Category: Holidays

May 30th

May 30th was Memorial Day (or Decoration Day) for over 100 years. According to the Library of Congress:

In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order Number 11 designating May 30 as a memorial day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

The first national celebration of the holiday took place May 30, 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery … Originally known as Decoration Day, at the turn of the century it was designated as Memorial Day. In many American towns, the day is celebrated with a parade. …

In 1971, federal law changed the observance of the holiday to the last Monday in May and extended it to honor all soldiers who died in American wars. A few states continue to celebrate Memorial Day on May 30.

Jeanne d’Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431. She was 19.

Keir Dullea is 74. Michael Pollard J. is 71. Pollard was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for his performance in Bonnie and Clyde.

Gayle Sayers is 67, Wynonna Judd is 46 and Manny Ramirez is 38 today.

Mel Blanc (1908) and Benny Goodman (1909) were born on May 30th.

The first Indianapolis 500 was 99 years ago today (1911).

The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated on May 30th in 1922.

Cinco Cinco

NewMexiKen was going to post Today’s Photo from my Cinco de Mayo trip to Margaritaville, but it seems the pictures are all out of focus.

No, wait, the pictures are fine, it’s me that’s out of focus.

Happy Easter

Three rednecks die and are at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter tells them that they lead sinful lives, never gave a minute’s thought to the Lord, but they can still enter Heaven if they can answer one simple question.

St. Peter asks the first man, “What is Easter?”

The man replies, “Oh, that’s easy, it’s the holiday in November when everybody gets together, eats turkey, and is thankful…”

“Wrong,” replies St. Peter, and proceeds to ask the second man the same question, “What is Easter?”

The second man replies, “No, Easter is the holiday in December when we put up a nice tree, exchange presents, and celebrate the birth of Jesus.”

St. Peter looks at the second man, shakes his head in disgust, looks at the third man and asks, “What is Easter?”

The third man smiles and looks St. Peter in the eye.

“I know what Easter is. Easter is the Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish celebration of Passover. Jesus and his disciples were eating at the last supper and He was later deceived and turned over to the Romans by one of his disciples. The Romans took Him to be crucified and stabbed in the side, made Him wear a crown of thorns, and He was hung on a cross. He was buried in a nearby cave which was sealed off by a large boulder. Every year the boulder is moved aside so that Jesus can come out, and if He sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter.”

Patrick

Just another Briton who conquered Ireland — though in his case spiritually.

The facts about St. Patrick are few. Most derive from the two documents he probably wrote, the autobiographical Confession and the indignant Letter to a slave-taking marauder named Coroticus. Patrick was born in Britain, probably in Wales, around 385 A.D. His father was a Roman official. When Patrick was 16, seafaring raiders captured him, carried him to Ireland, and sold him into slavery. The Christian Patrick spent six lonely years herding sheep and, according to him, praying 100 times a day. In a dream, God told him to escape. He returned home, where he had another vision in which the Irish people begged him to return and minister to them: “We ask thee, boy, come and walk among us once more,” he recalls in the Confession. He studied for the priesthood in France, then made his way back to Ireland.

He spent his last 30 years there, baptizing pagans, ordaining priests, and founding churches and monasteries. His persuasive powers must have been astounding: Ireland fully converted to Christianity within 200 years and was the only country in Europe to Christianize peacefully. Patrick’s Christian conversion ended slavery, human sacrifice, and most intertribal warfare in Ireland. (He did not banish the snakes: Ireland never had any. Scholars now consider snakes a metaphor for the serpent of paganism. Nor did he invent the Shamrock Trinity. That was an 18th-century fabrication.)

David Plotz – Slate Magazine (2000)

There’s much more; follow the link.

Saint Valentine

The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in a The Nuremberg Chronicle, a great illustrated book printed in 1493. [Additional evidence that Valentine was a real person: archaeologists have unearthed a Roman catacomb and an ancient church dedicated to Saint Valentine.] Alongside a woodcut portrait of him, text states that Valentinus was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius the Goth [Claudius II]. Since he was caught marrying Christian couples and aiding any Christians who were being persecuted under Emperor Claudius in Rome [when helping them was considered a crime], Valentinus was arrested and imprisoned. Claudius took a liking to this prisoner — until Valentinus made a strategic error: he tried to convert the Emperor — whereupon this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that didn’t do it, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate [circa 269].

Saints are not supposed to rest in peace; they’re expected to keep busy: to perform miracles, to intercede. Being in jail or dead is no excuse for non-performance of the supernatural. One legend says, while awaiting his execution, Valentinus restored the sight of his jailer’s blind daughter. Another legend says, on the eve of his death, he penned a farewell note to the jailer’s daughter, signing it, “From your Valentine.”

… He is the Patron Saint of affianced couples, bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travellers, young people. He is represented in pictures with birds and roses.

Saints & Angels – Catholic Online

Bracketed material in original.

Roman Holiday

The roots of St. Valentine’s Day lie in the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was celebrated on Feb. 15. For 800 years the Romans had dedicated this day to the god Lupercus. On Lupercalia, a young man would draw the name of a young woman in a lottery and would then keep the woman as a sexual companion for the year.

Pope Gelasius I [492-496] was, understandably, less than thrilled with this custom. So he changed the lottery to have both young men and women draw the names of saints whom they would then emulate for the year (a change that no doubt disappointed a few young men). Instead of Lupercus, the patron of the feast became Valentine. For Roman men, the day continued to be an occasion to seek the affections of women, and it became a tradition to give out handwritten messages of admiration that included Valentine’s name.

American Catholic

February

… from the Roman republican calendar month Februarius, named for Februa, the festival of purification held on the 15th. The name is taken from a Latin word, februare, meaning “to make pure”.

Martin Luther King Jr.

… was born 81 years ago today.

Many may question some of King’s choices and perhaps even some of his motives, but no one can question his unparalleled leadership in a great cause, or his abilities with both the spoken and written word.

There are 10 federal holidays, but only four of them are dedicated to one man: one for Jesus, one for the man given credit for discovering our continent, one for the military and political founder George Washington, and one for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
December 10, 1964
Library of Congress

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.

Continue reading The Gift of the Magi

I did it

Seventeen days ago I told how I had made a playlist of all my Christmas music (468 tracks). The list was designed so that once a song was played, it dropped off. Sometimes while I was blogging, sometimes while I was reading, sometimes while just listening, the playlist dwindled down, like a musical Advent calendar.

It’s on the next-to-last song right now, “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby. Really, the best-selling Christmas song ever.

[To be fair, there were two copies of “White Christmas” by Crosby among the 468 tracks, so the odds were a little less. The very last song was something I’d never heard of or care to hear again, a new-age kind of composition.]

Why didn't they choose a time of the year when stores weren't so crowded?

The date of Easter is determined according to the lunar calendar, while the date of Christmas is fixed on the solar calendar. Before 325, there was no official celebration of the birth of Christ, and Easter was celebrated by some Christians on Passover (a lunar holiday) and by others the following Sunday. The rationale: Christ’s last supper took place on or around Passover, he was crucified on a Friday, and the festival of Easter celebrates his resurrection two days later.

In 325, church officials at the First Council of Nicaea formalized the date of Easter in an effort to get everyone to celebrate on the same day (and also, possibly, to dissociate it from the Jewish Passover feast). From then on, the holiday was celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after March 21, the start of spring.

At the same time, the council inaugurated Christmas by making Dec. 25 the Feast of the Nativity. Because Christmas was not directly related to a lunar holiday, and because it had never been celebrated before—the date of Christ’s birth is not mentioned in the Bible, and questions about it had been settled by a proclamation from the pope just five years earlier—the council was able to establish an unambiguous date for the celebration.

Daniel Engber – Slate Magazine

The name of the person we call Jesus was Yeshua. Jesus is the English version of the Greek version of Yeshua.

BTW, its Joshua at the battle of Jericho and Jesus who was born on Christmas because the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek. There is no sh sound in Greek, hence Iesous. It was still Iesus in the original King James Bible (1611).

Source for information on name, Brian Palmer – Slate Magazine.

Ho Ho Ho

This story gets me into the Christmas mood about as well as anything can — my preferred Christmas mood being grumpy, but with an underlying sense of Christmas wonderment. Anyway, it’s worth telling again. It was first posted here three years ago when Sofie was three.

Veronica writes about one of the Christmas season’s most cherished traditions — taking the little one to see Santa.

We were at the mall early to do some Christmas shopping yesterday when we saw a mom and her two young kids standing outside the door to Santa’s workshop. We asked her what the deal was, and she pointed to the sign about the extra holiday hours. We were in luck. It was 9:45, and Santa was going to be there at 10am. So, we got in line.

Sofie was excited and remarkably well-behaved. At 10, the line had grown behind us, but there was still no sign of Santa. At about 10:15, the kids started whining. At about 10:30, the parents started to wonder if maybe Santa had had a few too many the night before. At about 10:45, someone in line reported seeing “an old guy with a beard” in the parking lot heading toward the Santa house, but he wasn’t in costume yet. Finally, at 11, the doors to Santa’s workshop opened. A pissed-off elf informed us that “corporate” didn’t tell them about the early holiday hours. By this point, the mom in front of us had left, dragging her disappointed and crying kids through the mall – they’d apparently “lost” Santa privileges because they were misbehaving.

Sofie was first in line. She goes in and won’t even look at Santa. Not for a second. Santa was more than happy, however, to have mom sit next to him. Um, gross. So the picture…(which cost us about $700 give or take a few bucks) pretty much sums up our perfect Santa experience:

(1) A long wait in line
(2) Screaming kids
(3) Problems at “corporate”
(4) Our own kid didn’t want to sit on Santa’s lap (or look at him or talk to him)
(5) A lecherous Santa
(6) Ridiculously overpriced photos of the experience

Farolitos

Those bags with sand and candles that are a New Mexico Christmas Eve tradition; the correct name for them is farolitos.

Often farolitos are called luminarias. Lumanarias traditionally were actually small bonfires.

Farolitos (literally “little lanterns”) replaced lumanarias (actual meaning is altar lamps) as towns became more densely populated. The purpose of both was to light the path to midnight mass.

Farolitos are the coolest Christmas decoration ever, especially when whole neighborhoods line their sidewalks, driveways and even roof-lines with them.

Buy some sand (for ballast), some votive candles and some lunch bags and bring a beautiful New Mexico tradition to your neighborhood this year. Get your neighbors to join you. You could become famous if it’s never been done in your area. And the kids love it.

[This one is for you, Anthony.]

The Brief and Strangely Interesting History of Christmas Lights

The tradition of stringing electric lights may have started as a Christmas thing in America, but now it’s a global phenomenon used for all kinds winter festivuses (festivi?). It’s a practice we take for granted—come December, they’re everywhere. The evolution of the Christmas light parallels that of the light bulb, with some remarkably ornate—OK, tacky—variations. But regardless of how they look, one thing’s for certain: They’re a much better option than sticking a candle in a tree.

Gizmodo has the story.

There's Christmas Music and then

I’ve made a playlist with all my Christmas music and have it on shuffle play — all 465 tracks, though they drop out for a week after they play.

It’s not working. The only Christmas music that works for me really is “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”

So that’s my new ringtone.

You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.
You really are a heel.
You’re as cuddly as a cactus,
You’re as charming as an eel.
Mr. Grinch.

You’re a bad banana
With a greasy black peel.

I’m beginning to feel the spirit already. (Scrooge was right to begin with, you know?)

Jolly Ole Saint Nicholas

Today is St. Nicholas Day. St. Nicholas lived in the fourth century, and he was the archbishop of Myra in Lycia (which is now Turkey). There are all kinds of stories about him, but one of the most famous is that there was a poor man who could not afford a dowry for his three daughters, which meant they would have to be abandoned to prostitution. St. Nicholas didn’t want to humiliate the man by giving him charity in public, so he left purses of gold in the man’s house at night — according to one version of the story, he dropped them down the chimney, and in another, one of the daughters had set out her stockings to dry and the gold was put in them. And so St. Nicholas, the bringer of anonymous gifts, inspired Jolly Old St. Nick, Father Christmas, and Santa Claus.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor