Today is 4th Advent Sunday
Category Archives: Holidays
White Christmas-Elvis Presley Version
The song White Christmas (Irving Berlin) was made popular by Bing Crosby in part by the movie Holiday Inn(1942). Initially the song was not that popular but during World War 11 it gained popularity with troops away from home. The simple lyrics resonated so strongly it became one of the most requested songs from the troops. Bing Crosby initially thought the song was just a song and did not know its lasting importance.
Crosby’s rendition and the many others that follow use the same formula but add various bells and whistles to make it their own. Crosby’s rendition remains the most popular but in 1957 Elvis Presley recorded his own version for his own Christmas album. His version departs from the standard version in terms of tempo and how it is sung. So much that it bothered Irving Berlin (who wrote the lyrics) and pressure was put on radio stations to not play it. And it disappeared from the airwaves and was rarely heard since. Until recently when the Elvis Presley Christmas Album was re-released. I have that cd and it has a lot of great renditions of classic Christmas songs. But here is the official YouTube release of the song so you can judge for yourself whether it is thumbs up, thumbs down, or toss the cd of it into the fire! Warning-this YouTube video does have advertising.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNLpawUrfcc
Today is Third Advent Sunday
Today is feast of Santa Lucia(St. Lucy)
Today is 2nd Sunday of Advent
Photo:Clemens PFEIFFER, Vienna
Today is Pearl Harbor Day
Today is the Feast of St. Nicholas, the real Santa Claus
St. Nick is often used as another name for Santa Claus but in truth Nicholas is the original. Born in the third century a.d., Nicholas became well known for his charity to children and others. He was imprisoned by the Romans and beaten. He never renounced his faith. Later when released when Constantine became emperor, he continued his life serving God and his faith. He lived to be a very old man dying on 6 December 343. Stories of his charity to children and others spread and long after his death people still revered him with churches built in his name. Stories of miracles attributed to him emerged as well.
The Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran churches all have his feast day on their calendars (those using the Julian calendar celebrate it on 19 December). The Roman Catholic Church did not strip him of being a saint. Until 1968, every saint had a feast day that had to be celebrated in every diocese. What they did was make certain feast days optional and allow each diocese to decide whether to celebrate it or not. St. Nicholas is an optional feast day so it is up to the diocese to decide.
Stories of a mythical gift giver (often from pagan beliefs like forest elves that leave presents for nice kids) became popular in many European countries and were imported to the U.S. Various aspects from German, Dutch, and English were blended to create the character–the commercial character–of Santa Claus. There is no connection between St. Nicholas and the modern day character that lives in the North Pole, has flying reindeer, and elves to make toys. Santa Claus is a purely secular and even by some standards a pagan creation with no connection to St.Nicholas or Christianity. Remember that when someone says Santa Claus ought to be banned because is based on a religious figure.
For further information about St.Nicholas, go to Saint Nicholas Center.
By the way, there is a resurgence in celebrating the feast day. Usually children get treats (in stockings or boots) and often kicks off the Christmas season.
So what do you think? Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas?
Today is 1st Sunday of Advent
Photo:Micha L. Rieser(Wikimedia)
Black Friday Musings & Tips
Photo: Public Domain
Local media had the usual. People started camping out the day before Thanksgiving at some stores so they could be the first in and snatch up those bargains. Nearly everything you can buy at the store can be purchased online, often with the same savings and sometimes even deeper discounts. Shop wisely. Shop smart. Never put your valuables or anything in plain view in your car (or even in a glove compartment like a garage door opener). Take your auto registration with you (if someone breaks into your car, they get where you live and if you have left the garage door opener, an easy way in). If putting stuff in trunk and returning to shop remember thieves watch for this so move your car to another location to foil them. And this ought to be obvious but needs saying:do not put your wallet in back pocket! Put in front pocket.
Happy Thanksgiving/President Lincoln’s Proclamation
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone will have a safe and happy day.
President Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation
Photo: Public Domain (US Library of Congress, digital id#fsa.8d10749)
Thanksgiving was not an official national holiday until 1863. A letter from a 74-year magazine editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, inspired President Abraham Lincoln to create a national holiday. She wrote in 1863 that we needed to have a national day of Thanksgiving so that everyone could celebrate it on the same day. At the time Thanksgiving was celebrated by the various states but not on the same date. She wanted President Lincoln to make it a national day so it would become a permanent part of “American custom and institution.”
According to Abraham Lincoln Online , other presidents had ignored such requests. Lincoln decided to act on her request and directed a proclamation be drawn up. On 3 October 1863, President Lincoln’s proclamation that establishes Thanksgiving as a national day was issued. It sets aside the last Thursday of November as a “day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” Secretary of State William Seward actually drafted the proclamation which Lincoln signed. Thanksgiving became a national holiday and was celebrated on that date until 1939. President Roosevelt in 1939, 1940 and1941 changed it to the third Thursday (to extend the Christmas season) causing considerable controversy. A joint resolution of Congress in 1941 resolved it by decreeing Thanksgiving would fall on the fourth Thursday of November.
Lincoln’s proclamation was written during the American Civil War, a terrible time in U.S. history. Today we forget why this day was made a national holiday. It was to thank God for the blessings of liberty but also to ask his help. In our politically correct times, this proclamation is not always read in full or edited. So here is the original proclamation. Read it and understand why Lincoln thought a national day of Thanksgiving was needed for the United States of America.
—
Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day
October 3, 1863
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
A. Lincoln
