Five Myths About Christmas (answered?)

[SSScout 1616]

From Washington Post,Sunday 18 December 2011, page B2:

 

I. Christmas is the Most Important Christian Holiday

II. There is Biblical Consensus on the Story of Jesus' Birth

III. Jesus was an Only Child

IV. The Secularization of Christmas is a Recent Phenomenon

V. Midnight Mass is at Midnight

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-christmas/2011/12/12/gIQAkR1VyO_story.html

 

Yeah, answered by a Jesuit, but hey, bet you want to know...

 

Go to it.

 

And a Merry christ mass to you all.

[qwazse 4348]

I miss midnight Christmas Eve service! You knew you were "grown up" when you could go to it! And several churches gathered in one building for a combined service. You could catch up with all your friends who came home from college.

[shortridge 184]

My favorite line: "Whenever I see a Macys ad imploring shoppers to 'believe,' I want to stab someone with a candy cane."

 

Thanks for the link, SSScout.

[packsaddle 753]

Once upon a time, while on a visit in NY over this holiday time, I actually overheard someone on the phone calling another family member to find out "What time is midnight mass?"

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

 

Every year I make sure that at some time that same date, I ask that person (even better if I have to call them on the phone) "Hi, could you tell me...what time is midnight mass?" And for decades now, the reply has been, "Very Funny!"

 

It's the simple pleasures that are the best, the gifts that keep on giving....

[Eamonn 61]

When I lived n London, I lived in Fulham. Now a very trendy upscale neighborhood, but then it was home to a very large Irish population.

My memories of midnight Mass, are the smell of stale Guinness and fresh new leather.

I served as an alter boy. On Christmas Eve my mother got out her old clothes boiler and cooked a giant ham. When we arrived home after Mass,we'd eat big slabs of ham great tasting cheese. Dad would crunch away on his pickled onions along with soda bread that mum had made.

I don't like pickled onions, I have mastered making soda bread but have never been able to get a ham to taste as good as I remember.

Mum spent a great deal of time in the kitchen on Christmas Day. The menu for lunch was: Turkey with gravy, Roast and mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts (Which I hate!) Mashed carrots and turnips, stuffing. Followed by Christmas pudding and custard.

For tea that night we'd make sandwiches of turkey and ham, soda bread and we'd have slabs of Christmas cake a dark rich fruit cake that had been cooked about a month before and fed a small glass of brandy every few days then brushed with apricot jam , covered in marzipan and then decorated with royal icing which sets rock hard (This is the cake I had for our wedding.)

Christmas Day was a family day, not only were all my brothers and sisters at home but also any of my Aunts and Uncles who might be over from Ireland. Being as my Mother was one of eight and my Dad one of seven there was never a shortage of Aunts and Uncles.

 

As Irish Catholics, we never questioned Christmas or looked for what it really might have been. We accepted it as being the time when Jesus was born. A time of great joy and a time that brought us all together to share and enjoy each other and the company of each other.

Just down the road from where my mother was born and raised are the Newgrange Caves.Above the entrance passage of Newgrange is a "roof-box," which precisely aligns with the rising sun at the winter solstice of December 21st, so that the rays touch the ground at the very center of the burial chamber for about 20 minutes.

I think it's kinda odd that no one in my family ever talked about how this and the timing of Christmas were so close or might have been linked? They just didn't.

Ea.

[Stosh 3452]

 

1) The Magi were never at the manger in Bethlehem, but arrived about 2 years later at the home of Mary and Joseph.

 

2) Genealogists will have a nightmare trying to link Jesus to the House of David because Joseph was the descendent of David. Mary was from the House of Levi, i.e. her kinsman Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist was a Levite.

 

3) If the Bethlehem star was in the East, why did the Magi travel west.

 

4) The Magi were not kings, they were astrologists/scholars, and there is no record of how many of them there were, they only brought 3 different types of gifts.

 

5) The shepherd if Israel would not have been in the fields with their flocks of sheep by night in December. They took the sheep out into the alpine fields and stayed out with them only in the summer months.

 

6) St. Nicholas day is December 6th.

 

7) Ephiphany (when the Magi showed up) is January 6th.

 

8) Mark may not have a nativity story, but originally there was no resurrection story either. Mark was the first to write of the 4 Gospel writers.

 

9) There was no mention of any donkey for Mary in the Gospel narratives.

 

10) Angels don't have wings and they were always male.

 

Stosh

[Eamonn 61]

"Angels don't have wings and they were always male."

Thank God for that!

The idea of me spending eternity being a little cherub with wings and a bare behind wasn't something that I was looking forward too.

 

While others can prove or disprove all what surrounds Christmas, I'm OK and happy to take it just as I was brought up to believe.

I'm not pushing my ideas of what my Christmas is all about.

I'm very much for peace on earth and joy to all men, not caring who gets the peace and the joy, be they whatever faith or religion or if they no faith or religion.

I was OK with having my kid believe in Santa till he was in 5th Grade. I don't think he is any the worse for believing.

I have a nativity set up in the living room.

At the tender age of five I made my acting debut playing one of the cattle in the Holy Cross Christmas play.

It might have been worse? I could have been the ass.

Ea.

 

[Stosh 3452]

LOL!

 

I don't have any problem with people creating traditions around a holiday, i.e. trees, songs, nativity scenes, date of the event, Santa and elves, or anything else. I just don't see much point in dying in the ditch over it. The message itself is sufficient for me and that's what I rely in and that's worth keeping in the season.

 

My kids never grew up believing in Santa Claus. When my eldest daughter went to the mall with us she wanted to get a picture with Santa. No problem. While on his knee he asked her what she wanted Santa to bring (rather than what do you want for Christmas). At age 5 she spelled it all out for him. Santa is the spirit of giving for the holiday. At home she's Santa for her mom, dad, and younger brother and she was out there at the mall looking for things to put in their stockings. She then thanked the man for helping out with that spirit of giving. After she got off his knee, he "took a break" and came to visit with my wife and I. I explained the stockings get hung on St. Nick's Day (Dec 6) and stay up until the 12th Day of Christmas (Jan 6). During that time anyone can be Santa in our family. "Santa" laughed and said he was in the wrong business, but that he was going to do that with his family, too. My children were all cautioned in making sure other kids got a chance to believe and that part of Christmas giving was giving others a chance to believe if their traditions called for it. They never interfered in the traditions of others. It's a practice we all continue to this day.

 

That "tradition" still continues in my family and from 12/6 - 1/5 I can expect a little something for my stocking coming in the mail now that my kids live far away.

 

Traditions are important, it's just not that everyone's traditions are always the same.

 

Have a great Christmas and may what we hope and believe in be something special for you this season.

 

Angels are around us all the time. None of them have wings.

 

Stosh (aka, Grinch)

[Tampa Turtle 1011]

Ah my 13 year old still believes in Santa but we will try letting him into "the biggest secret of all time" (as my mom called it) a week afterwards. My youngest (12) has been highly skeptical since 5.

[drmbear 10]

I always find it funny when I hear someone talking about "the reason for the season..."

 

For thousands of years before the idea of Jesus or Christianity even existed, humans celebrated this time of year in honor of the return of the sun. For me, that is a long tradition for all humankind for all the fun and celebration this time of year brings. But what's funny is that Christians think it is about the return of the son... Could be, but more likely just co-opting something that existed before they even thought of it.

[Stosh 3452]

Naaah, Even before that, humans were sitting around eating raw meat and berries thinking, "We ought to do something for fun." That's when it really started.

 

Stosh

[Twocubdad 665]

My mother always said Santa would come as long as you believe in him. After 52 years, I still do and he still does! If some one asks if I believe in Santa, I always reply, "I'd be stupid not to!"

[SSScout 1616]

"Oy, Like Chicken Soup, it couldn't hoit!"

[Jay K 15]

When my children started asking me if Santa Claus was real, I told them that there was a real guy who became known as Saint Nicholas, and he really gave gifts to the poor, and that the legend grew from there and became the silly Santa Claus thing. So, I let them down gently. I have told a lot of people that, and I've gotten feedback that it's a good way to do it. So, I don't know. Try it!

 

I read a treatise that said: There was a jewish feast day on December 25th that was a prophetic place holder for Jesus' birth, and that the idea that shepherds only took their flocks out spring/summer/fall was hogwash, that they took their flocks out to graze year round, and still do.

[fred8033 1599]

Jay - Can you "scan" that treatise in for us?