorah for one night, and it would have taken eight days to make more oil. The legend of the miracle at Hanukkah says that the one day supply of oil burned for eight days and nights until more oil could be made.
There are eight days of Hanukkah corresponding to the legend of the miracle of the oil in the Temple. Foods cooked in oil are traditional, particularly potato pancakes, called latkes. Today, candles are used instead of oil. On each successive night, the number of candles lit increases by one. Prayers accompany the lighting of the candles.
Hanukkah is celebrated in the home beginning on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev. Even though it is not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, Hanukkah is widely celebrated as a major holy day of the Jewish liturgical calendar. Given its proximity to Christmas, Hanukkah has taken on importance in the United States and many other countries where Christmas has been commercialized.
It is traditional to give small gifts to children on each night of Hanukkah. The party atmosphere is enhanced with songs, games and toys such as a dreidel – a spinning top. Yet the religious celebration – the lighting of the candles with accompanying prayers – must come before the party.
And, from Jewish Heritage Online Magazine, an explanation of Hanukkah jelly donuts. The lesson begins:
There are two types of Jews at Hanukkah time. There are those who believe that Israelis eat jelly donuts on Hanukkah because the oil in which the donuts are fried is connected to the miracle commemorated on Hanukkah. Others hold that Israelis eat jelly donuts because somehow the sweetness of the jelly inside is related to the festival. Etymologically, if not historically, “Others” have a good case.
Precisely
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanks for being a reader of NewMexiKen.
I’ll be back Sunday or Monday.
Today’s Poster
Veterans Day originated as “Armistice Day” on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation in 1954 to change the name to Veterans Day as a way to honor those who served in all American wars. The day honors living military veterans with parades and speeches across the nation. A national ceremony takes place at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
21.9 million
The number of military veterans in the United States in 2009.
1.5 million
The number of female veterans in 2009.
Source: 2009 American Community Survey
There were 1,700,000 fewer veterans in 2009 than there were in 2007, the last figures I posted.
A Holiday to End All Wars discusses the commemorations on November 11th in various countries.
Best Houdini’s birthday line of the day, so far
“Typical memories. But as I recall, the special excitement of Halloween didn’t come from candy or costumes or dark, whispery streets. The overwhelming thrill came from going out of the house at night and wandering freely around the neighborhood with no parents.
“Halloween was a night of incredible freedom.”
Columbus
They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned…. They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane…. They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.
Christopher Columbus writing in his log upon meeting the Arawaks.
I asked seven anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians if they would rather have been a typical Indian or a typical European in 1491. None was delighted by the question, because it required judging the past by the standards of today—a fallacy disparaged as “presentism” by social scientists. But every one chose to be an Indian.
Thinking about Columbus Day
I am well aware of the feelings among many American Indians about Columbus Day. One Lakota woman who worked for me used to ask if she could come in and work on Columbus Day, a federal holiday.
My feeling though is that we can’t have enough holidays and so I choose to think of Columbus Day as the Italian-American holiday. Nothing wrong with that. We have an African-American holiday on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. We have the Irish-American celebration that is St. Patrick’s Day. And Cinco de Mayo is surely the Mexican-American holiday, a much larger celebration here than in most of Mexico.
So, instead of protesting Columbus Day, perhaps American Indians should organize and bring about a holiday of their very own. Given the great diversity among Indian nations (and, lets face it, a proclivity for endless debate), the tribes might never reach agreement, though, so I will suggest a date.
The day before Columbus Day.
Almost everywhere else in the world
. . . Labor Day is the first of May.
Bastille Day
July 14th is Bastille Day in France, a national holiday. Even Google gets in on the act (google.fr, that is).
The people of Paris rose up and decided to march on the Bastille, a state prison that symbolized the absolutism and arbitrariness of the Ancien Regime.
The storming of the Bastille, on July 14, 1789, immediately became a symbol of historical dimensions; it was proof that power no longer resided in the King or in God, but in the people, in accordance with the theories developed by the Philosophes of the 18th century.
On July 16, the King recognized the tricolor cockade: the Revolution had succeeded.
For all citizens of France, the storming of the Bastille symbolizes, liberty, democracy and the struggle against all forms of oppression.
Embassy of France
Happy Independence Day
It was the Declaration of Independence that was approved by the Second Continental Congress on this date in 1776.
Independence itself was voted two days earlier. We celebrate the anniversary of the birth certificate, not the birth.
The signing of the embossed copy we recognize as THE Declaration of Independence began on August 2nd.
How Fireworks Work
Father’s Day
More than 60 countries celebrate Father’s Day today, the third Sunday in June.
Happy Happy Day
According to a formula worked out by a British academic, today is the happiest day of the year (I guess he means in the northern hemisphere).
How’s it working out for you so far?
Flag Day
On this date in 1777 the Continental Congress approved a national flag:
In 1916 President Wilson issued a proclamation declaring June 14 Flag Day. The present design of the flag was established in 1818 — thirteen stripes to represent the original states and a star for each state. Until 1912 the arrangement of the stars was left to the discretion of the flag-maker. The current flag with 50 stars was established on July 4, 1960, when Hawaii was admitted to the Union. The Star-Spangled Banner at Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 had 15 stars and 15 stripes. |
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“Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance by Act of Congress on this date in 1954.