Gatlinburg Christmas 2007

Welcome 2008!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

While the big shops put up enormous wreaths and the little shops spray on the Santa Snow window stencils, churches iron out the creases on the Put Christ Back Into Christmas posters for the glass cases on the street front. Their struggle is not new.

The Church, or at least Cromwell's puritan Commonwealth, tried to stamp out Christmas, all feast days and anything fun more than three centuries ago.

A tract author with the central casting-puritan name of Hezekiah Woodward wrote, in 1656: The old heathens' Feasting Day, in honour of Saturn, their Idol-God, the Papists' Massing Day, the Profane Man's Ranting Day, the Superstitious Man's Idol Day, the Multitudes' Idle Day, Satan's – that Adversary's – Working Day, the True Christian Man's Fasting Day ... The fact is, old Hezekiah Woodward, in part, made a pretty fair point. Christmas was, indeed, in its origins a heathen day of feasting for Saturn. And Baal. And Mithras. Christmas, ironically, antedates the Nativity of Christ, and December 25 is a fudge. In the third century CE the Church fathers chose that day as Jesus Christ's birthday, with good reason. It happens to fall approximately on the Northern Hemisphere's Winter Solstice, and December 25 (Midwinter's Day/Winter Solstice/Yule) has been from time immemorial a day sacred to the rebirth of the light of the sun in the depths of winter. This day was the Festival of Natalis Sol Invictus (the Birth of the Undefeated Sun) in ancient Rome. Ancient peoples also commemorated the Babylonian Queen of Heaven, Osiris in Egypt, Dionysus, Helios, Adonis, the Celtic horned god Cernunnos, the Syrian Baal, Attis, Mithras, Balder and the Norse god Frey – all celebrated on the ancient Winter Solstice, and mostly solar saviours and dying gods. Most of these deities were given similar titles: the Light of the World, Sun of Righteousness, and Saviour. (More on ancient Gods and saviours similar to Jesus.)

I have spent a lot of time searching through the Bible, looking for loopholes.
WC Fields (b. 1880), American comedian, who died on Christmas Day, 1946, spoken on his deathbed

Winter is here....

Winter Solstice

Sat., Dec. 22, 2007, 1:08 A.M. EST (06:08 UT), marks the solstice—the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere

In astronomy, the solstice is either of the two times a year when the Sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator, the great circle on the celestial sphere that is on the same plane as the earth's equator. In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice occurs either December 21 or 22, when the sun shines directly over the tropic of Capricorn; the summer solstice occurs either June 21 or 22, when the sun shines directly over the tropic of Cancer. In the Southern Hemisphere, the winter and summer solstices are reversed.

Reason for the Seasons

The reason for the different seasons at opposite times of the year in the two hemispheres is that while the earth rotates about the sun, it also spins on its axis, which is tilted some 23.5 degrees towards the plane of its rotation. Because of this tilt, the Northern Hemisphere receives less direct sunlight (creating winter) while the Southern Hemisphere receives more direct sunlight (creating summer). As the Earth continues its orbit the hemisphere that is angled closest to the sun changes and the seasons are reversed.

Longest Night of the Year

The winter solstice marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year. The sun appears at its lowest point in the sky, and its noontime elevation appears to be the same for several days before and after the solstice. Hence the origin of the word solstice, which comes from Latin solstitium, from sol, “sun” and -stitium, “a stoppage.” Following the winter solstice, the days begin to grow longer and the nights shorter.

'Yule Fires'

In ancient days the folk of old
When chilled with fright by winter's cold
Did kindle up a great Yule fire
With leaping flames in its great pyre;
So to entice the waning sun
To rise again and wider run;
It's fiery course across the sky,
To warm them so they would not die.

So we, whose minds now sense a chill
Of anger in the evil will,
The human conflict, hate, and strife,
Which hold a menace over life;
Would kindle up a flame of love
That we within our hearts may move,
In Yuletide joy, with love embrace
And thus abide in peace and grace.
John G. MacKinnon; 'Yule Fires'; tune: 'Greensleeves' Source: Yule Songs from Pagan Digest

And from the religion of love and peace:

Ooooookay.......

Photo taken at Hatboro, Pa. The sign is real and was up for about two hours before someone stopped and told them how to spell PEONIES.

Tacky Headline of the Week:

From the New York Post:

IKE 'BEATS' TINA TO DEATH

You have to admit it is funny, in an "Oh man, I can't believe they said that" sort of way.

Huckabee's SUV tag?

...bare trees....

"The stripped and shapely
Maple grieves
The ghosts of her
Departed leaves.

The ground is hard,
As hard as stone.
The year is old,
The birds are flown.

And yet the world,
In its distress,
Displays a certain
Loveliness---"
- John Updike, A Child's Calendar