Thursday, November 29, 2007

A Celtic Christmas

A Celtic Christmas:
Celebrating the Sacred in All Creation
by Mary Earle

We are in a season of contradictions. Lights glitter from every structure; meanwhile, the days lengthen, and darkness begins to come earlier, stay later. A little shiver runs through our pre-electric-light, primordial selves. The ancient human family viewed this time of year with trepidation. They lit fires for warmth and light, and wondered what the winter would bring. No longer concerned with a lack of food and shelter during the freezing winter months, we turn on the central heat, put on a fleece-lined parka and wait for the weather report.

Yet underneath our civilized response to the season, we may sense our human roots. We may look at the dark velvet dome of the night sky laced with stars, and wonder. It is a season that mysteriously brings together death and birth—death of the old season, the old year, the growth from last summer's garden; birth of the new light after December 21, the Winter Solstice, and birth of the community that is formed as we turn inward with the season. It is the season when Christianity celebrates the birth of Jesus, also called Immanuel or God-with-us.

This is the season when we remember that darkness may be fruitful—the darkness of the soil where the hidden seed sleeps, or the darkness of the womb where new life is created. This is the darkness of gestation, the darkness in which creative spirit begins to make the first silent stirrings, taking form and flesh. We celebrate the deep compatibility of the divine and the human as we rejoice in the Incarnation—in God's life being revealed to us in the baby boy born at Bethlehem, God being birthed into human life, taking on human nature from the inside out.

As an old Welsh poem states,

Mary nurtures a Son in her womb:
His birth a blessing to those who discover him.
He goes forth like the sun,
great is the number of his company.

The wonder of the Incarnation is that in Jesus we are told that God and humanity are meant for each other. We discover that God loves bodies, God plays with matter, God speaks to us through quarks and atoms and molecules, through blood and lymph and bone. Through every human race and culture. The Christian story tells us that God chooses to be human, chooses to know human life from the moment of conception to the suffering of death. In Jesus, God knows intimately what it is to be a toddler, to have a stomachache, to feel the rain and wind, to be betrayed and forsaken, to die. Incarnation is about God choosing to be one of us, so that we might become communities of compassion, mercy, courage, justice, care, God's embodied presence here and now.

Historically, at this time of the year, the peoples of the Celtic lands (Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, Isle of Man, Galicia) marked the natural rhythm as autumn turned to winter. This was a time for watching for the light's return, even in the midst of darkness. This was a time for pondering endings and beginnings. As Christianity came to these lands, perhaps as early as the first century, there was a ready embracing of the proclamation that Jesus was the Son of God. As far as we can tell, the pre-Christian religious practices of the Celtic peoples were inclined to celebrate the natural world as shot through with divine presence. For them, a faith tradition that celebrated the divine becoming human was plausible, welcome and true. Incarnation was not a stumbling block as it was to the Greeks. This faith that had a central story of a man who came from God and returned to God, a man who was God's Son, did not seem so far-fetched to the Celtic mind.

The first time I went to Wales in 1994, Patrick Thomas, Welsh author and Anglican priest, told us that in every Welsh nativity scene, a washerwoman accompanies Mary, Joseph and Jesus at the manger. For the Welsh tradition, if Jesus isn't born daily into the common household, then there's really no point of celebrating the birth at Bethlehem. Jesus' birth, singular as it is, also shows us the sacredness of each child, knit together in the mother's womb by God's own Spirit. Jesus' birth reminds us that each household is dear to God.

Hearkening back to a time when the church was one, and having resonance with Eastern Orthodox theology, the Celtic Christian tradition is at ease with proclamations from the early church, such as this from Maximus Confessor: : "The Word of God, who is God, wills always and in all things to work the mystery of his embodiment." The Celtic Christian tradition would agree with C. S. Lewis when he writes, "God loves matter; he invented it." George McLeod, who founded the modern Iona Community in Scotland, said "Matter matters."

The Celtic tradition looks at the world and wonders at the fact that there is anything at all. The natural world is perceived as pointing beyond itself, to the divine Source. God's presence, as A. M. Allchin has observed, makes the world. God's presence makes you, makes your family, makes each person. God's presence invites loving, active response. God's incarnate presence provokes us to action, to care, to justice.

At this season of the year, when we celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus in the midst of the hubbub in Bethlehem, this tradition invites us to notice God being birthed in our midst, in one another, in our friend, in our foe. As the Welsh poet Donald Evans wrote of the baby born in the manger at Bethlehem,

He loved the earth, loved it as a lover
because it is God's earth:
He loved it because it was created by his Father
From nothingness to be life's temple.

http://www.explorefaith.org/celtic/christmas.html

Norwegian Christmas

Norway, sitting on the north of Europe, has the longest and darkest winters in Europe. It's also about the least church-going country in Europe. The Norwegian word for Christmas is actually a pre-Christian Viking drinking festival: Jul. In the 10th century King Haakon I moved the heathen custom of drinking Jul (Yule) to December 25th to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Gradually the pagan feast was Christianized. While the name Jul was kept, the holiday became all about Jesus.

Imagine the ruckus time as the old Norwegians celebrated the ebb of winter. Carnivores were in hog heaven as there was an abundance of good, fresh meat. Jul was a time when animals were slaughtered — which made more sense in that subsistence economy than feeding them through the winter.

When the beer was brewed, the animals slaughtered and the bread baked, the house was cleaned and the party began. Santa Lucia Day (December 13) kicked off a period when gnomes and trolls ran wild and there was no work allowed. Enough wood was brought in to last the entire holiday. Animals (those not slaughtered) were given a little extra hay. Even the birds were cared for as grain they liked was lashed to posts outside homes.

After a big feast, remaining food was not cleaned up. It was left out overnight for the little people. If you neglected your nisse — those mischievous elves — ill fortune would hit your family.

On Christmas day after church, Julebukk (or caroling) groups sang and entertained door to door in exchange for goodies. In some places people still use horse and sleigh and sleigh bells are often heard as they make their way to their neighbors for Christmas cakes and delicacies. In this season of games and merriment, nobody mentions children's bedtimes.

Today, the Norwegian Christmas season feels very low key. Commercialism has crept in, further discrediting it to secular Norwegians. While churches enjoy their best attendance of the year and are busy with Advent concerts through the season. While Christmas concerts end with a spirited but out-of-place-feeling Norwegian version of "Beautiful Savior," (in which the entire audience sings the last verse together), you see almost no Christian elements to the holiday decorations. I didn't see a manger scene anywhere in my travels here.

It's almost as if the dead-of-winter date chosen 17 centuries ago to celebrate the advent of the Son has reverted back to the pagan festival this Christian one was designed to replace. Norwegian Christmas is a festival of lights which seems to promise the return of the sun and longer days. The focus on light in Norway is clear. They miss it more, and they need a spirit boost during those weeks when the high noon feels like twilight and it's dark by 4:00.

In good, understated Norwegian fashion, houses are decorated only with white lights — some times real candles, more often electric lights posing as candles — in the windows. A plastic Santa or Nativity on the lawn or garish colored lights along the eves would probably put you in the neighborhood dog house. In four days I never saw a colored light...or a manger scene. It seems to make sense in a land that seems to have organized itself beyond a need for God. And the pre-disposition to embrace the festival of light aspect of Christmas fits a people more into sun worship when it comes to working up a tan in the summer than any other nation.

Santa Lucia Day, December 13

A highlight of the season is December 13th, Santa Lucia Day. The festival celebrating the "queen of lights" is celebrated in schools, day-care centers, nursing homes and hospitals, with processions led by a young Lucia in a white robe with a crown of lights on her head and a candle in her hand. Traditionally the girls bring baskets of saffron buns to hand out.

Historically Norwegians considered what they called Lussinatten the longest night of the year and no work was to be done. From that night until Christmas, spirits, gnomes and trolls roamed the earth. Lussi, a feared enchantress, punished anyone who dared work. Legend also has it that farm animals talked to each other on Lussinatten, and that they were given additional feed on this longest night of the year.

In village church concerts, the finale is not Silent Night as in the US, but Santa Lucia. The children's choir, with their leader wearing her crown of candles, processes down the aisle like a wedding in reverse and into the night, as if to spread their light through the community.

The legend of Santa Lucia: In the early hours of the morning of December 13th, a young woman of rich and noble parents, dressed in a white gown, with a red sash and a crown of lingonberry twigs and blazing candles, would go from one farm to the next. She carried a torch to light her way and brought baked goods to each house. She returned home by sunrise. Every village had its own Lucia.

Santa Lucia Day celebrations were strong first in Sweden and spread from there to Norway. The origins of today's celebration can be traced to the 4th century martyrdom of a Sicilian virgin named Lucia.

In Norway and Sweden it is still a custom on December 13 for a girl in a white dress (representing the Saint), to bring a tray of saffron buns and steaming coffee while waking the family with a song. She is called the Lussibrud (Lucy bride) and her pastry (saffron buns) is Lussekatter.

Lucia symbolizes light and growth for human and beast as she emerges out of the darkness. Because her name means "light" she very early became the great patron saint for the "light of the body" — the eyes. Many of the ancient light and fire customs of the Yuletide became associated with her day. Thus we find "Lucy candles" lighted in the homes and "Lucy fires" burned in the outdoors. Into the bonfires people would throw incense, and while the flames rose, trumpets and flutes played to celebrate the changing of the suns's course. Before the Reformation, Saint Lucy's Day was one of unusual celebration and festivity because, for the people of Sweden and Norway, she was the great "light saint" who turned the tides of their long winter and brought the light of the day to renewed victory.

In ancient times the celebrations of Saint Lucy's Day announced to the demons of winter that their reign was broken, that the sun would return again and the days would become longer.

Julenisse

While Santa Claus comes from America (really established as a Coca Cola advertising spokesperson in the 1930s) and St Nicholas comes from Germany, the Julenisse come from the Norwegian forest — just behind the family barn. While there are entire communities of nisse who come in all shapes and sizes, the Julenisse is a kind of cross between Father Christmas and a nisse. The most characteristic features of Norway's answer to Santa Claus are his red stocking cap and long white beard. The Julenisse wears knee breeches, hand-knitted stockings, a Norwegian sweater and a homespun jacket. On top he wears a heavy fur coat — it can get cold in Norway in the winter. He is jolly and happy, but can also be stern and even a jerk. If you don't stay in good with him through bribes, he can sabotage your happiness in any number of ways.

Old timers believed the nisse was the original settler of the land. His primary duty was to protect the land and buildings. He kept the farm in good order and would be helpful as long as he got his Christmas porridge or Christmas beer and lefse on Christmas Eve. Many farms would make up a bed for the nisse on Christmas Eve and the honorary place at the table stood ready and waiting for him.

Children grow up believing in this guy. A friend or relative dressed up as Julenisse comes to the house with a sack of presents on Christmas. In "naughty or nice" Santa style, he asked the famous question, "Are there any good children here?" When the Christmas porridge is put out in the barn on Christmas Eve, it is gone the next morning.

Trees

To the pre-Christian pagans celebrating their way through the dead of the Nordic winter, evergreens — swags, wreaths, trees — promised the return of summer. Today, far and away the dominant Norwegian Christmas season icon is the evergreen tree strewn with tinsel, homemade ornaments, Norwegian flags, and candles (occassionally real, generally electric). Every mall and every town square comes with a tall twinkling tree, capped with a star.

The Christmas tree — usually a spruce or pine either bought in a parking lot depot (as in America) or chopped in the woods — must be fresh and green and fragrant to signify the idea of vitality and growth in spite of the dark winter. While greenery has long decorated homes, the tradition of a decorated Christmas tree came from Germany in the 1800s. Traditionally it's not put up and decorated until Little Christmas Eve, December 23. The northern European custom of the candlelit Christmas tree is derived from the belief that it sheltered woodland spirits when other trees lost their leaves during winter.

Locals love their trees. In fact, many visit the historic Bogstad Manor, perhaps the finest mansion in Oslo, to see the sumptuously decorated 19th century style tree year after year. The royal family has a fondness for Christmas trees. The king's subjects knew this well when, in WWII when he was in exile in Britain, they would smuggle him a good tree each Christmas — especially cut for him from his cherished homeland. The royal family is back in Oslo now. But each year the people of Oslo continue the tradition, sending a grand tree which stands on Trafalgar Square in London. Now it's to remind the English of how the Norwegians were thankful for their support during the dark years of Nazi occupation.

Norwegians enjoy holding hands around their Christmas trees and singing classic carols as they circle. You'll see well-bundled up school classes making two concentric circles, joined by a Julenisse, circling in two directions while singing.

Food

Norwegians do a lot of baking throughout the Christmas season. Cookies, holiday cakes, gingersnaps are popular. People drink hot mulled wine of a specially brewed Christmas beer. On Christmas Eve, families gather for a festive meal that includes pickled herring salad and roast duck, goose, or pork loin.

In Norway too, Christmas comes with special meals. Families treat children to a special rice porridge. At Christmas an almond hidden in the mix. The child who discovers it wins a prize…and it's a marzipan pig — a gift reminiscent of olden times when a peasant family's wealth was tied up in its precious pig.

Juleøl or Christmas beer also goes back to medieval times when the Vikings liked to celebrate the winter solstice with a particularly stout brew.

And holiday deserts are a big part of Norway's Christmas season: the local Christmas fruitcake called Julekake and a towering marzipan kransekaka…festooned with Norwegian flags and party poppers.

Juleøl — special Christmas beer which is brewed on farms — custom dates back to the pagan feast known as Joulu or Lol when horns filled with beer during the festivities were dedicated to the Norse gods Odin, Froy and Njord.

One Norwegian Christmas custom begins in late autumn at harvest time. The finest wheat is gathered and saved until Christmas. This wheat is then attached to poles made from tree branches, making perches for the birds. A large circle of snow is cleared away beneath each perch. According to the Norwegians, this provides a place for the birds to dance, which allows them to work up their appetites between meals. Just before sunset on Christmas Eve, the head of the household checks on the wheat in the yard. If a lot of sparrows are seen dining, it is suppose to indicate a good year for growing crops.

"Wassail" comes from the Old Norse "ves heill" — to be of good health. This evolved into the tradition of visiting neighbors on Christmas Eve and drinking to their health.

In Norway on Christmas Eve, visitors should know that after the family's big dinner and the opening of presents, all the brooms in the house are hidden. The Norwegians long ago believed that witches and mischievous spirits came out on Christmas Eve and would steal their brooms for riding.

Norwegian graveyards flicker with candles as loved ones are kept in mind during the holiday season.

Christmas Eve

At 5 pm church bells peel. Fullest day of year. People in traditional finery. After service, big family dinner. Bowl of porridge with almond for kids. Bowl left for nisse. Joining hands and caroling around tree. School groups do this all over town. A knock on the door. The Julenisse with a sack full of gifts asks "Are there any good children here?" After presents, it's coffee and cakes.

White is the color of Christmas in Norway — not only the whiteness of the snow, but the white lights used for decorations and the white candles that light the tree on Christmas Eve. You won't see a colored light anywhere.

Oslo

Norway's capital, while the most interesting sightseeing stop in the country, doesn't feel very much like Christmas. Its streets are decorated, with locals not ready to rely on the Julenisse out shopping. With global warming, it is typically bare and wet (the cold comes and stays after Christmas these days). But wintry wonderlands are commonly just inland a bit with higher altitudes. The ice rink in the town center is a lively spot for people watching. The local subway zips anyone interested in some skiing or sledding into the nearby hills and up to the famous ski jump. Weekends are lively with Christmas markets, otherwise precious little. There are lots of Christmas concerts.

Drøbak, a small town 20 miles south of Oslo, is famous for two things: locals sank a Nazi war ship in the narrow straight it fronts…and it's Norway's self-proclaimed capital of Christmas. Still, Drøbak feels like any idyllic town on a fjord. It just has a passion for promoting Christmas and selling the notion that it is Santa's postal code. The Julehus, a converted church, overlooks the town square. It is filled with red Christmas elves and holiday handicrafts designed by Eva Johansen and her hard-working crew. The local restaurant serves all the traditional meals with the fire over-looked by impish elves and Julenissen. Down at the marina the director of the tourist office grows a scraggly beard and wears his julenisse outfit and scatters mail everywhere. They claim to receive 1,000 pieces of mail addressed to Santa Claus each year. They actually mail back a card with a holiday greetings to each piece of mail and the particularly heart-tugging letters get a small present in the mail.

Enjoying a Santa Lucia event in a small town senior day center, I felt how Christmas in Norway is celebrated with a unique intimacy and a Scandinavian flair for community. Santa Lucia processions are led by a young Lucia wearing a crown of lights. This home has housed widows and seniors for over 200 years and today the kindergartners are bringing on the light in more ways than one. The children baked the traditional Santa Lucia saffron buns — a treat both bringing back distant childhood memories and kicking off life-long memories for these kids. It's with small rituals like this that traditions survive and stay strong from generation to generation.

Taking their cue from Santa Lucia, Norwegians — cozy in their homes — brighten their long dark winters with lots of candles, white lights, and greenery.

http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/scan/norwayxmas04.htm

Saint Lucy's Day

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Lucia by Swedish painter Carl Larsson, 1908

Saint Lucy's Day (Sankta Lucia, also known as Saint Lucia's Day etc) is the Church feast day holiday dedicated to St. Lucy and is observed on December 13. It marks, together with Advent, the beginning of the Christmas season. Traditionally an important feast day in all of Western Christendom, it now retains traditional forms of celebration mainly in Scandinavia and southern Europe. It is celebrated in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Italy, Bosnia, Iceland, and Croatia. Before the reform of the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century, St. Lucy's Day fell on the winter solstice on the Northern Hemisphere.

Celebration

[edit] In Scandinavia

In Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, Lucy (called Lucia) is venerated on December 13 in a ceremony where an elected girl, portraying Lucia, walks, with a crown of candles, ahead of a procession of other women holding a candle each. The candles symbolize the fire that refused to take her life. The women sing a Lucia song while entering the room, to the melody of the traditional Neapolitan song Santa Lucia, still well-known through the recording by Enrico Caruso but, whereas the Italian lyrics describe the beautiful view from thef area Santa Lucia in Naples, the various Scandinavian lyrics are fashioned for the occasion, describing the light with which Lucia overcomes the darkness. Each Scandinavian country has their own lyrics in their native tongues. After finishing this song, the procession usually continue by singing Christmas carols or more songs about Lucia.

When the Scandinavian countries were Catholic, the night of Lucia was celebrated just as many other saints' days were. However, the tradition would continue to live on even after the reformation in the 1530s. According to the Julian calendar the night of Lucia was the longest night of the year. This is likely to be the reason why the tradition has lived on in the Nordic countries in particular, as the nights in November and December are very dark and long before the snow has fallen, and the idea of light overcoming darkness is thus appealing.

[edit] Sweden

Children in a nursery school in Sweden singing traditional Lucia songs, 2005

Some trace the "re-birth" of the Lucia celebrations in Sweden to the tradition in German Protestant families of having girls dressed as angelic Christ children, handing out Christmas presents. The Swedish variant of this white-dressed "Kindchen Jesus", or Christkind, was called "Kinken Jes", and started to appear in upper-class families in the 1700s on Christmas Eve with a candle-wreath in her hair, handing out candy and cakes to the children. Another theory claims that the Lucia celebration evolved from old Swedish traditions of "star boys" and white-dressed angels singing Christmas carols at different events during Advent and Christmas. In either case, the current tradition of having a white-dressed lady with candles in her hair appearing on the morning of the Lucia day started in the area around Lake Vänern in the late 1700s and spread slowly to other parts of the country during the 1800s.

In the Lucia procession in the home depicted by Carl Larsson in 1908 (illustration, above), the oldest daughter brings coffee and St. Lucia buns to her parents, while wearing a candle-wreath and singing a Lucia song. Other daughters may help, dressed in the same kind of white robe and carrying a candle in one hand, but only the oldest daughter wears the candle-wreath.

The modern tradition of having public processions in the Swedish cities started in 1927 when a newspaper in Stockholm elected an official Lucia for Stockholm that year. The initiative was then followed around the country through the local press. Today most cities in Sweden appoint a Lucia every year; schools elect a Lucia and her maids among the students; and a national Lucia is elected on national television from regional winners. The regional Lucias will usually visit local shopping malls, old people's homes and churches, singing and handing out ginger snaps. Recently there was some discussion whether it was suitable if the national Lucia was a blonde slut, but it was decided that ethnicity should not be a problem, and in the year 2000 an adopted non-white girl was crowned the national Lucia.

There are now also boys in the procession, playing different roles associated with Christmas. Some may be dressed in the same kind of white robe, but with a coneshaped hat decorated with golden stars, called "stjärngossar" (star boys); some may be dressed up as "tomtenissar", carrying lanterns; and some may be dressed up as gingerbread men. They participate in the singing and also have a song or two of their own, usually Staffan Stalledräng, which tells the story about Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, caring for his five horses.

Lucia bun, made with saffron.

A traditional kind of bun, Lussekatt (St. Lucia Bun), made with saffron, is normally eaten on this day.

Although St. Lucia's Day is not an official holiday in Sweden, it is a popular occasion in Sweden. The Lucia evening and night is a notoriously noisy time. High school students often celebrate by partying all through the night.

The Swedish lyrics to the Neapolitan song Santa Lucia have traditionally been either Natten går tunga fjät (The Night walks with heavy steps) or Sankta Lucia, ljusklara hägring (Saint Lucy, Bright Illusion). There is also a modern version with easier text for children: Ute är mörkt och kallt (Outside it's dark and cold).

[edit] Denmark

Danish girls in the Lucia procession at a Helsingør public school, 2001

In Denmark, the Day of Lucia (''Luciadag'') was first celebrated on December 13, 1944. The tradition was directly imported from Sweden by initiative of Franz Wend, secretary of Föreningen Norden, as an attempt "to bring light in a time of darkness". Implicitly it was meant as a passive protest against German occupation during the Second World War but it has been a tradition ever since.

Although the tradition is imported from Sweden it differs somewhat in that the celebration has always been strongly centered on Christianity and it is a yearly local event in most churches in conjunction with Christmas. Schools and kindergartens also use the occasion to mark the event as a special day for children on one of the final days before the Christmas holidays but it does not have much impact anywhere else in society.

Although not widely observed, there are a number of additional historical traditions connected with the celebration. The night before, candles are lit and all electrical lights are turned off and on the Sunday closest to December 13, Danes traditionally attend church.

The Danish versions of the Neapolitan song clearly reflect its close connection to Christianity. The best known version is Holger Lissners version from 1982, ''Sankta Lucia''.

[edit] In Italy

St. Lucy is the patron saint of the city of Syracuse ([Sicily)][1] where she was born. The main celebration occurs on the 13th of December and in May. St. Lucy is also popular among children in some regions of North-Eastern Italy, namely Trentino, East Lombardy (Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona and Mantua), some parts of Veneto, (Verona), and some parts of Emilia Romagna, (Piacenza, Parma and Reggio Emilia), where the Saint brings gifts to good children and coal to bad ones. Children are asked to leave some food for Lucia (a sandwich, or anything else available at the moment) and for the flying donkey that helps her carry gifts (flour, sugar, or salt) and they must not see Santa Lucia delivering gifts otherwise she will throw ashes in their eyes, temporarily blinding them. In Sicily and among the Sicilian diaspora, cuccia is eaten in memory of Saint Lucy's miraculous averting of famine.

[edit] United States

In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), which is the successor church to hundreds of Scandinavian and German Lutheran congregations, St. Lucia is treated as a commemoration on December 13th, in which red vestments are worn. Usually, the Sunday in Advent closest to December 13th is set aside for St. Lucia, in which the traditional Scandinavian procession is observed.

No Ho Ho.

So sacred is the American holiday-shopping season that Franklin Roosevelt officially moved Thanksgiving from the last Thursday in November (for years like this, with an extra one) to the fourth, to give retailers an edge. They'll need it this time around, as darkened Broadway theaters and striking Hollywood writers dampen the holiday spirit, toys have gotten scary, gas prices trudge ever upward, the dollar slips ever lower, and the credit crisis makes people feel poorer even if they aren't in foreclosure. One marketing firm predicts a "blue Christmas," citing slumping sales of tinsel as a leading indicator; 27% of shoppers say they'll be spending less this year.

To make matters worse, retailers must dodge the cultural crossfire that accompanies holiday fund-raising drives by activists on all sides. Environmentalists push Buy Nothing Day, an international shopping fast that urges people to "seek out greener alternatives to unrestrained consumption." The ACLU offers "talking points" in case Uncle Harry asks why the ACLU hates Christmas so much: Tell him "we work year-round to ensure that everyone in America has the freedom to practice their own religion (or no religion) and to keep the government out of religion."

Meanwhile, the American Family Association's Project Merry Christmas targets stores like Lowe's for advertising "family trees" instead of Christmas trees in its catalog. Having seen the boycotts of yore, Lowe's energetically apologized, citing a "breakdown in the proofing process."

Seasonal sensitivities have gone global: a story out of Australia made headlines worldwide after a department-store Santa reported being told not to say "Ho, ho, ho" for fear of offending women. (Santa's employment agency insisted it was actually worried about frightening small children and recommended a gentler "Ha, ha, ha" instead.)

Yet Pat Robertson observed on The 700 Club that wreaths and Christmas trees are hardly worth defending, since they are pagan relics and "are not an integral part of Christianity." You have to pity the civilian shopkeeper, caught in a war whose combatants don't even agree on which symbols are worth fighting over.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1686800,00.html

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Snowflake Potholder

Snowflake Potholder

Materials: About one ounce each of white and blue (light or dark)
worsted weight cotton yarn, crochet hook size E (3.50 mm)

Gauge: Rounds 1-3 of the snowflake = 3 1/4" diameter from point to
point.

Finished size: About 7 1/2" diameter

To work a dc cluster: (Yo, insert hook in the indicated st and pull up a
loop, yo and pull through 2 loops on hook) 3 times; yo and pull through
all 4 remaining loops on hook.

To work a trc cluster: *Yo 2 times, insert hook in the indicated st and
pull up a loop, (yo and pull through 2 loops on the hook) twice* Repeat
from *to* 4 more times; yo and pull through all 6 remaining loops on
hook

Pattern note: Work tightly for best results.

Snowflake

With white and leaving a 3" yarn tail, ch 5; join with a sl st in the
first ch to form a ring.

Round 1: Ch 3 to count as the first dc, work 11 more dc in the ring;
join with a sl st in the top of the beginning ch 3.

Round 2: Ch 1, sc in the same st as joining, (ch 5, skip next dc, sc in
the next dc) 5 times, ch 2, skip next dc; join with a dc in the first sc
to form the first ch-5 sp of the next round.

Round 3: Ch 3 to count as the first dc, work 2 more dc in the first ch-5
sp, sc in the next sc, *(3 dc, ch 3, 3 dc) in the next ch-5 sp, sc in
the next sc* Repeat from *to* 4 times, 3 dc in the first ch-5 sp, ch 1;
join with a hdc in the top of the beginning ch 3 to form the first ch-3
sp of the next round.

Round 4: Ch 1, sc in the first ch-3 sp, ch 5, sc in the next sc, ch 5,
*(sc, ch 5) twice in the next ch-3 sp, sc in the next sc, ch 5* Repeat
from *to* 4 times, sc in the first ch-3 sp, ch 2; join with a dc in the
first sc to form the first ch-5 sp of the next round.

Round 5: Ch 1, sc in the first ch-5 sp, ch 3, dc cluster in the 3rd ch
from hook, sc in each of the next 2 ch-5 sps, ch 3, dc cluster in the
3rd ch from hook, *sc in the next ch-5 sp, ch 3, dc cluster in the 3rd
ch from hook, ch 4, trc cluster in the 4th ch from hook, ch 3, dc
cluster in the 3rd ch from hook, sc in the same ch-5 sp, ch 3, dc
cluster in the 3rd ch from hook, sc in each of the next 2 ch-5 sps, ch
3, dc cluster in the 3rd ch from hook* Repeat from *to* 4 times, sc in
the first ch-5 sp, ch 3, dc cluster in the 3rd ch from hook, ch 4, trc
cluster in the 4th ch from hook, ch 3, dc cluster in the 3rd ch from
hook; join with a sl st in the first dc. Fasten off. Weave in ends.

Background

With blue and leaving a 3" yarn tail, ch 5; join with a sl st in the
first ch to form a ring

Round 1: Ch 3 to count as the first dc, work 11 more dc in the ring;
join with a sl st in the top of the beginning ch 3. (12 dc)

Round 2: Ch 3 to count as the first dc, dc in the same st as joining,
work 2 dc in each remaining dc around; join with a sl st in the top of
the beginning ch 3. (24 dc)

Round 3: Ch 3 to count as the first dc, 2 dc in the next dc, (dc in the
next dc, 2 dc in the next dc) 11 times; join with a sl st in the top of
the beginning ch 3. (36 dc)

Round 4: Ch 3 to count as the first dc, dc in the next dc, 2 dc in the
next dc, (dc in each of the next 2 dc, 2 dc in the next dc) 11 times;
join with a sl st in the top of the beginning ch 3. (48 dc)

Round 5: Ch 3 to count as the first dc, dc in each of the next 2 dc, 2
dc in the next dc, (dc in each of the next 3 dc, 2 dc in the next dc) 11
times; join with a sl st in the top of the beginning ch 3. (60 dc)

Round 6: Ch 3 to count as the first dc, dc in each of the next 3 dc, 2
dc in the next dc, (dc in each of the next 4 dc, 2 dc in the next dc) 11
times; join with a sl st in the top of the beginning ch 3. (72 dc)

Round 7: Ch 2, dc cluster in the same st as joining, ch 1, skip next dc,
(dc cluster in the next dc, ch 1, skip next dc) 35 times; join with a sl
st in the top of the first dc cluster. (36 dc clusters)

Round 8: Sl st in the next ch-1 sp, ch 1, sc in the same sp, ch 3, (sc
in the next ch-1 sp, ch 3) 35 times; join with a sl st in the first sc,
(36 ch-3 sps)

Pull beginning yarn tail through the center ring of the background so
that it's on the right side of the piece. Securely tie this yarn tail to
the beginning yarn tail the wrong side of the snowflake to keep the
layers from separating in the center.

Round 9 (attaching snowflake): Insert hook in the ch-4 sp at the tip of
any trc cluster on the snowflake and into the first ch-3 sp on the
background and complete a sc, (insert hook in the ch-4 sp at the tip of
the same trc cluster on the snowflake and into the same ch-3 sp on the
background and complete a sc) 2 times, work 3 sc in each of the next 5
ch-5 sps, *insert hook in the ch-4 sp at the tip of the next trc cluster
on the snowflake and into the next ch-3 sp on the background and
complete a sc, (insert hook in the ch-4 sp at the tip of the same trc
cluster on the snowflake and into the same ch-3 sp on the background and
complete a sc) 2 times, work 3 sc in each of the next 5 ch-5 sps* Repeat
from *to* 4 times; join with a sl st in the first sc. (108 sc)

Round 10: Ch 1, sc in the same st as joining and in each remaining sc
around; insert hook in the first sc and pull up a loop of white to join
and change colors. Cut blue. Tie blue yarn tail to the white yarn strand
closely behind the last stitch.

Round 11: (ch 1, sl st in the next sc) 55 times, ch 12, sl st in the
11th ch from hook, (ch 1, sl st in the next sc) 53 times, ch 1; join
with a sl st in the first sl st. Fasten off. Weave in all ends. Iron to
block.

Snowflake Coaster

Snowflake Coaster

Materials:

Yarn: (one of these)
White worsted weight cotton
White Speed CroSheen
White "Denim" cotton blend

Crochet hook size F

Ch 5, join with a sl st to form ring

Round 1: Ch 3 to count as the first dc, work 11 more dc in the ring;
join
with a sl st top the top of the beginning ch 3. (12 dc)

Round 2: Ch 1, sc in the same st as joining, ch 1, skip next dc, (sc in
the next dc, ch 6, sc in the same st, ch 1, skip next dc) 5 times, sc in
the same st as first sc, ch 6, join with a sl st to the first sc. (6
loops)

Round 3: Sl st into the first ch 1 sp, ch 1, sc in the same sp, *(dc, ch
1) 5 times in the next ch 6 loop, dc in the same loop; sc in the next ch
1 sp*

Repeat from * to * 5 times; (dc, ch 1) 5 times in the next ch 6 loop, dc
in the same loop; join with a sl st to the first sc.

Round 4: Sl st in the next dc and the next ch 1 sp; ch 1, sc in the same
sp, *ch 3, dc in the next ch 1 sp, ch 2, (dc, ch 3, dc in the top of the
last dc for picot, dc) all in the next ch 1 sp, ch 2, dc in the next ch
1 sp, ch 3, (sc in the next ch 1 sp) 2 times* Repeat from * to * 4
times; ch 3, dc in the next ch 1 sp, ch 2, (dc, ch 3, dc in the top of
the last dc for picot, dc) all in the next ch 1 sp, ch 2, dc in the next
ch 1 sp, ch 3, sc in the next ch 1 sp; join with a sl st to the first
sc. Fasten off. Weave in ends.

Purple Christmas Trees!!!!

7' Purple Christmas Tree

Unit Price:

$227.85

Seller:

The Purple Store
Seller's Return Policy

Shipping:

The Purple Store Shipping Rates & Policies
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Ships to: US, Other Destinations

from The Purple Store

Unique Christmas trees make for a unique and unforgettable holiday!

807 tips

Comes pre-lit with 450 purple lights, plus spare bulbs and fuses

Metal tree stand included

Sturdy metal construction

Branches fold up for easy storage

39" base, 122"" circumference

Flame retardant, UL Listed

This full, 7' Purple Christmas tree is made from dark purple tinsel, complete with pre-installed purple lights and a metal stand included. Designed for easy assembly with a toll free number included for setup assistance.

http://www.purplestore.com/cgi-bin/product_detail.cgi?pstore_id=13297&product_line=Home%20Page

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Holiday season brings religious strife

Piece of Mind

D.R. Bartlette

It's already begun ... it seems like we were just buying trick-or-treat candy, and now it's already the holiday season. Last week, I went out to brunch with my sister. Holiday music was already playing over the speakers, even though it wasn't even Thanksgiving yet.

As I chatted with the cashier, he confided that after several hours of hearing Frank Sinatra music, he was on the verge of killing himself. I shared with him my secret for staying sane: I listen to "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" from Danny Elfman's soundtrack to "The Nightmare Before Christmas." There's nothing like singing about torturing Santa Claus to get you in the real holiday spirit.

I'm sure any day now, we'll all be hearing, again, about the "War on Christmas" and how evil secularists (and, by association, Jews and other non-Christians) are trying to destroy what is apparently Christianity's highest holy day.

It ticks me off that anal-retentive, intolerant right-wing Christians make such a big deal out of people saying "happy holidays" instead of "merry Christmas." As if not specifically saying "merry Christmas" is somehow offensive to Christians, like saying, "happy every-other-holiday-except-Christmas."

To me, it sounds like the holiday greeting espoused by the right-wing punditocracy would be this: "Merry Christmas. What? You don't celebrate Christmas? Well, then a pox on you. I hope your hair catches fire and your house is infected with small, biting insects, you godless heathen!"

Besides the utter common sense of trying to be polite to people regardless of their religion, it's unfair, and untrue, to perpetuate the myth that somehow this entire season belongs to Christians and their holy day. I hate to break it to them, but this holiday belonged to the Pagans first.

For the sake of anyone who doesn't already know this, the customs, iconography and even the date of Christmas were based on Yule and Saturnalia, pre-Christian holidays celebrated in Scandinavian and Roman cultures, both of which were Pagan.

Decorating the evergreen tree, lighting lights, giving gifts, feasting, hanging holly and mistletoe, singing carols and even a miraculous birth in a manger/cave of the Sun/Son during December are all Pagan traditions predating Christianity by millennia. The historical, real Jesus, called the Christ (if he indeed existed), most probably wasn't born in December. Just ask any serious biblical scholar.

Also, by the way, it's really untrue to call Pagans "godless." Most Pagans worship many gods and goddesses. Compared to Pagans, Christians, who recognise only one god, seem more "godless."

I'd like to say my family will be observing the Winter Solstice like the other hundreds of thousands of Neo-Pagans throughout the northern hemisphere (in the southern hemisphere, they'll be celebrating the Summer Solstice with bonfires, games and weddings). One common custom is the vigil: it is traditional on Solstice night, the longest night of the year, to stay awake with a candle, or the lights on your Solstice tree, lit, to welcome the newborn son when He arises the next day. More commonly observed are the traditions of gift giving, feasting with family and loved ones, and kissing under the mistletoe.

But, as much as I respect the traditions of my ancestors, my family and I will be on our way to warmer climates to spend the holiday break hanging out in Mexico.

So, whatever you celebrate - Yule, Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Eid, even if you don't celebrate anything at all - have a great time. I wish you peaceful family relations, uncrowded shopping centers, plenty of good parking spaces, and lots of gifts you actually want. In other words, happy holidays!

D.R. Bartlette is a staff writer for The Arkansas Traveler. Her column appears every other Wednesday.

http://media.www.thetraveleronline.com/media/storage/paper688/news/2007/11/28/Opinion/Holiday.Season.Brings.Religious.Strife-3117920-page2.shtml

Mistletoe Idea

I love this idea for hanging mistletoe, using a teardrop hanging vase... this is on the Crate and Barrel catalog...

Cindi

Sugarplums

Sugarplums

1/2 C. dried apricots
1/4 C. dried figs or dates
1/2 C. chopped pecans
1/4 C. golden raisins
1/4 C. flaked coconut
3 T. orange liqueur or orange juice
1/4 t. almond extract
1/4 C. granulated sugar

In a food processor, finely chop apricots, figs or dates, pecans, raisins and coconut. Add liqueur or orange juice and almond flavoring. Stir until well blended. Roll into 36 balls, about 1 inch in diameter, using the palms of your hands. Roll each ball in the granulated sugar. Layer in an airtight container, placing wax paper between each layer to prevent sticking. Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Yields 36 Sugarplums

Airport’s Christmas holiday display heavy on the faux

Airport's Christmas holiday display heavy on the faux

KATHLEEN MERRYMAN; THE NEWS TRIBUNE

Published: November 26th, 2007 01:00 AM

At Sea-Tac Airport this season, it's all about the baggage.

I am not referring to the miracle that luggage checked in Miami arrives here mostly intact. I'm talking about the holiday decorations, which come with enough back story to drag down an airborne sleigh.

Last year, a dozen or so shopworn fake firs were taken down, then put back up, after a rabbi asked that a menorah be added to the display. Combatants on both sides of the political correctness wars couldn't have asked for a better Christmas, or holiday, gift. The carping went national.

The Port of Seattle convened what is probably the least festive decorations committee in history: Lawyers, civic officials, educators and religious leaders.

Go for a sense of peace and harmony, but leave out specific religious symbols, the committee recommended. Put in some sparkle and color, because it's gloomy here in the winter. Establish a staff review committee. Bring in someone who knows how to gussy up an airport.

Some $300,000 later, Seasonal Migration is in place, designed and installed by Displaymaker Productions Inc.

The main display, a forest of truncated faux birches in a field of snowy batting, sits near the big rocks and under the small planes in the Gina Marie Lindsey International Arrivals Hall.

The trees are cardboard tubes coated in GigaCrete, for that birch look. The branches are genuine tree, with about 20,000 pieces of acrylic ice glued to them, and icicles and mirrors wired to them. A flock of chunky, but not Audubonically-correct, white birds wing through the branches.

For travelers who don't get down to that end of the building, there are smaller displays. Panoramic images of mountains, Tacoma and Seattle printed on fabric panels hang over ticketing gates, with twinkle lights behind the fabric, with snowbirds flying past and birch branches over all. More fabric panels, with tiny groves of birches and faux snow sit over the elevators.

Once I got over the impression that the full-size model of the Voyager seemed perilously close to the flat treetops in the main grove, I warmed to the display.

People liked it.

"It's pretty fun," said Michael Reshetnik, on his way from Denver to Victoria. "I didn't see any decorations in Denver. It's nice to have something lighthearted."

Lighthearted!

I could almost hear the remnants of last year's flap plopping to the ground.

It's lovely in the evening, when the LED light projectors throw blues, pinks, oranges and greens at the icicles and mirrors, said the people at the Southwest Airline luggage carousel.

"It's probably a good compromise," said Linda Harris, waiting with Vickie Brewer for the shuttle home to Port Angeles.

"It's sufficiently winter instead of Christmas," Brewer said. "I like snow. I don't like mixing church and state."

The trees grew on them as they talked. The birches should stay year-round, they said.

"They could put in spring branches," Brewer said.

"Then apples from the Palouse," said Harris.

Nearby, Emily Casebeer, 9, and her parents, Jimmy and Michelle Osborne of Tacoma, pulled up chairs to wait for the snow that falls around the top of every hour.

"It's relaxing. That's why we're sitting here," Jimmy said.

Any relaxation you can pack into an airport is a bonus, they agreed.

Michelle noticed that one of the snowbirds had flown afoul of an icicle. Emily noticed a real sparrow flying around the area.

Keep the fake trees, Emily said. Change them with the seasons.

I'm with her, especially if it will protect our investment.

The Port of Seattle's Web site makes much of the fact that elements of the displays are recyclable. It does not mention the cost of it all, but does tell you it's in the minutes for Aug. 28.

If anyone's planning on recycling $300,000 worth of publicly funded decorations after this season, they'd best be prepared for an outcry that will make them yearn for the peace and quiet of the 2006 holidays.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/columnists/merryman/story/213114.html

Monday, November 26, 2007

Yule Log and Yule Fire

Yule Log and Yule Fire

From Christmas Customs and Traditions - Their History and Significance,
by Clement A. Miles

A Yule log, or fire, has for centuries traditionally been burned in
Germany, England, Russia, the Slavic countries, and Siberia.
Traditionally, part of the remaining charred log, or the ashes are then
kept, and used throughout the year for protection against disease in the
family or among livestock, to protect the home against lightning, and to
make crops fertile. In Siberia, elaborate log rites probably harken back
to ancestor worship ritual. Some examples of these traditions, kept as
recently as early this century but now being forgotten, are
mentioned here:

In Rural France, the Yule log is brought in by the whole family, while
singing carols about fertility of women, goats, lambs, abundance of
corn, flour and wine. The youngest child anoints the log with wine
before burning. The charcoal is kept all year for remedy of various
ills, put under the bed to protect from illness and lightning.

In Italy, ashes protect against hail. In Germany, against fire and ill
luck, and protects fruit trees from insects.

In England, they sing this song about the Yule log:

Come, bring, with a noise,
My merry, merry boys,
The Christmas Log to the firing
While my good Dame she
Bids ye all be free,
And drink to your heart's desiring.

With last year's Brand
Light the new Block, and
For good success in his spending,
On your psaltries play,
That sweet luck may
Come while the log is a kindling.

In England, you might not allow the Yule fire to go out during the whole
12 days of Christmas, or to give out a light if asked by a neighbor, or
even to throw the ashes away for fear of bad luck.

In parts of England and Scandinavia, a large Yule candle takes the place
of the log. If it goes out before Christmas day, it portends death in
the household. In Norway, objects put in its light are blessed.

http://www.bayarea.net/~jc/solstice/Yule_log.html

Baby Food Jar Christmas Tree

My sister-in-law made one of these for me a few years ago.....

Baby Food Jar Christmas Tree

Difficulty: Average

Average User Rating:

Parental supervision is recommended

Create a radiant decoration for your window by crafting this baby food jar Christmas tree. It makes a glowing multicolor display that will look both inviting and fun to passersby or arriving holiday guests.

What you'll need:

33 (4 oz.) Baby food jars with lids

2 strings of gold star wire garland (used to decorate packages)

Strand of 35 miniature Christmas tree lights

Gold or green spray paint

Hot glue gun

Hot glue (dries clear not white)

Wire clippers

Sturdy box cutter

How to make it:

Spray paint outside of baby food jar lids. Let dry.
Hot glue the baby food jars arranging them as in photo.
Using the wire clippers, cut 33 pieces of the gold star garland in about a 7" length.
Wind each piece of garland in a circle to fit inside the jars. Place in the bottom of each jar.
Take each baby food jar lid and make a large "V" cut using the box knife. (see close-up photo)
Screw on all the lids onto the jars.
Place the first light on the string of lights through the cut in the lid of the top jar.
Place the remaining lights in the jars, weaving back and forth for the rows.
When you get to the last row of the tree (before the tree trunk), you will need to double up 2 lights in 2 jars in order to get the lights into the tree trunk.
Plug in your tree and enjoy the beautiful lights!

Tips:

You may want to find a way to prop your tree on a table in front of an exterior window. It makes for a very beautiful display! Enjoy! Merry Christmas!

Notes:

Please be careful! The jar lids are now very sharp!

http://crafts.kaboose.com/baby-food-jar-christmas-tree.html

Eggnog Christmas Cake

Eggnog Christmas Cake

1 package yellow cake mix without pudding (2-layer size)
1 package instant vanilla pudding (4-serving size)
4 eggs
3/4 cup cooking oil
3/4 cup sweet vermouth or sherry
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 10-inch fluted tube pan.
Combine all ingredients in a large mixer bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for four minutes. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 45-50 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched. Cool on wire rack for 20 minutes.
Remove from pan and sprinkle with confectioners' sugar. Add desired decorations. Candied cherries and holly leaves or whole almonds are suggested.
Lightly sprinkle with nutmeg. Makes 12 to 15 servings.

Snowman Hot Chocolate

Snowman Hot Chocolate

Ingredients:
3 cups half-and-half OR light cream
2/3 cup vanilla-flavor baking pieces OR vanilla-flavor candy coating,chopped
3 inches stick cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. almond extract
Peppermint sticks, optional

Combine 1/4 cup of the half-and-half or light cream, vanilla-flavor pieces or vanilla-flavor coating, stick cinnamon , and nutmeg in a medium saucepan. Whisk over low heat until the vanilla-flavor pieces or the coating is melted. Remove the cinnamon stick. Add the remaining half-and-half or light cream. Whisk till heated through. Remove from the heat. Stir in the vanilla and almond extract. Serve the hot chocolate warm in mugs. Garnish with peppermint sticks, if desired. Makes 5 (6-ounce) servings.

Kissing Ball

Kissing Ball

Items needed:
red velvet ribbon, 1/2 inch and 1 inch
6 or 8 inch embroidery hoop
mistletoe
florist wire
hot glue & gun

Directions:

1. Separate the two pieces of the embroidery hoops and fit them
together, one inside the other, at a 90 degree angle. Secure in this position with florist wire or hot glue.

2. Secure a piece of the 1/2 ribbon to the bottom of the hoop. Wind the ribbon around the edges of the hoop, wrapping each "arm" in a spiral motion until the wood is covered completely. Secure with hot glue.

3. Form two bows with the 1 inch ribbons, leaving the ends dangling. Secure one to the bottom of the joined hoops, the other to the top.

4. Gather the mistletoe into a ball, secure the ends with florist wire. Insert inside the globe and twist the florist wire to the top of the ball.

5. Hang the ball somewhere you are sure to get kissed!

Eggnog Muffins

Eggnog Muffins

3 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 egg
1-3/4 cups prepared eggnog
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or paper-line muffin cups. In large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. In another bowl, combine egg, eggnog and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in golden raisins and pecans. Fill prepared cups 2/3 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until done. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from cups to wire racks. Makes 16.

Source: "Home Cooking, December 2001"

Christmas Lights

Two versions of the Carson Home.

What Holiday Are You?

You Are Christmas

More than most people, you are able to find magic in life's small moments.

Traditions mean a lot to you, and you tend to be quite nostalgic.

You are a giving, kind person who really understands the true meaning of holidays.

You inspire others to be as altruistic and caring as you are.

What makes you celebrate: Tradition and a generous spirit

At holiday get togethers, you do best as: The storyteller. You like to recount memories with everyone.

On a holiday, you're the one most likely to: Give a gift to everyone you know

What Holiday Are You?

Walnut Snowballs

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt -- `
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/4 cups walnuts -- toasted, cooled
1 cup unsalted butter -- room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 large egg yolk
5 teaspoons brandy
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 35 deg. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
Sift first 4 ingredients into medium bowl. Transfer 2 tablespoons flour
mixture to processor; add walnuts. Process until walnuts are finely
chopped.

Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Add 1 cup
powdered sugar and beat until well blended. Ad egg yolk, brandy and
vanilla and beat to blend. Beat in flour mixture. Add walnut mixture;
stir with spatula to blend. Using 1 tablespoon dough for each cookie,
shape dough into balls; arrange on prepared sheets, spacing 1 inch apart.

Bake cookies 12 minutes. Reverse sheets. Bake cookies until brown on
bottom, cracked on top and just beginning to color, about 12 minutes
longer. Sift remaining 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar thickly over hot cookies
and cool on sheets. (Can be made 4 days ahead. Store airtight between
sheets of waxed paper at room temperature.)

Crisp Gingerbread Cutouts

Crisp Gingerbread Cutouts

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 cups cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
raisins -- halved
red hot cinnamon candies

In a mixing bowl, cream shortening and sugar. Add molasses and egg; mix well.
Combine dry ingredients; add to the creamed mixture and mix well (dough will be soft). Chill for 1 hour. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut with a floured 2-1/2 inch cookie cutter and place on greased baking
sheets. Add raisins for eyes and red hot candies for buttons. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Source: "Taste of Home ~ December/January 1998"

Christmas lights

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For the ITV1 Christmas special, see Christmas Lights.

Christmas lights (also sometimes called fairy lights, twinkle lights or holiday lights in the United States) are strands of electric lights used to decorate homes, public/commercial buildings and Christmas trees during the Christmas season. Christmas lights come in a dazzling array of configurations and colors. The small "midget" bulbs commonly known as fairy lights are also called Italian lights in some parts of the U.S., such as Chicago.

History

First Christmas tree with electric lights, in the home of Edward H. Johnson in New York City - December 22, 1882.

The first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree was the creation of Edward H. Johnson, an associate of inventor Thomas Edison. While he was vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, a predecessor of today's Con Edison electric utility, he had Christmas tree light bulbs especially made for him. He proudly displayed his Christmas tree, which was hand-wired with 80 red, white and blue electric incandescent light bulbs the size of walnuts, on December 22, 1882 at his home on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Local newspapers ignored the story, seeing it as a publicity stunt. However, it was published by a Detroit newspaper reporter, and Johnson has become widely regarded as the Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights. By 1900, businesses started stringing up Christmas lights behind their windows.^[1] Christmas lights were too expensive for the average person; as such, electric Christmas lights did not become the majority replacement for candles until 1930.^[2]

In 1895, U.S. President Grover Cleveland proudly sponsored the first electrically lit Christmas tree in the White House. It was a huge specimen, featuring more than a hundred multicolored lights. The first commercially produced Christmas tree lamps were manufactured in strings of multiples of eight sockets by the General Electric Co. of Harrison, New Jersey. Each socket took a miniature two-candela carbon-filament lamp.

From that point on, electrically illuminated Christmas trees, but only indoors, grew with mounting enthusiasm in the United States and elsewhere. San Diego in 1904 and New York City in 1912 were the first recorded instances of the use of Christmas lights outside.^[3] McAdenville North Carolina claims to have been the first in 1956.^[4] The Library of Congress credits the town for inventing "the tradition of decorating evergreen trees with Christmas lights dates back to 1956 when the McAdenville Men's Club conceived of the idea of decorating a few trees around the McAdenville Community Center."^[5] However, the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has had "lights" since 1931, but did not have real electric lights until 1956.^[6] Furthermore, Philadelphia's Christmas Light Show and Disney's Christmas Tree also began in 1956.^[7]^[8] Though General Electric sponsored community lighting competitions during the 1920s, it would take until the mid 1950s for the use of such lights to be adopted by average households.

Over a period of time, strings of Christmas lights found their way into use in places other than Christmas trees. Soon, strings of lights adorned mantles and doorways inside homes, and ran along the rafters, roof lines, and porch railings of homes and businesses. In recent times, many city skyscrapers are decorated with long mostly-vertical strings of a common theme, and are activated simultaneously in Grand Illumination ceremonies.

In the mid 2000s, the video of the home of Carson Williams was widely distributed on the internet as a viral video. It garnered national attention in 2005 from The Today Show on NBC, Inside Edition and the CBS Evening News and was featured in a Miller television commercial.^[9]^[10] Williams turned his hobby into a commercial venture, and was commissioned to scale up his vision to a scale of 250,000 lights at a Denver shopping center, as well as displays in parks and zoos.

[edit] Types

The types of lamps used in Christmas lighting sets may be based on a variety of technologies. Common lamp types are incandescent light bulbs and now light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Less common are neon lamp sets. Fluorescent lamp sets were produced for a limited time by Sylvania in the mid-1940s.^[11]

[edit] Incandescent

Incandescent lamps produce a broad-spectrum white light, and are colored by coating the glass envelope with a transparent or translucent paint which acts as a color filter. Some early Japanese-made lamps, however, used colored glass.^[12] Though less expensive, the painted lamps suffer from fading or flaking of the paint when exposed to weather. Older bulbs were also coated on the insides of the bulbs to prevent this effect, but were more costly to manufacture.

[edit] Bubble Lights

Bubble lights are a type of incandescent novelty light that acquired some popularity during the 1950s. Their main feature is a sealed glass tube with a colored bubbling liquid inside. While the idea was first demonstrated by Benjamin Franklin, the idea was adapted for use in Christmas Lights. They were invented by Carl Otis in 1935, who then sold the patents to the NOMA Electric Corporation. There is a long story involving patent fights.^[13] Bubble Lights can still be purchased online and in stores to this day.

[edit] LED

LED Christmas lights are quickly gaining popularity in many places due to their very long lifetimes and associated low maintenance. Colored LEDs are also far more efficient at producing light than their colored incandescent counterparts.

There are two types of light-emitting diodes: colored LEDs and white LEDs. Colored LEDs emit a specific color light (monochromatic light), regardless of the color of the transparent plastic lens that encases the LED's chip. The plastic may be colored for cosmetic reasons, but does not substantially affect the color of the light emitted. Because the light is determined by the LED's chip rather than the plastic lens, Christmas lights of this type do not suffer from color fading. In addition, the plastic lens is much more durable than the glass envelope of incandescent bulbs.

White LEDs are similar to colored LEDs in most respects (power, durability, etc), but utilize a two-stage process to create the white (polychromatic, or broad spectrum) light. In the first stage, the LED actually only produces one color of light, similar to any other LED, but this "color" is ultraviolet, in a frequency range that our eyes cannot detect. In the second stage, the ultraviolet energy is absorbed by a phosphor which fluoresces, producing the broad spectrum of colors which our eyes perceive as "white". This is essentially the same process used in fluorescent lamps, but using an LED to create the ultraviolet light, rather than an excited gas plasma.

White LEDs can be used as white Christmas lights, or can be used to create any other color through the use of colored refractors and lenses, similar to the more commonly used incandescent bulbs. Color fading may therefore occur, due to the exposure of colored plastics to sunlight or heat, as with ordinary Christmas lights.

LEDs use much less electricity and have a much greater lifespan than incandescent lamps. Since they are constructed from solid state materials, and have no metallic filaments to burn out or break, LEDs also are much less susceptible to breakage due to impact or rough handling.

Although LEDs themselves are long life devices, older or lower-quality strands of LED-based Christmas lights can suffer from early failure. Most LED-based Christmas lights use copper wire, which connect to the aluminum-based wires of the LEDs. When exposed to moisture, the effects of mixing copper and aluminum metals in household wiring can result in Galvanic corrosion, causing the lights to corrode inside of their sockets and stop working. However, some newer and higher-quality sets of LED Christmas lights have the LED permanently mounted in a non-removable weathertight base and socket to keep out rain and other moisture, thus helping to prevent such corrosion.

Most common, early consumer LED lamps produce intense, deep, pure colours, versus incandescent bulbs which generally have subtler, yellow-tinted colours; early strings of LED lights are noticeably dimmer than incandescent bulbs. These two factors combine to give LED lamps a distinct aesthetic from older incandescent strings, although white LEDs behind coloured lenses do offer the ability to provide a more incandescent-type appearance with the benefits of energy efficiency. However, the cheaper, and more common early implementations generally use coloured-chip type LEDs that produce the intense colours. This is largely due to the maturity of coloured LED versus newer white LED technology, and as the technology improves so will the ability to change the aesthetics of the lamps, at lower cost than at present.

Additionally, low-end sets do not contain high-quality power-supplies and the individual bulbs flicker in sync with the power supply's alternations, producing a noticeable "strobe" effect when an individual happens to move the lamp across their field of view quickly, as in when turning their head rapidly. Higher quality power supplies supply direct current to the lamps and abolish this flickering.

[edit] Fiber optic

Fiber optic technology is also used in Christmas lighting, especially by incorporating it into artificial Christmas trees. Incandescent lamps or LEDs are located in the tree base and many optic fibers extend from the lamps to the ends of the tree branches. These devices frequently use a step-down transformer, because they have only one or two lamps or LEDs.

[edit] Power considerations

Incandescent (midget) or LED-based sets usually have each lamp connected in series to be powered without a transformer in the set. Screw-base C7 and C9 light sets use line voltage (120 volt) bulbs and are wired in parallel. LED-based sets use a current-limiting resistor to reduce the current supplied to each LED. Neon-lamp-based sets have lamps connected in parallel, each with its own current-limiting resistor. Battery-powered sets are also wired in parallel.

Some incandescent or LED-based strings use a power supply transformer with lamps connected in parallel. These sets are much safer, but there is a voltage drop at the end of the string causing reduced brightness of the lamps at the end of the set. The reduced brightness is, however, less noticeable with LED-based sets than incandescent sets. Power supplies with integrated plugs may make the set difficult to connect in certain places.

A line-operated AC string with a male plug on one end and a female socket on the other end can be conveniently connected end-to-end with other similar strings. The gauge of wire used and the power consumption of each string will determine how many strings can be safely daisy-chained this way, or whether the end string will have diminished voltage and brightness.

[edit] Control technology

Christmas lights can be animated using special "flasher" or "interrupter" bulbs or by electronic controller. Flasher bulbs use a bi-metallic strip which interrupts the series circuit when the lamp becomes hot.^[14] An electronic Christmas light controller usually has a diode bridge followed by a resistor-based voltage divider, a filter capacitor and a fixed-program microcontroller. The micro-controller has three or four outputs which are connected to transistors or thyristor which control interleaved circuits, each with lamps of a single color.

Controllers can be set up to change flashing or animation styles by pressing a button or turning a dial on the unit; others have only one pattern, but the speed of this pattern can usually be adjusted by turning a similar dial.

Most multi-function sets feature 8 to 16 moving light functions. Some very common functions are fading and chasing. More extravagant and less common functions are stepping on and 2-channel flashing. These lights usually come in sets of 140 or 150. This is because to give the chasing effect, bulbs must be arranged in 4 circuits of 35 (equals 140) or 3 circuits of 50 (equals 150). These light sets use even less power than a regular set of 150 because the lights are not always on, and therefore the bulbs do not get as hot.

Usually, computerized sets cannot be connected end-to-end. However, some newer sets contain special miniature plugs - a "female" plug is located at the end of the set, and a "male" plug is located between the control box and the beginning of the actual lights. By disconnecting the control box from one set, it can now be plugged into the end of an identical chasing set to produce a longer strand of chasing lights. These plugs generally have a twist-on locking feature similar to that found on garden hoses.

Fiber-optic Christmas lighting can also be animated electronically, particularly when the set incorporates LEDs. When an incandescent lamp is used, animation can created by means of a rotating color wheel.

[edit] Sizes

The four most common bulb sizes currently being used in the United States. From left to right: "rice" style, T1¾ "midget", C7½ and C9¼. Quarter shown for size comparison.

Note that the following may be particular to North America, and may vary in countries with mains other than 120 volts.

Christmas lighting began with small C6 bulbs -- C meaning "candle" for the flame shape, and 6 meaning ⁶⁄₈ inches (¾ in, or 19 mm) in diameter. These were on a miniature candelabra screw-base, now designated E10 (Edison screw, 10 mm). Replicas of these bulbs are now produced as miniature strings, usually with the entire bulb replaced, but sometimes as a decorative cover with regular bulbs inside. These bulbs tend to be transparent white or colors, and are often ornately designed with crystal-like patterns.

Later bulbs were called C7½, being $\tfrac{7\frac{1}{2}}{8}$ inches (¹⁵⁄₁₆ in, or 24 mm) in diameter; however, these have a blunt shape (and should therefore be called B7½, or B24). Mixing metric and English units, there are also now G30 globes which are 30 mm (1+³⁄₁₆ in, or G9½) in diameter that uses these sockets. These are still used for the classic or even retro look, and use about five watts each. Older bulbs drew 7½ watts of power, and were reduced to save power. Early bulbs, as well as some new antique reproductions, are made in various shapes and then painted like Christmas ornaments. Bubble lights and twinkle bulbs also come in this size.

Outdoor-only bulbs are designated C9¼ (1+⁵⁄₃₂ in, or 29 mm), and have a similar blunt shape as the C7½, but an E17 "intermediate" base. Some modern versions of these strings are now listed for indoor and outdoor use. These bulbs are rated at about seven watts each, and also now come in a globe shape, designated G40 (40 mm, or 1+⁹⁄₁₆ in). Some of the blunt-shape bulbs now come painted with designs, or swirled in more than one color. It is now very difficult to find twinkle bulbs in this size.

Standard mini bulbs are T1¾, indicating that they are a tube shape ⁷⁄₃₂ inches (5.5 mm) in diameter. Larger mini bulbs, which began appearing around 2004, are about twice this size, but are still very uncommon. Both types, along with most of the candle-shaped ones, are pinched-off at the tip rather than the base during manufacturing. Most contemporary miniature light bulbs have an internal shunt that is intended to activate when the bulb's filament burns out. The shunt closes the circuit across the bad filament, restoring continuity and illuminating the rest of the string. However, if one shunt fails to close properly, the whole string will fail to light. Other miniature types include globe-shaped "pearl" and smaller "button" lights, which are often painted in translucent or pearlescent colors. "Rice" lights are tiny, like a grain of rice, and can even have a subminiature base, if they are not already fixed permanently to the wires (on low-voltage sets). Rice lights are typically transparent, although colored variations do exist. They are intended to create tiny points of light, and are suitable for decorating miniature models, small wreaths, and for other similar situations in which even "midget" T1¾ lights may be too large.

LED lights, which are encased in solid plastic rather than a hollow glass bulb, may be molded into any shape. Because of the way the LED casts light in only one direction, this is the most common way to design LED lighting, with even "plain" sets having some sort of crystal pattern to create refraction.

Many bargain brands have dome-shaped LEDs which focuses the light to where it is sharply visible when viewed head-on, but almost invisible from a perpendicular viewpoint. This has both advantages and disadvantages according to one's decorating needs.

If a small LED bulb size but wider viewing perspective is desired, wide-angle LEDs are available. Rather than being dome-shaped (convex), the envelope is concave (sunken in) to cause wider distribution of light.

All miniature bulbs (including some LED sets) have a wedge base, though the exact design of each is inconsistent, making it somewhat difficult for the average consumer to change bulbs. To replace a bulb, the plastic base of the bulb must usually be changed by straightening the two wires and pulling the glass part out. Most replacement bulbs do not even include the bases anymore, despite getting only ten in a package and being charged nearly half what an entirely new string of 100 costs. For this reason, many Americans treat mini Christmas lights as being disposable, in addition to colored lights tending to fade even with only brief exposure to weathering. Many LED sets are coming permanently wired, with bases that look like conventional pull-out bulbs.

[edit] Troubleshooting

Individual bulbs fail either open or shorted. In a series string, when a bulb fails open, the whole string goes out, unless there is a special feature included to bridge the open bulb. Typical incandescent strings in the 1950s - 1960s were wired in series and frequently burnt out.

For a series string, fixing failures requires a tedious process: each bulb is replaced with a known good bulb, hunting for the broken one by trial-and-error. If more than one bulb is broken, then each bulb in the broken string needs to be tested in a known-good string. Sometimes a bulb will not actually break, but will come loose in its socket. Its connection can also become corroded. Those two problems can be fixed by resetting each bulb in turn.

In a parallel string, one shorted bulb makes the whole string fail, requiring a similar troubleshooting process. However, the shorted string must be protected by a current limiting device, which may require resetting in between tests.

Fiber optic sets are the simplest to troubleshoot, since they contain only a few light sources, sometimes only one or two, and the place of failure can be located very quickly. Units containing color wheels may also require maintenance of mechanical parts.

[edit] Light sets

Traditional C6 bulbs were typically 15 Volts, and used in series strings of eight bulbs, or multiples of 8. The use of eight bulbs (120 Volts/8 lamps = 15 Volts per lamp) gives each lamp the rated voltage for proper brightness. Later sets used nine bulbs on a string to increase the life of the bulbs by reducing the voltage each lamp received (120 Volts / 9 lamps = 13.33 Volts per bulb) but not significantly reducing the light output of the bulbs.

Large C7½ and C9¼ bulbs typically come in sets of 25, though bubble lights come in sets of seven, and some non-holiday sets come in ten or twelve. Sockets are usually spaced about one foot or 30 cm apart, and are clamped to the wire with an integrated insulation-piercing connector. Some older parallel sets had 15 bulbs, as do some of the newer globe sets manufactured today. Both of these bulbs are designed to run on 120 volts and the light sets that use them are parallel wired.

Miniatures first came in sets of 35 (3.5 volts per bulb), and sometimes smaller sets of 20 (6 volts per bulb). Sets of ten (12 volts per bulbs) were made for very small trees, but are quite hot, and are now usually used for tree toppers only. This number is convenient for stars, which have a total of ten points (five outward and five inward), and often have another light in the middle, occasionally on both sides.

Incandescent miniatures now usually come in sets of 50 or 100 (which contains two circuits of 50), though decorative sets with larger bulbs (C6 or pearl style) typically come in 35 or 70. Several "extra-bright" sets also use 70 or 105 bulbs, keeping the per-bulb voltage at 3.5 instead of 2.5.

LED sets can vary greatly. Common is a set of 60 (2 volts per bulb), but white LED sets use two circuits of 30 (4 volts per bulb). Multicolor sets may have special wiring, because red and yellow require less voltage than the newer blue-based ones (blue, emerald green and fluorescent white), but typically come in sets with a multiple of 35.

Battery-powered sets typically come in 10 or 12, and can use standard 2.5 to 3.5-volt bulbs because they run two batteries, totaling three volts or less. LEDs are becoming increasingly common as they greatly prolong battery life, but because they also last longer they are often soldered directly to the wires, making up for some of the increased cost of the newer LEDs. 'Rice lights" are often made this way as well, and likewise may also have more bulbs per set as they draw somewhat less power per bulb than other incandescents.

[edit] Ornamentation

Early bulbs were sometimes made in shapes and painted, the same way that glass ornaments are. These are typically pressed glass, much as common dishware was at the time. These are reproduced in very limited quantity nowadays, typically found only at specialty retailers and online. Metal reflectors were also used until the 1970s, having a center hub of cardboard, which then had tabs that pressed between the bulb and the socket.

Miniature lights sets can come with attached ornaments, typically plastic but sometimes glass. These began mid-century with petal "reflectors" which actually refracted the light and focused it in beams, and perhaps even earlier with crystal-like ones. On both types, the bulb stuck out of the center, and the "reflector" could be removed from the socket. Later designs, though much less popular, included stars. LED lights now come molded into shapes, though the light comes from the top instead of the center.

Mini lights can also have full-size ornaments normally sold on sets of ten. Certain sets have more than one bulb per ornament, such as for snowmen and candy canes which are long. There is an enormous array of other designs, ranging from holly berries and poinsettias to star-shaped santas and wire mesh snowflakes. There are also ones for other holidays.

[edit] Safety

The Marshall, Texas courthouse outlined in Christmas lights

Any set should be unplugged before repairing. If a set has no transformer, it is not line isolated. The small matchbox-sized electronic controllers do not have transformers in them, and sets with such controllers are also not line isolated, as well as all parts inside the controllers.

The number of strands of continuous light sets that may be safely conjoined varies based on whether the lights are LEDs, ordinary miniature light bulbs, or the larger C7/C9 type light bulbs. Other factors include the voltage of the set and the size of the wiring in the set. Those with questions should consult the manufacturer's instructions or an electrician.

Most light sets come with built in fuses to help protect against overheating and to prevent household fuses or circuit breakers from being tripped. If a fuse blows, the strand must be unplugged and the number of lights must be reduced. If the strand has nothing attached, or has blown repeatedly, it may contain a short circuit and should be discarded.

Hobbyists who don't want to pollute the environment by discarding a damaged set can cut it into many individual bulbs, each of which can be powered by a safe low voltage source. These bulbs can be used in projects such as microcontroller or PC controlled animated displays. The plug of the damaged set should, however, be destroyed and discarded for safety reasons, but this produces much less waste than discarding the whole set.

Some fiber optic sets may use halogen bulbs in their bases, in such cases, all precautions related to this type of bulbs should be observed.

Animated sets should not be watched by people having photosensitive epilepsy. Non-animated sets exist and can be used in such cases.

Many light sets may contain traces of lead, and consumers should wash hands thoroughly after handling these products, especially before eating. Proposition 65 of California requires that if products contain lead or traces of lead then a warning must be printed on packing of products. One must be sure to check the label for this and any additional warnings.

An episode of the show MythBusters covered the possible fire danger from Christmas lights.

[edit] Outdoor displays

This private residence in Jamaica Plain, Boston displayed 250,000 lights in 2006. NStar installed special wiring; the electric bill is $2,000 a month

This house in Cincinnati OH is well known in the area for its traditionall light display. The only types of lights used are mini, C7, and C9. Special wiring will be installed to light the 125 foot tall pine tree with C9 bulbs for the 2007 display

In the U.S. from the 1960s, beginning in tract housing, it became increasingly the custom to completely outline the house (but particularly the eaves) with weatherproof Christmas lights. The Holiday Trail of Lights is a joint effort by cities in east Texas and northwest Louisiana that had its origins in the Festival of Lights and Christmas Festival in Natchitoches, started in 1927, making it one of the oldest light festivals in the United States.

It is often a pastime to drive or walk around neighborhoods in the evening to see the lights displayed on and around other homes. While some homes have no lights, others may have incredibly ornate displays which require weeks to construct. A rare few have even made it to the Extreme Christmas TV specials shown on HGTV, at least one requiring a generator and another requiring separate electrical service to supply the amount of electrical power required.

In 1986, Barry "Mad Dog" Gottlieb, organized the "Tacky Xmas Decoration Contest and Grand Highly Illuminated House Tour" with a tour of decorated homes in Richmond, Virginia. Since then, people either sign up for a tour, or drive around to find houses that are the tackiest. Most of the houses on this tour are completely covered in Christmas lights, similar to the way Clark Griswold decorated his house in the movie Christmas Vacation. The tour has been featured on "NPR", "Great Things About the Holidays on Bravo, "Crazy Christmas Lights" on TLC, and HGTV among other nationally broadcast programs. Locals in Richmond refer to it as the "Tacky Light Tour" and a growing number of cities have adopted this family Christmas tradition.^[15]

[edit] Light sculptures

Lights are sometimes mounted on frames -- typically metal for large lights and plastic for miniature ones. These started on lampposts, street lights, and telephone poles in cities and towns with large C7 bulbs, but by the 1990s were being made in smaller form with miniature lights for home use. Public displays often have outdoor-rated garland on the frame as well, making them very decorative even in the daytime. Annual displays in Oxford Street, London, England are adored by the public and local businesses alike, have been erected for decades and will continue to do so with the help of companies like Piggotts [1]. Consumer types now tend to come with a plastic sheet backing printed in the proper design, and in the 2000s now with nearly photographic quality graphics and usually on a holographic "laser" backing.

Light sculptures are still the main form of public displays such as in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge in Tennessee.

[edit] Other holidays

In the United States, lights have been produced for many other holidays. These may be simple sets in typical holiday colors, or the type with plastic ornaments which the light socket fits into. Light sculptures are also produced in typical holiday icons.

Halloween is the most popular, with miniature light strings having black-insulated wires and semi-opaque orange bulbs. Later sets had some transparent purple bulbs (a representation of black, similar to blacklight), a few even have transparent green, or a translucent or semi-opaque lime green (possibly representing slime as in Ghostbusters, or creatures like goblins or space aliens). Two types of icicle lights are sold at Halloween: all-orange, and a combination of purple and green known as "slime lights."

Easter lights are often produced in pastels. These typically have white wire and connectors.

Red, white, and blue lights are produced for Independence Day, as well as U.S. flag and other patriotic-themed ornaments. Net lights have been produced with the lights in a U.S. flag pattern. In 2006 some stores carried stakes with LEDs that light fiber-optics, looking similar to fireworks.

These above light strings are occasionally used on Christmas Trees anyway, usually to add extra variety to the colors of the lights on the tree.

Various types of patio lighting with no holiday theme are also made for summertime. These are often clear white lights, but most are ornament sets, such as lanterns made of metal or bamboo, or plastic ornaments in the shape of barbecue condiments, flamingos and palm trees, or even various beers. Some are made of decorative wire or mesh, in abstract shapes such as dragonflies, often with glass "gems" or marbles. Light sculptures are also made in everything from wire-mesh frogs to artificial palm trees outlined in rope lights.

Christmas cracker

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Two Christmas crackers

Christmas crackers, also known as bon-bons in Australia, are an integral part of Christmas celebrations in the United Kingdom and in other Commonwealth countries. A cracker consists of a cardboard tube wrapped in a brightly decorated twist of paper, making it resemble an oversized sweet-wrapper. The cracker is pulled by two people, and, much in the manner of a wishbone, the cracker splits unevenly. The split is accompanied by a small bang produced by the effect of friction on a chemically impregnated card strip (similar to that used in a cap gun).

In one version of the tradition the person with the larger portion of cracker empties the contents from the tube and keeps them. In another each person will have their own cracker and will keep its contents regardless of whose end they were in. Typically these contents are a coloured paper hat or crown; a small toy or other trinket and a motto, a joke or piece of trivia on a small strip of paper. Crackers are often pulled after Christmas dinner or at parties.

Assembled crackers are typically sold in boxes of three to twelve. These typically have different designs usually with red, green and gold colours. Making crackers from scratch using the tubes from used toilet rolls and tissue paper is a common commonwealth activity for children.

It is a running joke that all the jokes and mottos in crackers are unfunny and unmemorable, along with being the same as those which have been used for many years past, resulting in most people either knowing or predicting the answers. Similarly, in most standard commercial products, the "gift" is equally awful, although wealthier individuals - notably, the British Royal Family - may use custom crackers with more expensive rewards. ^{[citation needed]} And some people will make their own (typically from kits) and add inexpensive but personalised gifts.

[edit] History

Crackers were invented by London confectioner Tom Smith, in 1847, as a development of his bon-bon sweets, which he sold in a twist of paper (the origins of the traditional sweet-wrapper). As sales of bon bons slumped, Smith began to come up with new promotional ideas. His first tactic was to insert mottos into the wrappers of the sweets (cf. Fortune cookies), but this had only limited success.

He was inspired to add the "crackle" element when he heard the crackle of a log he'd just put on the fire. The size of the paper wrapper had to be increased to incorporate the banger mechanism, and the sweet itself was eventually dropped, to be replaced by a small gift. The new product was initially marketed as the Cosaque (i.e., Cossack), but the onomatopoeic "cracker" soon became the commonly used name, as rival varieties were introduced to the market. The other elements of the modern cracker, the gifts, paper hats and varied designs, were all introduced by Tom Smith's son, Walter Smith, as ways of distinguishing the company from the many copycat cracker manufacturers which had suddenly sprung up.

[edit] In popular culture

In the wizarding world of Harry Potter, wizards have crackers similar to those used by Muggles but with a much more powerful bang (described as being like a cannon blast) and more interesting prizes such as a captain's hat, a 'Grow-Your-Own-Warts Kit', live white mice, non-exploding balloons and a magical chess set.

The MMORPG RuneScape released "Christmas Crackers" as a drop during the 2001 Christmas season. It required two players to open. One player would get a colored party hat, the other would get a random item. They were "discontinued" after the end of the year, but the items remained in-game for players to keep. As time passed, many people dropped, lost, or sold theirs, and it quickly became a valuable item. They are now the rarest and most expensive item in the game, with an estimated 100 remaining.

Ten Ages of Christmas

By Christine Lalumia

Fire, light and evergreens

Pre-Christian, northern societies used to enliven the dark days of the winter solstice with a celebration of fire, light and jollity, to create relief in the season of nature's dormancy and to hurry along the renewal of springtime. Christmas, as the celebration of the birth of Christ, was also a winter festival which gradually incorporated many pagan traditions, one of which was the burning of fires to ward away dark and evil spirits.

The tradition of decorating the home with native evergreens is a truly ancient one. Since pagan times evergreens have been valued for their ability to retain signs of life in the middle of winter - even in some instances producing berries and flowers.

Early Christians displayed evergreen plants in the home to symbolise everlasting life. Holly, ivy and evergreen herbs such as bay and rosemary were the most commonly used, all with symbolic meanings that were familiar to our ancestors. Rosemary, for remembrance, and bay, for valour, are still well known. Holly and ivy were a particularly popular combination, the holly traditionally thought to be masculine and ivy feminine, giving stability to the home.

A kissing-bough was often hung from the ceiling. This would consist of a round ball of twigs and greenery, decorated with seasonal fruit, such as apples. It was the precursor to the bunch of mistletoe, under which no lady could refuse a kiss. Mistletoe was sacred to the Druids and was once called 'All Heal'. It was thought to bring good luck and fertility, and to offer protection from witchcraft.

In the medieval period, the Yule log was ceremoniously carried into the house on Christmas Eve, and put in the fireplace of the main communal room. Often decorated with greenery and ribbon, it was lit with the saved end of the previous year's log and then burnt continuously for the Twelve Days of Christmas, providing much needed light and warmth.

The banqueting course

'Sugar, spice and everything nice ...'

The exhortation to 'eat, drink and be merry' epitomised Christmas in Elizabethan England. A highlight of the season was the Christmas feast, which, in those households that could afford it, culminated in a 'banqueting course' of sweet and colourful delicacies.

A banquet, or sweetmeat, course allowed the host to display his wealth and status. It also provided its creator, often the lady of the house, an opportunity to show her culinary and artistic skills. Sugar, very expensive at the time and considered to have medicinal properties, was the key ingredient of most of the elaborate dishes.

They were prepared and displayed to dazzle the quests with their beauty, delicacy and wit. The latter was provided by the creation of whimsical foods designed to deceive the eye. 'Collops of bacon', made from ground almonds and sugar, were a great favourite, as were walnuts, eggs and other items made from sugar-plate, a substance of egg, sugar and gelatine which could be moulded successfully into almost any form the cook might conceive. Another popular sweetmeat was 'leech', a milk-based sweet made with sugar and rosewater, which was cut into cubes and served plain or gilded, arranged as a chequerboard.

Spectacle was of great importance, with pride of place going to a marchpane - a round piece of almond paste which was iced and elaborately decorated, sometimes with figures made of sugar. Crystallised fruits added colour. Gold leaf was used to gild lemons and other fruits and also gingerbread, which added to the rich and splendid appearance of the banquet.

All of this would be accompanied by hot drinks, including 'lambswool'. This was made from hot cider, sherry or ale, spices and apples, which when hot exploded, to create a white 'woolly' top. Spiced wines and syllabubs were also popular. Guests were flattered and impressed by such extravagant expenditure.

The restrained restoration of Christmas

'More mischief is that time committed than in all the year besides ... What dicing and carding, what eating and drinking, what banqueting and feasting is then used ... to the great dishonour of God and the impoverishing of the realm.'

So wrote the strict protestant, Philip Stubbes, in the late 16th century, expressing the Puritan view that Christmas was a dangerous excuse for excessive drinking, eating, gambling and generally bad behaviour.

This view was made law in 1644, when an Act of Parliament banned Christmas celebrations. Viewed by the Puritans as superfluous, not to mention threatening, to core Christian beliefs, all activities to do with Christmas, both domestic and religious, including attending church, were forbidden. The ban, however, was unpopular and many people continued to celebrate privately, albeit in a far more restrained manner than in Elizabethan times.

A more openly festive, if slightly subdued, spirit returned following the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. Old customs were revived, and Christmas as both a religious and social festival was celebrated throughout society. The writings of Samuel Pepys provide a fascinating insight into Christmas in London during the decade following the Restoration.

A civil servant best known today for his diaries, Pepys' observations about Christmas give us a feeling for what the season was like for Londoners at the time. In common with his contemporaries, Pepys worked on Christmas Eve, and often for part of Christmas Day itself. He attended church without fail on Christmas Day and, in 1660 and 1664, he went to both morning and evening services.

The Christmas meal was also an important part of the day. Pepys noted with pleasure, or otherwise, what he ate each Christmas. In 1662, he made do with 'a mess of brave plum porridge and a roasted pullet ...', a rather frugal meal owing to his wife's illness. This was supplemented by a bought, rather than home-made, mince pie.

In other years he enjoyed richer food, including a 'shoulder of mutton', and in 1666 'some good ribs of beef roasted and mince pies ... and plenty of good wine'. For entertainment, Pepys attended theatrical productions when possible, and read and played music at home. Visiting with friends and family was frequently mentioned.

Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night, the 6th of January, has been celebrated as the end of the Christmas season since the Middle Ages. One of the most important days in the Christian calendar, Twelfth Night also marked the Feast of the Epiphany, when the three wise men, or Magi, arrived in Bethlehem to behold the Christ child.

The word 'epiphany' comes from the Greek word for manifestation, and was chosen because this was the night on which the Christ child, called 'the King of the Jews', was manifested to the Gentiles.

Most ancient writers agreed that there were three wise men. Over time they became known as the Three Kings - Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. Caspar was thought to have brought the Christ child frankincense for divinity, Melchior gold for kingship and Balthazar myrrh for humanity.

The custom of offering these things as Epiphany gifts was common for centuries. In 1756, The Gentleman's Magazine reported that: 'His Majesty, attended by the principal officers at Court ... went to the Chapel Royal at St James' and offered gold, myrrh and frankincense'.

It is easy to see how kings and queens thus became the characters that traditionally represented Twelfth Night. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Twelfth Night parties were popular and usually involved games-playing, drinking and eating. A special Twelfth Cake, the forerunner of today's Christmas cake, was the centrepiece of the party, and a slice was given to all members of the household.

Traditionally, it contained both a dried bean and a dried pea. The man whose slice contained the bean was elected King for the night; a Queen was found with a pea. For the rest of the evening, they ruled supreme. Even if they were normally servants, their temporarily exalted position was recognised by all, including their masters.

By the early 19th century, the cake itself had become very elaborate, with sugar frosting and gilded paper trimmings, often decorated with delicate figures made of plaster of Paris or sugar paste. It remained the centrepiece of the party, although the bean and pea of earlier times were usually omitted.

Twelfth Night was popular until the late 19th century. As the antiquarian William Sandys then observed, 'Twelfth Night ... is probably the most popular day throughout the Christmas, thanks to Twelfth Cake and other amusements'.

The Christmas tree

The image of a glittering fir tree, with its lush dark-green branches illuminated by twinkling lights, at the centre of a happy domestic scene is today one of the most powerful and recognisable images of a 'traditional' Christmas. For many, the Christmas tree is also firmly associated with the Victorians, and indeed with those great advocates of Christmas, Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert.

The custom, which originated in Germany, was introduced into England during the Georgian period. Queen Charlotte, German wife of George III, is known to have had a decorated tree for her family as early as the 1790s, and there is also a record of a tree at a children's party given by a member of Queen Caroline's court in 1821. Queen Victoria herself remembered such trees in the 1830s, happily describing potted trees placed on round tables 'hung with lights and sugar ornaments'.

So, although Prince Albert is generally given credit for introducing the Christmas tree to England, he in fact simply popularised and made fashionable an already existing custom. Victoria and Albert shared a heart-felt enthusiasm for Christmas and each year of their marriage, decorated trees provided a focal point for their domestic celebrations.

In 1848, a print showing the Royal couple with their children was published in the Illustrated London News. From this time onwards, the popularity of decorated fir trees spread beyond Royal circles and throughout society. Charles Dickens referred to the Christmas tree as that 'new German toy'.

Trees were generally displayed on tables in pots, with gifts placed unwrapped underneath. The tree was decorated with wax candles, baskets of sweets, flags and little ornaments and gifts. The imported German Springelbaum was the tree of choice until the 1880s, at which time the home-grown Norway Spruce became available. This made a larger tree more affordable, and people began placing trees on the floor.

Christmas cards and crackers

'If there is one thing inseparable from Christmas in general and the little ones' seasonable gatherings in particular, it is - a cracker. With what a delightful look of expectation they have waited for it to go "bang", and how they have screamed as they scrambled after the surprise which came in response to the explosion ...'.

So observed a Victorian writer about one of the two real Christmas innovations of the period: the Christmas cracker.

The story of the Christmas cracker is really a testament to one man's ingenuity and determination. Tom Smith was a confectioner's apprentice in London in the early 19th century. On a trip to Paris in 1840, he admired the French sugared almond bon-bons, wrapped in coloured tissue paper, and decided to introduce them in London. These bon-bons were popular, but not quite as Smith had hoped.

For seven years he worked to develop the bon-bon into something more exciting, but it was not until he sat one evening in front of his fireplace that his great idea came to him. Watching the logs crackle, he imagined a bon-bon with a pop. He made a coloured paper wrapper and put in it another strip of paper impregnated with chemicals which, when rubbed, created enough friction to produce a noise. He knew that bangs excited children (and were said to frighten evil spirits) - and the mottoes and poems he inserted inside the crackers amused adults.

The combination of innovation and tradition which is a hallmark of the Victorian period also marked another creation of the 1840s - the Christmas card, an altogether more pragmatic 'invention' than the cracker.

Sir Henry Cole, burdened by the amount of seasonal correspondence he felt obliged to write, first conceived of a dedicated Christmas card in 1843. His idea was to print a seasonal greeting card which would save hours of handwriting, and he engaged his friend, the artist John Horsley, to design nearly 1000 hand-coloured lithographs.

The standardisation and lowering of postage rates in 1840, which made letters easier and cheaper to send, contributed to the rapid spread of this new custom. Designs featured Christmas scenes, including Father Christmas, robins, evergreens and snow scenes but also a range of non-Christmas designs, much like Valentine cards.

Father Christmas

'He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot ... His eyes how they twinkled! His dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry ... He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.'

The lines above are from a poem called A Visit from St Nicholas written by Clement C Moore in1822, although it did not become well known until it was depicted in a series of engravings by Thomas Nast in the 1860s. By the Edwardian period, it was almost universally accepted as the definitive description of this important representative of Christmas.

But do these words describe Saint Nicholas or Father Christmas or Santa Claus? There were several forerunners to this chubby, elderly gentleman with a snowy beard. The Norse God Odin was one of the early figures, who rode through the winter world, bringing either gifts or punishments, as appropriate.

Odin wore a blue-hooded cloak, and had a long white beard. Because he was able to read hidden thoughts and watch from afar the behaviour of those he visited, he was both loved and feared. A much later figure was the 4th-century Bishop of Myra, also known as Saint Nicholas, famous for his kindness to children and generosity to the poor. After the Bishop died, the legend of Saint Nicholas grew and he is still remembered in some countries on 6 December.

In medieval England and for centuries afterwards, the figure of Father Christmas represented the spirit of benevolence and good cheer. In the 19th century, his role changed to something more like that of the European Saint Nicholas. At about the same time, Dutch emigrants took the story of a legendary gift-bringer called 'Sinterklaas' to America, where he eventually became known as Santa Claus.

The names may be different, but there were enough similarities between all these symbolic personages to allow, by the early 20th century, Father Christmas, Santa, St Nick and others to merge. And the resulting 'right jolly old elf' is now the universally recognised symbol of Christmas.

Gifts and shopping

Gifts have been exchanged at Christmas and New Year for many centuries. By the early 20th century, the availability of a huge range of gifts for both children and adults had increased dramatically. The streets of London thronged with shoppers in the days up to Christmas, and the shops were open and ablaze with a riot of light and colour even on Christmas Eve.

Manufacturers and shopkeepers both large and small were keen to capitalise on the commercial potential of Christmas. Gamages, a vast department store in Holborn, offered nearly 500 pages of gifts in their Christmas Bazaar catalogue of 1913.

Children's gifts proved a particularly lucrative market, and the sheer variety of games, toys and other gifts thrilled Christmas shoppers. Some gifts were considered suitable for both sexes. These included rocking horses, wooden farmyard animals, board games, picture and adventure books, magic tricks, Noah's Arks and mechanical or stuffed animals.

In 1911, Gamages filled its window with stuffed animals made by Steiff, including the teddy bears which were hugely popular and became a symbol of the period. Other toys and games were targeted specifically at one sex or the other. For girls, skipping ropes and, of course, dolls were available in huge variety. Boys could expect toy soldiers and train sets.

Some of these gifts were left under the Christmas tree, but small treats could be left in a stocking to be filled by Father Christmas. This custom was derived from a Dutch tradition, whereby children fill their shoes with straw as a gift for Saint Nicholas's horse, in the hope that sweets will be left as a reward for their thoughtfulness. If they were deemed to have been naughty, they received nothing.

Stockings were generally hung by the fireplace but were also left at the end of beds, as one boy living in Shoreditch, in East London, described in 1881:

'Woke up early in the morning ... found a crammed stocking hanging helplessly over the side of my bed, for the next 10 minutes busily engaged in ransacking its contents which were 2 bags of sweets, a pocket knife, oranges, almonds and raisins, packets of sweets and 2 jockie's caps ..'.

Making do

'In the present circumstances many people are asking, ought we celebrate Christmas at all? There can be no doubt that this is the very year when we should think, not less, but more about Christmas - not only as an escape from the horrors of war, but as a remembrance of nobler ideals.'

So wrote the editor of the Picture Post in December 1939. People were encouraged to spend available money, either on National Savings Certificates and War Bonds to support the war effort, or on everyday goods to support commercial traders. Where possible, this seems to have been taken to heart, and although Christmas during wartime was a greatly reduced affair, the spirit of the season remained strong.

Children regularly wrote to Father Christmas, and some families extended hospitality to those less fortunate than themselves. Their hope and kindness in a trying time proved that this exhortation from the Picture Post fell on receptive ears:

'And if we are merry at Christmas, we shall be showing the Nazis that we are winning the war of nerves, and maintaining the gallant spirit which has overcome the adversities which are no novelty to this windswept isle.'

Good cheer abounded, but the Blitz did disrupt both Christmas celebrations and seasonal travel. Travel to family gatherings and even short shopping trips could be difficult. Rationing and the general lack of both luxury goods and daily foodstuffs meant that food preparation required patience and imagination. Sugar, butter, and eggs could only be acquired in small quantities, so substitutions, such as using grated carrots instead of sugar to sweeten cakes, were made.

Home-made decorations, such as paper-chains, and any available artificial decorations were used to enliven the home and offer cheer - despite the constant threat of bombing. A small artificial tree was a great asset, as it could be easily transported to the bomb shelter as required. One East End family had one made of goose feathers, which could be decorated with tinsel and paper decorations.

Magazines and the hostess

'Parties ... owe much of their success to the thought expended on food and drink. Even the impromptu need not take the hostess by surprise if the store cupboard is kept well-stocked with pastry shells in airtight tins and good supplies of canned and bottled delicacies.'

So ran an article in Ideal Home in 1956, reflecting the general societal view that an ideal homemaker was also a gifted hostess, always prepared for visitors and a party and always wearing a gracious smile.

The image of the housewife as 'happy homemaker' was powerful in the 1950s, and at no time was she under more pressure than at Christmas. The pressure to produce not only a perfect Christmas dinner but also several days' worth of festive meals and snacks was enormous. Advice came from all quarters: 'helpful' parents and in-laws, household manuals and popular magazines.

Magazines such as Ideal Home and Good Housekeeping suggested ways to save money, short-cuts designed to enable the hostess to cut down on preparation time, and ideas for making entertaining both more exciting and easier. Despite this, playing the perfect hostess on top of other domestic duties was, it seems, a strain and the hostess often spent most of the party in the kitchen and most of the holidays exhausted!

Cocktail parties were especially popular in the 1950s, and Christmas was a favourite time of year for such events. Drinks such as those seen in Hollywood movies were accompanied by inventive nibbles and hors d'oeuvres. The woman was expected to plan and organise these 'sophisticated' parties, prepare all the food and yet appear unruffled as the guests arrived. The man of the house had but one serious responsibility: to stock and run the bar.

Larger parties with full meals were also expected and in 1959 hostesses were encouraged by Good Housekeeping to:

'... study recipe books. Not half an hour before a meal, but study them in odd moments just for pleasure and ideas. Look out for two or three culinary masterpieces to add an inspired, professional touch to your meal planning.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/society/ten_ages_gallery_01.shtml

Rudolph's Antlers

Rudolph's Antlers

1 c Semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c Butterscotch chips
3 oz Can chow mein noodles
12 Maraschino cherries, halved

Melt chocolate and butterscotch chips together in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove the pan from heat. Stir in chow mein noodles.
Using two teaspoons, on a waxed paper-lined cookie sheet, shape about 1 Tb of the mixture in a V-shaped cookie about 2" wide to resemble antlers. Press a cherry half securely in the center of each. Repeat for remaining cookies. Chill cookies on the cookie sheet in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours or till cookies are firm. Store the antlers in the refrigerator in a covered container up to 5 days.

Weihnachten

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Traditions

One of the German Christmas traditions is to put up the Christmas tree. Usually put up on the 23rd of December, it is then decorated by the family. The trees can be bought at special traders' sites, but many Germans go into the forest and get one themselves.

The Germans celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 24th December, a day called Heiliger Abend ("holy eve"). Generally the whole family comes together.

Before the Bescherung (means: time for exchanging gifts) begins, many Germans go to church. Christmas masses/services often last an hour or a little bit longer. Families with children go to a Weihnachtsgeschichte, a "children's mass" which usually is shorter and dramatised with a Krippenspiel, a nativity play. During the mass one of the adults prepares the Christmas tree and turns on electric lights or lights decorative candles, and puts on some festive Christmas music and places the gifts under the tree. For the Bescherung, the only light comes from the Christmas tree lights, so it's a low-lit atmosphere.

When the family comes back from the church, the living room is locked. When a little bell rings, the family enters into the prepared room. The bell represents the leaving of the Christ Child, Christkind, who according to tradition, brought the presents instead of Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus. The children can't enter until the Christkind leaves.

The gifts lie under the tree, wrapped in colourful paper and the children unwrap them before the big Christmas feast. Adults also share gifts while the children are opening theirs, often immediately playing with their new toys. Many families also prepare big colourful, decorated paper bags for the children, full of chocolates, often in the shape of angels or Santa Claus, called Weihnachtsmann in German. The bags may also contain fruits like oranges, tangerines, nuts and other little gifts.

Many families sing traditional Christmas songs or winter songs or play music on flutes and/or guitars. After this the family eats a big meal. There are many typical Christmas meals, to name the most important: goose, carp, chicken, fondue (with many types of meat), raclette and lamb.

Réveillon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In France and some other French-speaking countries, a réveillon is a long dinner, and possibly party, held on the evenings preceding Christmas Day and New Year's Day. The name of this dinner is based on the word réveil (meaning "waking"), because participation involves staying awake until midnight and beyond.

[edit] Food

The food consumed at réveillons is generally of an exceptional or luxury nature. For instance, appetizers may include lobster, oysters, escargots or foie gras, etc. One traditional dish is turkey with chestnuts. Réveillons in Québec will often include some variety of tourtière.

Dessert may consist of a bûche de Noël. In Provence, the tradition of the 13 desserts is followed: 13 desserts are served, almost invariably including: pompe à l'huile (a flavoured bread), dates, etc.

Quality wine is usually consumed a such dinners, often with champagne or similar sparkling wines as a conclusion.

[edit] Differences

There are certain traditional differences of character between the Christmas and New Year's Day réveillons.

Christmas is traditionally a Christian occasion, celebrated within the family, and this family character is retained even among non-believers.

The New Year's Eve, or Saint-Sylvestre, réveillon, on the other hand, is commonly a party with friends, etc. People may also go out to a cabaret show, or watch live relays of such shows on television.

Bewitched: A Vision of Sugar Plums

First aired: 12/24/1964 Production Code: 3927

Seven year old Tommy, who lives in an orphanage, is happy to spend Christmas with Gladys and Abner Kravitz. Six year old Michael, also an orphan, derides Tommy's belief in Santa Claus. When Samantha and Darrin bring him home for the holidays, their efforts to get Michael to share in the festivities of the season fail. After Michael admits that he would believe in Santa Claus if he really existed, Samantha takes Michael and Darrin on her broom-stick to the North Pole, where Michael meets Santa Claus. Later, back at home, Darrin and Michael awake. Although both feel they have dreamed the trip, Michael now believes in Santa Claus. Gladys overhears Michael tell Tommy he has met Santa Claus. When she tries to pin Tommy down, he denies that Michael has ever mentioned it. Mrs. Grange, the director of the orphanage, comes to the Stephens home with George and Sarah Johnson. At the Kravitz home, both Gladys and Abner, who are about to return Tommy to the orphanage, express their wish to have someone like Tommy permanently. When Michael leaves with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, Samantha and Darrin know Michael has found two loving parents.

Writer: Herman Groves
Director: Alan Rafkin
Guest star: Alice Pearce (Gladys Kravitz), George Tobias (Abner Kravitz) , Kevin Tate (Tommy Becker), Sara Seegar (Mrs. Grange), Bill Daily (Mr. Johnson), Gerry Johnson (Mrs. Johnson), Cecil Kellaway (Santa Claus), Bill Mumy (Michael)

http://www.tv.com/bewitched/show/140/episode_guide.html

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Festivus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Festivus Pole)

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Festivus

Frank Costanza (Jerry Stiller, left, next to Michael Richards as Cosmo Kramer), holds the old family "Festivus Pole" while talking to Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld). Frank's son George (Jason Alexander) has just fled Monk's Café after Frank plays a tape of George's "Feats of Strength" torment from a childhood Festivus.
Observed by	Daniel O'Keefe's family Seinfeld fans
Type	Seasonal
Significance	A non-denominational holiday to be celebrated by those frustrated or jaded with the commercialism and pressure surrounding the Christmas/ Hanukkah/ Kwanzaa season
Date	December 23
Celebrations	Airing of Grievances, Feats of Strength, the Festivus Pole
Related to	Christmas

Festivus is an annual holiday invented by Reader's Digest writer and editor Dan O'Keefe.^[1] It was introduced to popular culture by O'Keefe's son Daniel, a scriptwriter for the TV show Seinfeld, on December 18, 1997, in the episode "The Strike".^[2] (Season 9, Episode 10) The holiday is celebrated each year on December 23, but many people celebrate it at other times, often to avoid the Christmas rush.^[2] It includes novel practices such as the "Airing of Grievances", in which each person tells everyone else all the ways they've disappointed him/her over the past year, and after a Festivus dinner, the "Feats of Strength" are performed, involving wrestling the head of the household to the floor, thereby pinning him or her.

Many people, influenced or inspired by Seinfeld, now celebrate the holiday, in varying degrees of seriousness; some carefully following rules from the TV show or books, others humorously inventing their own versions.

Festivus Rituals

Festivus is introduced in The Strike (Seinfeld episode), which revolves around Cosmo Kramer returning to work at H&H Bagels. He does so after learning that a 12-year strike in which he participated has ended (because the minimum wage has risen to the level of the wages demanded by the workers fifteen years earlier).

Kramer becomes interested in resurrecting the holiday with Frank when at the bagel shop, Frank Costanza tells him how he created Festivus as an alternative holiday in response to the commercialization of Christmas:

Frank Costanza: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.

Cosmo Kramer: What happened to the doll?

Frank Costanza: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born: a Festivus for the rest of us!^[3]

Frank Costanza's son, George (Jason Alexander), creates donation cards for a fake charity called The Human Fund (with the slogan "Money for People") in lieu of having to give office Christmas presents. When his boss, Kruger (Daniel von Bargen), questions George about a $20,000 check he gave George to donate to the Human Fund as a corporate donation, George hastily concocts the excuse that he made up the Human Fund because he feared persecution for his beliefs, for not celebrating Christmas. Attempting to call his bluff, Kruger goes home with George to see Festivus in action.

Kramer eventually goes back on strike from his bagel-vendor job when his manager tells him he can't get time off for his new-found religious holiday. Kramer is then seen on the street with a sign reading "Festivus yes! Bagels no!", and chanting to anyone passing the store "Hey! No bagel, no bagel, no bagel..."^[3]

Finally at Frank's house in Queens, Jerry, Elaine, Kramer and George gather to celebrate Festivus. George brings Kruger to prove Festivus is real.

[edit] The Festivus Pole

In the episode, though not in the original O'Keefe Family celebration, the tradition of Festivus begins with an aluminum pole. During Festivus, the unadorned Festivus Pole is displayed. The pole was chosen apparently in opposition to the commercialization of highly decorated Christmas trees, because it is "very low-maintenance," and also because the holiday's patron, Frank Costanza, finds tinsel "distracting." The basics of the Festivus pole are explained by Frank in two separate situations.

Cosmo Kramer: Is there a tree?

Frank Costanza: No, instead, there's a pole. It requires no decoration. I find tinsel distracting.

Frank Costanza: It's made from aluminum. Very high strength-to-weight ratio.

Mr. Kruger: I find your belief system fascinating.

[edit] Festivus Dinner

In "The Strike," a celebratory dinner is shown on the evening of Festivus prior to the Feats of Strength and during the Airing of Grievances. The on-air meal appeared to be meat loaf or spaghetti in a red sauce. In Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us by Allen Salkin, drinking is encouraged with hearty beer, rum, bourbon, or wine. In the episode, no alcohol was served, but George Costanza's boss, Mr. Kruger, drank from a flask.

[edit] Airing of Grievances

Frank Costanza starts off the Festivus celebration with the Airing of Grievances.

The celebration of Festivus begins with the Airing of Grievances, which takes place immediately after the Festivus dinner has been served. It consists of lashing out at others and the world about how one has been disappointed in the past year. Every household has its own traditions; in one house, the Airing of Grievances consisted of writing the grievances on the fridge in marker.^[4]

Frank Costanza: And at the Festivus dinner, you gather your family around, and tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the past year!

Frank Costanza: I got a lot of problems with you people! And now, you're gonna hear about it. You, Kruger. My son tells me your company STINKS!

George Costanza: Oh, God.

[edit] Feats of Strength

The Feats of Strength is the final tradition observed in the celebration of Festivus. Traditionally, the head of the household selects one person at the Festivus celebration and challenges that person to a wrestling match.^[5] The person may decline if they have something else to do, such as pull a double shift at work. Tradition states that Festivus is not over until the head of the household is pinned in a wrestling match. The Feats of Strength are mentioned twice in the episode before it actually occurs. In both instances, no detail was given as to what had actually occurred, but in both instances, George Costanza ran out of the coffee shop in a mad panic, implying he had had bad experiences with the Feats of Strength in the past.

Jerry Seinfeld: And wasn't there a Feats of Strength that always ended up with you crying?

George Costanza: I can't take it anymore! I'm going to work! Are you happy now?!

Frank Costanza: I've brought one of the cassette tapes.

Frank Costanza (on a tape recorder): Read that poem.

George Costanza (on a tape recorder): I can't read it, I need my glasses.

Frank Costanza (on a tape recorder): You don't need glasses! You're just weak, weak!

Estelle Costanza (on a tape recorder): Leave him alone!

Frank Costanza (on a tape recorder): All right, George. It's time for the Festivus Feats of Strength!

George Costanza: No! No! Turn it off! No feats of strength! I hate Festivus!

Frank Costanza: We had some good times.

[edit] Festivus Miracles

Although it is not an official element of the holiday or its celebration, the phenomenon of the Festivus Miracle is mentioned twice in the original episode, both times occurring in the Costanza household, and both declared by Kramer.

Miracle #1;

Betting Shop Guy: Hello again, Miss Benes.

Elaine Benes: What are you doing here?

Betting Shop Guy: Damndest thing. Me and Charlie were calling to ask you out, and, uh, we got this bagel place.

Cosmo Kramer: I told them I was just about to see you. It's a Festivus Miracle!

Miracle #2;

Gwen: Jerry!

Jerry Seinfeld: Gwen! How did you know I was here?

Gwen: Kramer told me!

Cosmo Kramer: Another Festivus Miracle!!

[edit] Etymology and origin

The English word festive derives from the Latin word festivitas meaning "holiday", and the related word festus meaning "feast".^[6]^[7] The O'Keefe tradition did not have a set date, but would take place in response to family tension, "any time from December to May".^[8] However the original holiday took place in the "Past" day before the presentation of presents which fostered altruism in the community when supplies were diminished, and the "Future" which represented the hope of the coming year. The phrase "a Festivus for the rest of us" also derived from an O'Keefe family event, the death of the elder O'Keefe's mother.^[8]

The elder O'Keefe wrote a book that deals with idiosyncratic ritual and its social significance, a theme with great relevance to Festivus tradition.^[9]

[edit] Other references

"Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us" is the name of a book by Allen Salkin about the origins of the holiday and its celebration in the real world.^[10]
The Wagner Companies of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, began manufacturing Festivus Poles for the 2005 season.^[11]
"Festivus" was the name of a seasonal Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor made in 2000 and 2001 in honor of the holiday. In 2004, the flavor made its return as "Gingerbread Cookie", and has since been retired to the Ben and Jerry's Flavor Graveyard.^[12]
"Festivus" is a term used by the Baltimore Ravens (and their fans) to denote the playoffs. During the 2000 National Football League season, Ravens head coach Brian Billick banned his players from using the word "playoffs" during the season as he wanted his players to focus on every game and not look ahead. Players substituted the term "festivus" for playoffs and "festivus maximus" for the Super Bowl. The Ravens eventually went on to win the Super Bowl that season.^[13]
Presumably unaware of the irony, the Brisbane Marketing organization has adopted the name "Festivus" to refer to its summer holidays program of events in Brisbane^{[citation needed]}.
Oklahoma-based winery, Grape Ranch, began producing Festivus wine in 2003.
A 2004 episode of Jeopardy! had a Seinfeld-themed round, featuring a category entitled Festivus, in which contestants answered questions about holidays. Incidentally, this was the final episode in which long-time champion Ken Jennings played, until returning for the Ultimate Tournament of Champions.^[14]
"Oh Festivus" (also known as "The Festivus Song") was first sung in Dallas, Texas, bars and taverns in the 2004-2005 holiday season. It is set to the tune of "Oh, Christmas Tree".
In 2005, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle was declared "Governor Festivus".^[15]

Christmas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Christmas Day)

Christmas

Also called	Christ's Mass Yule Yule Tide
Observed by	Christians around the world, as well as by non-Christians who usually focus on the holiday's secular traditions.
Type	Christian/Secular
Significance	traditional birthdate of Jesus
Date	December 25 (December 24 in some countries) The Armenian Apostolic Church observes Christmas on January 6 January 7 in Old Calendarist Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Patriarchate of Alexandria and the churches of Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Finland, Greece and Cyprus observe Christmas on December 25.
Observances	religious services, gift giving, family meetings, decorating trees
Related to	Annunciation, Incarnation, Advent; the winter holiday season

Holidays Portal

Christmas is an annual holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus. Christmas festivities often combine the commemoration of Jesus' birth with various secular customs, many of which have been influenced by earlier winter festivals. The date as a birthdate for Jesus is traditional, and is not considered to be his actual date of birth.

In most places around the world, Christmas Day is celebrated on December 25. Christmas Eve is the preceding day, December 24. In the United Kingdom and many countries of the Commonwealth, Boxing Day is the following day, December 26. In Catholic countries, Saint Stephen's Day or the Feast of St. Stephen is December 26. The Armenian Apostolic Church observes Christmas on January 6, while certain old rite or old style Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas on January 7, the date on the Gregorian calendar which corresponds to 25 December on the Julian Calendar.

The word "Christmas" is a contraction of two words "Christ's mass" and is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038. In early Greek versions of the New Testament, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ (Χριστός). Since the mid-16th century Χ, or the similar Roman letter X, was used as an abbreviation for Christ. Thus, Xmas is an abbreviation for Christmas.

After the conversion of Anglo-Saxons in England from their indigenous Anglo-Saxon polytheism (a form of Germanic paganism) in the very early 7th century, Christmas was called geol, which was the name of the native Germanic pre-Christian solstice festival that fell on that date. From geol, the current English word Yule is derived. Many customs associated with modern Christmas were derived from Germanic paganism.

The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned on Christmas Day in 800. Around the 12th century, the remnants of the former Saturnalian traditions of the Romans were transferred to the Twelve Days of Christmas (26 December - 6 January). Christmas during the Middle Ages was a public festival, incorporating ivy, holly, and other evergreens, as well as gift-giving.

Modern traditions have come to include the display of Nativity scenes, Holly and Christmas trees, the exchange of gifts and cards, and the arrival of Father Christmas or Santa Claus on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. Popular Christmas themes include the promotion of goodwill and peace.

History

[edit] Pre-Christian origins

A winter festival has been a traditional festival in many cultures due to the winter solstice.^[1] In part, the Christmas celebration was created by the early Church in order to entice pagan Romans to convert to Christianity without losing their own winter celebrations.^[2]^[3] Most of the most important gods in the religions of Ishtar and Mithra had their birthdays on December 25. Various traditions are considered to have been syncretised from various winter festivals.

[edit] Christian origins

Origen, a father of the Christian church, argued against the celebration of birthdays, including the birth of Christ.

It is unknown exactly when or why December 25 became associated with Jesus' birth. The New Testament does not give a specific date.^[4] Sextus Julius Africanus popularized the idea that Jesus was born on December 25 in his Chronographiai, a reference book for Christians written in AD 221.^[4] This date is nine months after the traditional date of the Incarnation (March 25), now celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation. March 25 was considered to be the date of the vernal equinox and therefore the creation of Adam; early Christians believed this was also the date Jesus was crucified. The Christian idea that Jesus was conceived on the same date that he died on the cross is consistent with a Jewish belief that a prophet lived an integral number of years.^[5]

The identification of the birth date of Jesus did not at first inspire feasting or celebration. Tertullian does not mention it as a major feast day in the Church of Roman Africa. In 245, the theologian Origen denounced the idea of celebrating Jesus' birthday "as if he were a king pharaoh." He contended that only sinners, not saints, celebrated their birthdays^[6].

The earliest reference to the celebration of Christmas is in the Calendar of Filocalus, an illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome in 354.^[7]^[8] In the east, meanwhile, Christians celebrated the birth of Jesus as part of Epiphany (January 6), although this festival focused on the baptism of Jesus.^[9]

Christmas was promoted in the east as part of the revival of Catholicism following the death of the pro-Arian Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced to Constantinople in 379, to Antioch in about 380, and to Alexandria in about 430. Christmas was especially controversial in 4th century Constantinople, being the "fortress of Arianism," as Edward Gibbon described it. The feast disappeared after Gregory of Nazianzus resigned as bishop in 381, although it was reintroduced by John Chrysostom in about 400.^[7]

[edit] Middle Ages

Adoration of the Magi by Don Lorenzo Monaco (1422).

In the Early Middle Ages, Christmas Day was overshadowed by Epiphany, which in the west focused on the visit of the magi. But the Medieval calendar was dominated by Christmas-related holidays. The forty days before Christmas became the "forty days of St. Martin" (which began on November 11, the feast of St. Martin of Tours), now known as Advent.^[10] In Italy, former Saturnalian traditions were attached to Advent.^[10] Around the 12th century, these traditions transferred again to the Twelve Days of Christmas (December 26 - January 6);a time that appears in the liturgical calendars as Christmastide or Twelve Holy Days.^[10]

The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned on Christmas Day in 800. King William I of England was crowned on Christmas Day 1066. Christmas during the Middle Ages remained a public festival, incorporating ivy, holly, and other evergreens, as well as gift-giving.^[11] Christmas gift-giving during the Middle Ages was practiced more often between people with legal relationships (i.e. tenant and landlord) than between close friends and relatives.^[11]

By the High Middle Ages, the holiday had become so prominent that chroniclers routinely noted where various magnates celebrated Christmas. King Richard II of England hosted a Christmas feast in 1377 at which twenty-eight oxen and three hundred sheep were eaten.^[10] The Yule boar was a common feature of medieval Christmas feasts. Caroling also became popular, and was originally a group of dancers who sang. The group was composed of a lead singer and a ring of dancers that provided the chorus. Various writers of the time condemned caroling as lewd, indicating that the unruly traditions of Saturnalia and Yule may have continued in this form.^[10] "Misrule" — drunkenness, promiscuity, gambling — was also an important aspect of the festival. In England, gifts were exchanged on New Year's Day, and there was special Christmas ale.^[10]

Excerpt from Josiah King's The Examination and Tryal of Father Christmas (1686), published shortly after Christmas was reinstated as a holy day in England.

[edit] From the Reformation to the 1800s

During the Reformation, some Protestants condemned Christmas celebration as "trappings of popery" and the "rags of the Beast". The Roman Catholic Church responded by promoting the festival in an even more religiously oriented form. Following the Parliamentary victory over King Charles I during the English Civil War, England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas, in 1647. Pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities, and for several weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans.^[12] The Restoration of 1660 ended the ban, but many of the Nonconformist clergy still disapproved of Christmas celebrations, using Puritan arguments.

In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England disapproved of Christmas; its celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681. At the same time, Christian residents of Virginia and New York observed the holiday freely. Christmas fell out of favor in the United States after the American Revolution, when it was considered an English custom.^[13]

By the 1820s, sectarian tension in England had eased and British writers began to worry that Christmas was dying out. They imagined Tudor Christmas as a time of heartfelt celebration, and efforts were made to revive the holiday. Charles Dickens' book A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, played a major role in reinventing Christmas as a holiday emphasizing family, goodwill, and compassion over communal celebration and hedonistic excess.^[14]

Interest in Christmas in America was revived in the 1820s by several short stories by Washington Irving appearing in his The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon and "Old Christmas", and by Clement Clarke Moore's 1822 poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (popularly known by its first line: Twas the Night Before Christmas). Irving's stories depicted harmonious warm-hearted holiday traditions he claimed to have observed in England. Although some argue that Irving invented the traditions he describes, they were widely imitated by his American readers.^[15] The poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas popularized the tradition of exchanging gifts and seasonal Christmas shopping began to assume economic importance.^[16] In her 1850 book "The First Christmas in New England", Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a character who complained that the true meaning of Christmas was being lost in a shopping spree.^[17]

Christmas was declared a United States Federal holiday in 1870. Starting in the late 1800s, the economic importance of Christmas led to concerns over what has been seen by some as the increasing commercialization of Christmas.

[edit] Christmas as a celebration of the nativity

Adorazione del Bambino (Adoration of the Child) (1439-43), a mural by Florentine painter Fra Angelico.

The Nativity of Jesus refers to the Christian belief that the messiah was born to the Virgin Mary. The story of Christmas is based on the biblical accounts given in the Gospel of Matthew, namely Matthew 1:18-Matthew 2:12 and the Gospel of Luke, specifically Luke 1:26-Luke 1:56. According to these accounts, Jesus was born to Mary, assisted by her husband Joseph, in the city of Bethlehem. The birth took place in a "stable", surrounded by farm animals, and the infant Jesus was laid in a manger. Shepherds from the fields surrounding Bethlehem were told of the birth by an angel, and were the first to see the child.^[18] Christians believe that the birth of Jesus fulfilled many prophecies made hundreds of years before his birth.

The word "Christmas" is a contraction meaning "Christ's mass." It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038.^[7] After the conversion of Anglo-Saxon Britain in the very early 7th century, Christmas was referred to as geol,^[7] the name of the pre-Christian solstice festival from which the current English word 'Yule' is derived.^[19] In early Greek versions of the New Testament, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ (Χριστός). Since the mid-sixteenth century Χ, or the similar Roman letter X, was used as an abbreviation for Christ.^[20] Hence, "Xmas" is often used as an abbreviation for Christmas.

Remembering or re-creating the Nativity is a central way that Christians celebrate Christmas. The Eastern Orthodox Church practices the Nativity Fast in anticipation of the birth of Jesus, while much of the Western Church celebrates Advent. In some Christian churches, children perform plays re-telling the events of the Nativity, or sing carols that reference the event. Some Christians also display a small re-creation of the Nativity, known as a Nativity scene, in their homes, using figurines to portray the key characters of the event. Live Nativity scenes are also performed, using actors and live animals to portray the event with more realism.^[21]

Nativity scenes traditionally include the Three Wise Men, Balthazar, Melchior, and Caspar, although their names and number are not referred to in the Biblical narrative, who are said to have followed a star, known as the Star of Bethlehem, found Jesus, and presented gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.^[22]

In the U.S., Christmas decorations at public buildings once commonly included Nativity scenes. This practice has led to many lawsuits, as groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union believe it amounts to the government endorsing a religion. In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a city-owned Christmas display, even one with a Nativity scene, does not violate the First Amendment.^[23]

[edit] Christmas as a secular holiday

Throughout the 20th century, the United States experienced what became known as the Christmas controversies over the nature of the day, and its dual status as a religious feast day and a secular holiday of the same name. The importance of the economic impact of the secular Christmas holiday was reinforced in the 1930s when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed moving the Thanksgiving holiday date to extend the Christmas shopping season and boost the economy during the Great Depression.^[24] Religious leaders protested this move, with a New York Times roundup of Christmas sermons showing the most common theme as the dangers of an increasingly commercial Christmas.^[25]

"Now it is Christmas again" (1907) by Carl Larsson.

Some considered the U.S. government's recognition of Christmas as a federal holiday to be a violation of the separation of church and state. This was brought to trial several times, recently including in Lynch v. Donnelly (1984)^[23] and Ganulin v. United States (1999).^[26]

On December 6, 1999, the verdict for Ganulin v. United States (1999) declared that "the establishment of Christmas Day as a legal public holiday does not violate the Establishment Clause because it has a valid secular purpose." This decision was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on December 19, 2000. At the same time, many devout Christians objected to what they saw as the vulgarization and cooption of one of their sacred observances by secular commercial society and calls to return to "the true meaning of Christmas" are common.

Debates about Christmas in America continued into the 21st century. In 2005, some Christians, along with American political commentators such as Bill O'Reilly, protested what they perceived to be the secularization of Christmas. They felt that the holiday was threatened by a general secular trend, or by persons and organizations with an anti-Christian agenda. The perceived trend was also blamed on political correctness.^[27]

[edit] Santa Claus and other bringers of gifts

Santa Claus hands out gifts during the US Civil War in Thomas Nast's first Santa Claus cartoon, Harper's Weekly, 1863.

Main article: Santa Claus

In Western culture, where the holiday is characterized by the exchange of gifts among friends and family members, some of the gifts are attributed to a character called Santa Claus (also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas or St. Nikolaus, Sinterklaas, Kris Kringle, Joulupukki, Weihnachtsmann, Saint Basil and Father Frost).

The popular image of Santa Claus was created by the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902), who drew a new image annually, beginning in 1863. By the 1880s, Nast's Santa had evolved into the form we now recognize. The image was standardized by advertisers in the 1920s.^[28]

Father Christmas, who predates the Santa Claus character, was first recorded in the 15th century, but was associated with holiday merrymaking and drunkenness.^[29] In Victorian Britain, his image was remade to match that of Santa. The French Père Noël evolved along similar lines, eventually adopting the Santa image. In Italy, Babbo Natale acts as Santa Claus, while La Befana is the bringer of gifts and arrives on the eve of the Epiphany. It is said that La Befana set out to bring the baby Jesus gifts, but got lost along the way. Now, she brings gifts to all children. In some cultures Santa Claus is accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht, or Black Peter. In other versions, elves make the toys. His wife is referred to as Mrs. Claus.

The current tradition in several Latin American countries (such as Venezuela) holds that while Santa makes the toys, he then gives them to the Baby Jesus, who is the one who actually delivers them to the children's homes. This story is meant to be a reconciliation between traditional religious beliefs and modern day globalization, most notably the iconography of Santa Claus imported from the United States.

Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas present, by John Leech. Made for Charles Dickens's novel A Christmas Carol (1843).

In Southern Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Alto Adige/Südtirol (Italy) and Liechtenstein the Christkind brings the presents. The German St. Nikolaus is not identical with the Weihnachtsman (who is the German version of Santa Claus). St. Nikolaus wears a bishop's dress and still brings small gifts (usually candies, nuts and fruits) on December 6 and is accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht. Although many parents around the world routinely teach their children about Santa Claus and other gift bringers, some have come to reject this practice, considering it deceptive.^[30]

[edit] Christmas tree and other decorations

Main article: Christmas tree

The Christmas tree is often explained as a Christianization of pagan tradition and ritual surrounding the Winter Solstice, which included the use of evergreen boughs,^[31] and an adaptation of pagan tree worship.^[32] The English language phrase "Christmas tree" is first recorded in 1835^[29] and represents an importation from the German language. The modern Christmas tree tradition is believed to have begun in Germany in the 18th century^[32] though many argue that Martin Luther began the tradition in the 16th century.^[33] From Germany the custom was introduced to England, first via Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, and then more successfully by Prince Albert during the reign of Queen Victoria. Around the same time, German immigrants introduced the custom into the United States.^[34] Christmas trees may be decorated with lights and ornaments.

The Slovenian version of Santa, Ded Moroz or Father Frost.

Since the 19th century, the poinsettia has been associated with Christmas. Other popular holiday plants include holly, mistletoe, red amaryllis, and Christmas cactus. Along with a Christmas tree, the interior of a home may be decorated with these plants, along with garlands and evergreen foliage.

In Australia, North and South America, and to a lesser extent Europe, it is traditional to decorate the outside of houses with lights and sometimes with illuminated sleighs, snowmen, and other Christmas figures. Municipalities often sponsor decorations as well. Christmas banners may be hung from street lights and Christmas trees placed in the town square.^[35]

In the Western world, rolls of brightly-colored paper with secular or religious Christmas motifs are manufactured for the purpose of wrapping gifts. The display of Christmas villages has also become a tradition in many homes during this season. Other traditional decorations include bells, candles, candy canes, stockings, wreaths, and angels.

[edit] Economics of Christmas

Main articles: Christmas in the media, Christmas films, Christmas television and Christmas music.

Christmas display in a Brazilian shopping mall

Christmas is typically the largest annual economic stimulus for many nations. Sales increase dramatically in almost all retail areas and shops introduce new products as people purchase gifts, decorations, and supplies. In the U.S., the "Christmas shopping season" generally begins on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, though many American stores begin selling Christmas items in October and early November.^[36]

In most areas, Christmas Day is the least active day of the year for business and commerce; almost all retail, commercial and institutional businesses are closed, and almost all industries cease activity (more than any other day of the year). In England and Wales, the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004 prevents all large shops from trading on Christmas Day. Scotland is currently planning similar legislation. Film studios release many high-budget movies in the holiday season, including Christmas films, fantasy movies or high-tone dramas with high production values.

An economists analysis calculates that Christmas is a deadweight loss under orthodox microeconomic theory, due to the surge in gift-giving. This loss is calculated as the difference between what the gift giver spent on the item and what the gift receiver would have paid for the item. It is estimated that in 2001 Christmas resulted in a $4 billion deadweight loss in the U.S. alone.^[37]^[38] Because of complicating factors, this analysis is sometimes used to discuss possible flaws in current microeconomic theory. Other deadweight losses include the effects of Christmas on the environment and the fact that material gifts are often perceived as white elephants, imposing cost for upkeep and storage and contributing to clutter.^[39]

Christmas Eve

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Julaftonen (The Christmas Eve), a watercolor painted 1904-05 by Carl Larsson (1853-1919)

Christmas Eve, on December 24, is the day before Christmas Day, the celebrated birthday of Jesus Christ.

Religious observance

In the Western Christian Churches, the Christmas season liturgically begins on Christmas Eve. The Mass of the Vigil is said in the late afternoon or early evening hours of December 24. The Christmas season continues through until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord on the Sunday following the Solemnity of the Epiphany.

Many Catholics traditionally celebrate a midnight Mass at midnight on Christmas Eve, which is held in churches throughout the world, marking the beginning of Christmas Day. A popular joke is to ask what time Midnight Mass starts, but in recent years some churches have started their "Midnight" Mass as early as 7 P.M. Other Catholic churches hold a candlelight service which is typically held earlier in the evening. These often feature dramatizations of the Nativity. Similar worship services are held in many Protestant churches on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day.

In the early evening, many Methodists come to their church to celebrate Holy Communion with their families. The mood is very solemn, and often the only visible light is the Advent Wreath, and the candles upon the Lord's Table.

The Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast annually from King's College, Cambridge on Christmas Eve has established itself as one of the signs that Christmas has begun in the United Kingdom. It is broadcast to many parts of the world via the BBC World Service.

[edit] Meals

Large meals are common, often with turkey or ham as the main item. A traditional dish in Germany is roasted goose. In Czech Republic and Slovakia it is a fish soup and breaded roasted carp with potato salad. Italian Catholics eat seven types of seafood. In some parts of Eastern Europe such as Poland and Lithuania, a traditional meatless 12-dishes Christmas Eve Supper is served before opening gifts.

[edit] Gift giving

It is also seen as the night when Santa Claus or his international variants, make their rounds giving gifts to good children. In the Czech Republic, where St. Nicholas (sv. Mikuláš) gave his sweet gifts already more than two weeks earlier, is Ježíšek, that is Child Jesus, the Christmas gift-giver. In Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Iceland, Argentina, Poland, Portugal and Quebec, Kazakhstan Christmas presents are opened on the evening of the 24^th, while in Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, English Canada, South Africa, and Australia mostly on the morning of Christmas Day. In Finland Joulupukki personally meets children and gives presents in the evening of Christmas Eve. In most parts of Germany, Austria and Switzerland Christmas presents are opened in the evening of December 24th ('Bescherung'). In Spain gifts are traditionally opened on the morning of January 6, Epiphany day ("Día de Los Reyes"), though in some other countries, like Argentina and Uruguay people received presents both around Christmas and on the morning of Epiphany day; there are also some countries, like the rest of Latin America, where people stay awake until midnight, when they open the presents.

[edit] Regional traditions

[edit] South America

In South America Christmas Eve know as Nochebuena (English - Good Night) is celebrated by staying up until midnight. At midnight gifts and presents are opened. Fireworks are also shot off. Fireworks are the main focus of the celebration. It is not a silent night. But in some places like Brazil for instance they celebrate just like we do here in the United States. With families coming together exchanging presents and going to church. After Christmas the children often play with their new presents or go to church with their parents and grandparents.

[edit] Spain

When it is Christmas Eve or La Nochebuena, as it is known in Spain, there are two important traditions - attending Christmas Mass and secondly, enjoying a meal with friends and family. There is a wide variety of typical foods one might find on plates across Spain on this particular night, and each region has its own distinct specialties. It is particularly common, however, to start the meal with a seafood dish such as prawns or salmon, followed by a bowl of hot, homemade soup. The main meal will commonly consist of roast lamb, or seafood, such as cod or shellfish. For dessert, there is quite a spread of delicacies, among them are turrón, a dessert made of honey, egg and almonds that is Arabic in origin.

[edit] Iceland and Norway

In Iceland and Norway, Yule starts on the night of December 24th, at 6:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. respectively. Church bells ring at that time and people either sit down for holiday dinner at home or with closest family. After that they open gifts and spend the evening together.

[edit] Slavic countries

In many cultures, a festive dinner is traditionally served for the family and close friends in attendance. In Slavic countries, it is known as Wygilia, and being invited to attend a Wygilia dinner with a family is considered a high honor. Unless attendance is impossible or otherwise too impractical, or if the person has made other plans already, turning down such an invitation, or not showing up can be considered extremely rude.

[edit] North America

In North America, there is a mixture of families opening gifts in the evening and, more commonly, on Christmas Day morning. In Quebec and among many francophone families living in other provinces, the Réveillon is held on Christmas Eve with traditional food such as tourtière, attendance at church, and the opening of gifts.

[edit] Philippines

In the Philippines, the predominantly Roman Catholic Christian country in Asia, Christmas Eve is usually celebrated by attending the "Rooster's Mass or Misa del Gallo. Misa del Gallo is the Holy Mass celebrated hours before the clock ticks 12 A.M. that signifies the arrival of December 25 Christmas Day. After attending church, Filipino families usually hold a feast named Noche Buena to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. A great variety of food is eaten during this feast, an event that usually is done with great preparation. Foods being prepared include the famous Lechon, Quezo de Bola, Jamon, Roast Chicken (turkey did not gain much popularity in the Philippines), Barbecued meats, Pancit among many others. Despite the fact that some families are poor, they still find a way to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ through eating, family time and merry-making.

[edit] Finland (Declaration of Christmas Peace)

Further information: Christmas truce

Declaration of Christmas Peace has been a tradition in Finland from the Middle Ages every year, except in 1939 due to the Winter War. The declaration takes place on the Old Great Square of Turku, Finland's official Christmas City and former capital, at noon on Christmas Eve. It is broadcast in Finnish radio (since 1935) and television and nowadays also in some foreign countries.

The declaration ceremony begins with the hymn Jumala ompi linnamme (Martin Luther's A Mighty Fortress Is Our God) and continues with the Declaration of Christmas Peace read from a parchment roll:

"Tomorrow, God willing, marks the most gracious feast of the birth of our Lord and Saviour, and therefore a general Christmas peace is hereby declared, and all persons are directed to observe this holiday with due reverence and otherwise quietly and peacefully to conduct themselves, for whosoever breaks this peace and disturbs the Christmas holiday by any unlawful or improper conduct shall be liable, under aggravating circumstances, to whatever penalty is prescribed by law and decree for each particular offence or misdemeanour. Finally, all citizens are wished a joyous Christmas holiday."

Recently, there is also a declaration of Christmas peace for forest animals in many cities and municipalities, so there is no hunting during Christmas.

In Finland people usually take a Christmas sauna.

[edit] Sweden

Further information: Swedish festivities#Christmas

In Sweden, most of the Christmas celebrations take place on Christmas Eve, including Santa Claus' s distribution of Christmas presents.

[edit] Other

Christmas Eve is treated to a greater or a lesser extent in most Christian societies as part of the Christmas season. The day of Christmas Eve is the traditional day to set up the Christmas tree, but as the Christmas season has been extended several weeks back (to Thanksgiving in the United States), many trees will have been set up for weeks.

In many countries, the day of Christmas Eve is a shortened business day. For example, (when it falls on a weekday) most financial markets close by early afternoon, and nearly all retail and commercial businesses are closed by late afternoon - typically between 4:00 and 6:00 pm.

In families where a divorce has occurred, children may spend one day with one part of the family, and the next with the other. In extended families where two branches of the family reside within a reasonable driving distance, many families may choose to spend Christmas Eve with the maternal side of the family and Christmas Day with the paternal side, or vice-versa. Most Christmas stories start or take place on this day.

Christmas Eve is also the name of a character in the Broadway musical Avenue Q.

The Yule Log

Yule log

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A chocolate yule log.

Durian-flavoured log.

Yule log made of birch by Holiday Enterprises.

A Yule log, sometimes known as the Great Ashen Faggot^[1], is a large log which is burned in the hearth as a part of traditional Yule or Christmas celebrations in some cultures. It can be a part of the Winter Solstice festival or the Twelve Days of Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or Twelfth Night.

The expression "Yule log" has also come to refer to log-shaped Christmas cakes, also known as "chocolate logs" or "Bûche de Noël".

In the U.S., the Yule log has also become a modern tradition in the form of a TV screen in one's home showing video of an actual Yule Log burning in a real fireplace. The video is accompanied by Christmas music, actual crackling fire sounds, or both at the same time. This is now a very popular trend on DVDs, but it began on a whim in 1966, by Fred Thrower, former TV programming director for WPIX in New York City, who wanted to offer a Yule Log for the majority in New York City who had no real fireplace of their own. It has been offered for several hours each year (on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day) as a video greeting card to viewers, and is syndicated across the U.S. Many others have offered their own versions over the years on TV, and in all video formats.

Origins

In Northern Europe, winter festivities were once considered to be a Feast of the Dead, complete with ceremonies full of spirits, devils, and the haunting presence of the Norse god, Odin, and his night riders. One particularly durable Solstice festival was "Jol" (also known as "Jule" and pronounced "Yule"), a feast celebrated throughout Northern Europe and particularly in Scandinavia to honor Jolnir, another name for Odin. Since Odin was the god of intoxicating drink and ecstasy, as well as the god of death, Yule customs varied greatly from region to region. Odin's sacrificial beer became the specially blessed Christmas ale mentioned in medieval lore, and fresh food and drink were left on tables after Christmas feasts to feed the roaming Yuletide ghosts. Even the bonfires of ancient times survived in the tradition of the Yule log, perhaps the most universal of all Christmas symbols.

The origins of the Yule log can be traced back to the Midwinter festivals in which the Norsemen indulged in nights filled with feasting, "drinking Yule" and watching the fire leap around the log burning in the home hearth. The ceremonies and beliefs associated with the Yule log's sacred origins are closely linked to representations of health, fruitfulness, productivity, and regularity. In England, the Yule was cut and dragged home by oxen or horses as the people walked alongside and sang merry songs. During winter, towns people would gather these large logs to be ridden, like a modern sled, down embankments of ice and snow. It was often decorated with evergreens and sometimes sprinkled with grain or cider before it was finally set alight.

In Yugoslavia, the Yule log was cut just before dawn on Christmas Eve and carried into the house at twilight. The wood itself was decorated with flowers, colored silks and gold, and then doused with wine and an offering of grain. In the area of France known as Provence, families would go together to cut the Yule log, singing as they went along. These songs asked for blessings to be bestowed upon their crops and their flocks. The people of Provence called their Yule log the tréfoire and, with great ceremony, carried the log around the house three times and christened it with wine before it was set ablaze.

To all Europeans, the Yule log was believed to bring beneficial magic and was kept burning for at least twelve hours and sometimes as long as twelve days, warming both the house and those who resided within. When the fire of the Yule log was finally quenched, a small fragment of the wood would be saved and used to light the next year's log. It was also believed that as long as the Yule log burned, the house would be protected from witchcraft. The ashes that remained from the sacred Yule log were scattered over fields to bring fertility, or cast into wells to purify and sweeten the water. Sometimes, the ashes were used in the creation of various charms, to free cattle from vermin, for example, or to ward off hailstorms.

Some sources state that the origin of Yule is often associated with an ancient Scandinavian fertility god and that the large, single Log is representative of a phallic idol. Tradition states that this Log was required to burn for twelve days and a different sacrifice to the fertility god had to be offered in the fire on each of those twelve days.

[edit] Confection

Sometime in the late 18th to early 19th century, a fascimile of the Yule Log became a traditional French desert. Usually, it is in the form of a large rectangular yellow cake spread with frosting and rolled up into a cylinder - one end is then lopped off and stood on end to indicate the rings of the "log." This "Bûche de Noël" became a traditional Christmas desert, and has recently spread to other regions, where it is often referred to as a yule log.

Boxing Day

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Boxing Day

Queue for Boxing Day sale outside large store. Photo taken at 6:00 AM.
Observed by	United Kingdom, Commonwealth of Nations
Type	International, Commonwealth countries
Date	December 26
Related to	St. Stephen's Day

Boxing Day is a public holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom, Canada and most other Commonwealth countries on December 26, the day after Christmas Day;^[1]^[2] or alternatively on the next weekday after Christmas.

Origins

There are disparate theories as to the origins of the term. The more common stories include:

It was the day when people would give a present or Christmas box to those who had worked for them throughout the year.

In feudal times, Christmas was a reason for a gathering of extended families. All the serfs would gather their families in the manor of their lord, which made it easier for the lord of the estate to hand out annual stipends to the serfs. After all the Christmas parties on 26 December, the lord of the estate would give practical goods such as cloth, grains, and tools to the serfs who lived on his land. Each family would get a box full of such goods the day after Christmas. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obliged to supply these goods. Because of the boxes being given out, the day was called Boxing Day.

In England many years ago, it was common practice for the servants to carry boxes to their employers when they arrived for their day's work on the day after Christmas. Their employers would then put coins in the boxes as special end-of-year gifts. This can be compared with the modern day concept of Christmas bonuses. The servants carried boxes for the coins, hence the name Boxing Day.

In churches, it was traditional to open the church's donation box on Christmas Day, and the money in the donation box was to be distributed to the poorer or lower class citizens on the next day. In this case, the "box" in "Boxing Day" comes from that lockbox in which the donations were left.

Boxing Day was the day when the wren, the king of birds,^[3] was captured and put in a box and introduced to each household in the village when he would be asked for a successful year and a good harvest. See Frazer's Golden Bough.
- Evidence can also be found in Wassail songs such as:

Where are you going ? said Milder to Malder,

Oh where are you going ? said Fessel to Foe,

I'm going to hunt the cutty wren said Milder to Malder,

I'm going to hunt the cutty wren said John the Rednose.

And what will you do wi' it ? said Milder to Malder,

And what will you do wi' it ? said Fessel to Foe,

I'll put it in a box said Milder to Malder,

I'll put it in a box said John the Rednose.

etc...

Because the staff had to work on such an important day as Christmas by serving the master of the house and their family, they were given the following day off. As servants were kept away from their own families to work on a traditional religious holiday and were not able to celebrate Christmas Dinner, the customary benefit was to "box" up the leftover food from Christmas Day and send it away with the servants and their families. (Similarly, as the servants had the 26th off, the owners of the manor may have had to serve themselves pre-prepared, boxed food for that one day.) Hence the "boxing" of food became "Boxing Day".

Similar to above, leftovers and food were boxed up and shipped overseas in times of war to the soldiers of the Commonwealth Nations.

[edit] Date

In common usage, 26 December is continually referred to as Boxing Day no matter what the particular day that it occurs on.^[4] If it falls on a Sunday then in countries where it is a Bank Holiday the Statutory Holiday is moved to Monday 27 December to ensure a day without work.^[5]^[6]^[7] As Christmas Day would therefore be a Saturday, Tuesday 28 December is also declared as a holiday in lieu.

In some Commonwealth countries, fixed-date holidays falling on Saturday or Sunday are often observed on the next weekday, so if Boxing Day falls on a Saturday then Monday 28 December is a public holiday; in the UK and other countries this is accomplished by Royal Proclamation.

If Christmas Day falls on a Sunday itself then the Boxing Day holiday is automatically on Monday 26 December, and no Royal Proclamation is required. In such a circumstance, a 'substitute bank holiday in lieu of Christmas Day' is declared for Tuesday 27 December, this being the next available working day - thus the Boxing Day holiday occurs before the substitute Christmas holiday.

Although the same legislation (Bank Holidays Act 1871) originally established the Bank Holidays throughout the British Isles, the holiday after Christmas was defined as Boxing Day in England and Wales and St Stephen's Day for Ireland. St Stephen's Day is fixed as the 26 December.^[8]

[edit] Observance by Country

[edit] Australia & New Zealand

In a similar vein to the United Kingdom (see below), shopping occurs similarly in Australia and New Zealand, although some Australian states, including New South Wales are tightening restrictions on Boxing Day retail trading[2], deferring the post-Christmas sales to December 27.

Boxing Day is not formally observed in the Australian state of South Australia, instead what would have been the next working day after Christmas is officially titled Proclamation Day and a public holiday is observed. ^[9]. However, it is still referred to as Boxing Day.

[edit] Sport

In Australia, Boxing Day has become a significant sporting day (similar to ANZAC Day celebrations). In Melbourne the Boxing Day Test Match is played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, often before the largest single day crowd of the Australian cricket season. In Sydney, the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race typically starts on this day.

Events:

[edit] Canada

In Canada, Boxing Day is observed as a holiday, except (in some cases) for those in the retail business. Boxing Day and the days immediately following are when many retail stores sell their Christmas and retired model products by holding clearance sales. Some shoppers will line up for hours at night (sometimes before midnight and after midnight on December 26) for retailers to open their doors. Except in Quebec, retailers often open their stores earlier than usual, such as 6 or 7 am. Some retail companies internally refer to the sales week after Christmas as the "thirteenth month." (See Boxing Week.) It is similar to Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in the United States. Boxing Day 2005 was the single largest economic transaction day ever in the history of Canadian commerce (according to Visa). Individual big box stores can even gross over CAD$1,000,000 on one single Boxing Day.

As an exception, most retail stores are not permitted to open on Boxing Day in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2006, Nova Scotia eliminated a similar ban on Boxing Day openings, although most retailers elected to continue past practice and remain closed that day. In these provinces, most stores offer the same specials on December 27 that they would offer elsewhere on the 26th. This distinction is not well known in central and western Canada.^[10]

In addition to the retail aspect of the holiday, Boxing Day also serves, in English-speaking parts of the country, as a second day for families to gather for dinner and to exchange gifts. Boxing Day dinner is, in many ways, just as much a part of many families traditions as Christmas dinner itself. ^{[citation needed]}

Boxing Day has also been referred to as the day that people "box" up their Christmas decorations and put them away until next year.

[edit] Sport

From a sporting perspective, Boxing Day in Canada has many implications. It is usually on Boxing Day when the IIHF begins the World Junior Hockey Championship. This is a significant event for Canada and Hockey Canada which have done extremely well at this particular international event. Boxing Day is also the start of another international hockey tournament: The Spengler Cup. This tournament, usually played in Davos, Switzerland, along with the World Juniors, are aired on the two big sports networks in Canada (TSN and Rogers Sportsnet).

[edit] South Africa

In South Africa, Boxing Day is known in the official calendar as Day of Goodwill.

[edit] Sport

Events:

Boxing Day Test (Test Match cricket)

[edit] United Kingdom

Boxing Day in the UK is a day when stores sell their excess Christmas inventory at slightly reduced prices. Boxing Day has become so important for retailers that they often extend it into a "Boxing Week".

[edit] Sport

Boxing Day in the UK is traditionally a day for sporting activity, originally fox hunting, but in modern times football and horse racing.

Events:

English and Scottish Football matches
Boxing Day Dip - in certain UK coastal towns (including Whitby, Tenby and most coastal parts of Cornwall), people wade into the sea on boxing day - often in fancy dress, and usually to raise money for a local charity.
Football Matches played in Northern Ireland

[edit] Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland, all Premier League clubs in football play their biggest rivals, unless Boxing Day falls on a Sunday, in which case the matches take place on the 27th. The most popular one is Glentoran v. Linfield, between the two biggest clubs in the league.

[edit] Non-Commonwealth countries

Boxing Day is a holiday of peculiarly British origin, but in many other countries worldwide, December 26 is also a holiday under various names. In most years December 26 falls on the same day as the Feast of St. Stephen or St. Stephen's Day. See December 26#Holidays and observances for other observances.

The Nutcracker

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Important Ballets & *Revivals of Marius Petipa

*Paquita (1847, *1881)
*Le Corsaire (1858, 1863, 1868, 1885, 1899)
The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862, *1885, *1898)
Tsar Kandavl (1868, *1891, *1903)
Don Quixote (1869, *1871)
La Bayadère (1877, *1900)
*Giselle (1884, 1899, 1903)
*Coppélia (1884)
*La Fille Mal Gardée (1885)
*La Esmeralda (1886, 1899)
The Talisman (1889)
The Sleeping Beauty (1890)
The Nutcracker (1892)
Cinderella (1893)
The Awakening of Flora (1894)
*Swan Lake (1895)
*The Little Humpbacked Horse (1895)
The Calvary Halt (1896)
Raymonda (1898)
Harlequinade (1900)

The Nutcracker (Russian: Щелкунчик, Shchelkunchik) Op. 71, is a fairy tale-ballet in two acts, three tableaux, by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composed in 1891–92, and based on The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (German: Der Nussknacker und der Mäusekönig), a story by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1816). Alexandre Dumas père's adaptation of the story was set to music by Tchaikovsky (after a libretto possibly written by Marius Petipa and commissioned by the administrator of the Imperial Theatres Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1891).

In Western countries, this ballet has become perhaps the most popular ballet performed, primarily around Christmas time.

A selection of eight of the more popular numbers from the ballet was made by the composer before the ballet's December 1892 premiere, forming The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, intended for concert performance. The suite was first performed, under the composer's direction, on 19 March 1892 at an assembly of the St. Petersburg branch of the Musical Society^[1]. The suite became instantly popular; the complete ballet did not achieve its great popularity until around the mid-1960s. Some indication of how much The Nutcracker Suite once eclipsed the fame of the ballet may be found in Deems Taylor's commentary in the roadshow version of Walt Disney's 1940 animated film Fantasia, which features the suite as one of the animated segments. Taylor observes matter-of-factly, "[The ballet] isn't performed anymore", a statement which certainly does not hold true today, and, indeed, has not been true since the mid-1950s, when George Balanchine's production achieved great popularity in New York.

Among other things, the score of The Nutcracker is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic poem The Voyevoda (premiered 1891).^ Although well-known in The Nutcracker as the featured solo instrument in the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Act II, it is employed elsewhere in the same act.

Story

The story has been published in many book versions including colorful children-friendly versions. The plot revolves around a German girl named Clara Stahlbaum or Clara Silverhaus. In some Nutcracker productions, Clara is called Marie. (In Hoffmann's tale, the girl's name actually is Marie or Maria, while Clara - or "Klärchen" - is the name of one of her dolls.)

[edit] Act I

The work opens with a brief "Miniature Overture", which also opens the Suite. The music sets the fairy mood by using upper registers of the orchestra exclusively. The curtain opens to reveal the Stahlbaums' house, where a Christmas Eve party is underway. Clara, her little brother Fritz, and their mother and father are celebrating with friends and family, when the mysterious godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, enters. He quickly produces a large bag of gifts for all the children. All are very happy, except for Clara, who has yet to be presented a gift. Herr Drosselmeyer then produces three life-size dolls, who each take a turn to dance. When the dances are done, Clara approaches Herr Drosselmeyer asking for her gift. It would seem that he is out of presents, and Clara runs to her mother in a fit of tears.

Drosselmeyer then conjures up a toy Nutcracker, in the traditional shape of a soldier in full regalia. Clara is overjoyed, but her brother Fritz is jealous, and breaks the Nutcracker. Drosselmeyer chases him off and mends the toy.

(left to right) Sergei Legat, as the Nutcracker; an unidentified child as a gingerbread soldier; and Lydia Rubtsova as Marianna in Vsevolozhsky's costumes for the Ivanov/Petipa/Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker. St. Petersburg, 1892

The party ends and the Stahlbaum family goes to bed, but Clara is concerned about her Nutcracker, and comes out to the Christmas tree to see it. She falls asleep under the tree with the Nutcracker in her arms. When the clock strikes midnight, Clara hears the sound of mice. She wakes up and tries to run away, but the mice stop her. Or perhaps Clara is still in a dream: the Christmas tree suddenly begins to grow to enormous size, filling the room. The Nutcracker comes to life, he and his band of soldiers rise to defend Clara, and the Mouse King leads his mice into battle. Here Tchaikovsky continues the miniature effect of the Overture, setting the battle music predominantly in the orchestra's upper registers.

A conflict ensues, and when Clara helps the Nutcracker by throwing her slipper at the Mouse King, the Nutcracker seizes his opportunity and stabs him. The mouse dies. The mice retreat, taking their dead leader with them. The Nutcracker is then transformed into a prince. (In Hoffmann's original story, and in the Royal Ballet's 1985 and 2001 versions, the Prince is actually Drosselmeyer's nephew, who had been turned into a Nutcracker by the Mouse King, and all the events following the Christmas party have been arranged by Drosselmeyer in order to break the spell.)

Clara and the Prince travel to a world where dancing Snow Flakes greet them and fairies and queens dance, welcoming Clara and the Prince into their world. The score conveys the wondrous images by introducing a wordless children's chorus. The curtain falls on Act I.

[edit] Act II

Clara and the Prince arrive at the Land of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The Sugar Plum Fairy and the people of the Land of Sweets dance for Clara and the Prince in the dances of Dew Drop Fairy, the Spanish dancers (sometimes Chocolate), the Chinese dancers (sometimes Tea), the Arabian dancers (sometimes Coffee), the Russian dancers (sometimes Candy Canes--their dance is called the Trepak), Mother Ginger and her Polichinelles (sometimes Taffy Clowns, or Court Buffoons in Baryshnikov's production), the Reed Flutes (sometimes Marzipan shepherds or Mirlitons), the Sugar Plum Fairy, and the Waltz of the Flowers. The dances in the Land of the Sugar Plum Fairy are not always performed in this order.

After the festivities, Clara wakes up under the Christmas tree with the Nutcracker toy in her arms and the curtain closes. (In Balanchine's version, however, she is never shown waking up; instead, after all the dances in the Kingdom of Sweets have concluded, she rides off with the Nutcracker/Prince on a Santa Claus-like flying sleigh, complete with reindeer, and the curtain falls. This gives the impression that the "dream" actually happens in reality, as in Hoffmann's original story. The 1985 Royal Ballet version seems to imply the same thing, since at the end, Drosselmeyer's nephew, who had really been transformed into a nutcracker, reappears in human form at the toymaker's shop)

[edit] History of the ballet

[edit] Composition

Tchaikovsky himself was less satisfied with this, his last ballet. Though he accepted the commission (again from Ivan Vsevolozhsky), he did not particularly want to write it (though he did write to a friend while composing the ballet: "I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task.")

[edit] Premiere

The first performance of the ballet was held as a double premiere together with Tchaikovsky's last opera Iolanta on December 18, 1892, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia. The ballet was conducted by Riccardo Drigo and choreographed by Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa. However, this performance had only limited success.

[edit] In other countries

The ballet was first performed outside Russia in 1934, in England. It was not until 1944 that the first complete production in the U.S. took place, performed by the San Francisco Ballet, and choreographed by Willam Christensen. The company was the first in the U.S. to make the ballet an annual tradition - until 1954, when George Balanchine followed in Christensen's footsteps by choreographing and premiering his New York City Ballet version. The Nutcracker has since been staged in New York every year since, performed live on television twice, and made into a full-length feature film starring Macaulay Culkin in 1993. Its success contributed greatly to making productions of The Nutcracker annual Christmas season traditions all over the world - a phenomenon which did not really come to flower until the late 1960s. In Balanchine's version, the roles of Clara (here called Marie) and the Nutcracker are danced by children, and so their dances are choreographed to not be as difficult as the ones performed by the adults.

[edit] Baryshnikov's version

The popularity of the Balanchine Nutcracker could be said to have been seriously challenged, however, by the highly acclaimed American Ballet Theatre version choreographed by and starring Mikhail Baryshnikov, which premiered in 1976 at the Kennedy Center and was re-staged for television in 1977. Baryshnikov omits the roles of the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier, and gives their dances to Clara and the Prince, so that in his version, the two do not merely sit out most of the entire second act as they do in other productions (notably Balanchine's). And although the Mother Ginger and her Clowns music is heard, we never see Mother Ginger herself, only four court clowns who perform the dance.

The stage version of this production originally starred Baryshnikov, Marianna Tcherkassky as Clara, and Alexander Minz as Drosselmeyer, but later the role of Clara went to Gelsey Kirkland, who danced it in the television production, and it is Kirkland, not Tcherkassky, who has been widely seen in this production of the ballet. Clara is considered one of Gelsey Kirkland's most memorable roles. Except for Tcherkassky, the rest of the cast of this production also appeared in it on television.

Years later, Alessandra Ferri danced the role of Clara in a revival of Baryshnikov's production.

The Baryshnikov Nutcracker has since become both the most popular television version of the work and the bestselling videocassette and DVD version of the ballet. It usually outsells not only every other video version of The Nutcracker, including the 1993 film of Balanchine's version, but every other ballet video as well. It is only one of two versions of the ballet to have been nominated for Emmys - the other was Mark Morris's intentionally exaggerated and satirical take on the ballet, The Hard Nut, telecast on PBS in 1992. (In 1958, a short-lived television anthology entitled Seven Lively Arts, on which the Balanchine Nutcracker had been telecast in 1957, did win an Emmy for Best New Program of the Year, so one could say that The Nutcracker was included in the win.)

[edit] Mark Morris's version

In 1990, Mark Morris began work on his version of The Nutcracker, taking inspiration from the horror-comic artist Charles Burns. The art of Charles Burns is personal and deeply instilled with archetypal concepts of guilt, childhood, adolescent sexuality, and poignant, nostalgic portrayals of post-war America.

He enlisted a team of collaborators to create a world not unlike that of Burns' world, where stories take comic book clichés and rearrange them into disturbing yet funny patterns.

Morris turned to Adrianne Lobel to create sets that would take Hoffmann's tale out of the traditional German setting and into Burns' graphic, black and white view of things. With these immense sets and scrims, lighting designer James F. Ingalls created a dark world within retro 1960s suburbia and costume designer Martin Pakledinaz created costumes that helped bring to life Burns' world, described as being "at the juncture of fiction and memory, of cheap thrills and horror." The last of 10 pieces Mark Morris created during his time as Director of Dance at the National Opera House of Belgium, the piece was his most ambitious work to date. He called it The Hard Nut.

The Hard Nut premiered on January 12, 1991 at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, just short of the 100th anniversary of the creation of Tchaikovsky's classic score. Audiences found it a shocking but exhilarating version of Tchaikovsky's ballet, its impact still felt year after year. Shortly after the premiere, MMDG returned to the United States, having finished their three-year residency at the Monnaie. But the Monnaie seemed the most fitting stage to film the production so the company returned six months later with film crew in hand for encore performances in Belgium's national opera house that were made available on VHS and Laserdisc. A DVD release is scheduled in 2007.

[edit] Recent Russian versions

There have been notable Russian productions of the ballet in recent years, performed by the Bolshoi Ballet and the Kirov Ballet respectively. These have also been released on DVD.

[edit] Recordings

Countless recordings have been made since the early twentieth century of the Nutcracker Suite, but it was not until the LP album was invented that recordings of the complete ballet began to be made. Because the ballet is ninety minutes long, it fitted very comfortably onto two LPs. Most CD recordings take up two discs, often with fillers due to the ninety-minute length of the ballet. An unusual exception is the Valery Gergiev recording, which ran for 81 minutes and thus fitted onto one CD.

1954, the year in which the Balanchine version of the ballet was first staged, was also the year that the first complete recording - in mono sound - appeared on Mercury Records. It was performed by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antal Dorati, who years later went on to record it complete twice more with other orchestras, on Mercury Records in 1962 and on Philips Records in 1975, respectively. These later recordings were both made in stereo. The 1975 recording has been hailed by some as the finest ever made of the complete ballet. ^[2]

In 1956, the conductor Artur Rodzinski made a complete recording of the ballet on stereo master tapes for Westminster Records, but because stereo was not possible on the LP format in 1956, the ballet was issued in stereo on magnetic tape, and only a mono LP set was issued. (Recently, the Rodzinski performance was issued in stereo on CD.)

In 1958, the first stereo LP of the complete ballet, with Ernest Ansermet conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, appeared on Decca Records in the UK and London Records in the U.S. And with the advent of the stereo era coinciding with the growing popularity of the complete ballet, many other complete recordings of it have been made over the last thirty years. Notable conductors who have done so include Maurice Abravanel, Andre Previn, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, Seiji Ozawa and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky.

The soundtrack of the 1977 Baryshnikov television production, conducted by Kenneth Schermerhorn, was issued in stereo on a CBS Masterworks 2 LP-set, but it has not appeared on CD. It was, for a time, the only stereo version of this soundtrack available, since the show was originally telecast only in mono, and it was not until recently that it began to be telecast with stereo sound. The 2004 remastered DVD of this production has also been issued in stereo.

The first complete recording of the ballet in digital stereo was issued in 1985, on a 2-CD RCA set featuring Leonard Slatkin conducting the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. This album originally had no "filler", but it has recently been re-issued on a multi-CD set containing complete recordings of Tchaikovsky's two other ballets, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty.

The two major theatrical film versions of the ballet, Nutcracker: The Motion Picture , conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, and George Balanchine's The Nutcracker, conducted by David Zinman, have each had soundtrack recordings as well.

Notable albums of excerpts from the ballet, rather than just the usual Nutcracker Suite, were recorded by Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra for Columbia Masterworks, and Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra, as well as Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra have also recorded albums of extended excerpts. Neither Ormandy, Reiner, nor Fiedler ever recorded a complete version of the ballet; however, Kunzel's album of excerpts runs 73 minutes, containing more than two-thirds of the music.

Conductors who have recorded only the Nutcracker Suite include such luminaries as Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, Mstislav Rostropovich, Herbert von Karajan Sir Georg Solti, Sir Neville Marriner and James Levine, among many others.

Josh Perschbacher's 2007 organ arrangement and recording included only the Overture, Marche, Dance Sugar Plum Fairy, Russian Dance, Arabian Dance, Chinese Dance, Dance of the Mirlitrons, and Waltz of the Flowers. This more closely resembles the selections in Walt Disney's Fantasia (see animated versions below)

[edit] The music

Ivan Vsevolozhksy's original costume sketch for The Nutcracker (1892)

The music in Tchaikovsky's ballet is some of the composer's most popular. The music belongs to the Romantic Period and contains some of his most memorable melodies which are frequently used in television and film. The Trepak, or Russian dance, is one of the most recognizable pieces in the ballet, along with the famous Waltz of the Flowers and March, as well as the ubiquitous Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy, which can be heard in several commercials during the Christmas season. The ballet contains surprisingly advanced harmonies and a wealth of melodic invention unsurpassed in ballet music. Nevertheless, the composer's reverence for Rococo and late 18th-century music can be detected in passages such as the Overture, the "Entrée des parents," and "Tempo di Grossvater" in Act I.

One novelty in Tchaikovsky's original score was the use of the celesta, a new instrument Tchaikovsky had discovered in Paris. He wanted it genuinely for the character of the Sugar-Plum Fairy to characterize her because of its "heavenly sweet sound". It appears not only in her "Dance," but also in other passages in Act II. Tchaikovsky also uses toy instruments during the Christmas party scene. Tchaikovsky was proud of the celesta's effect, and wanted its music performed quickly for the public, before he could be "scooped." Everyone was enchanted.

Suites derived from this ballet became very popular on the concert stage. The composer himself extracted a suite of eight pieces from the ballet, but that authoritative move has not prevented later hands from arranging other selections and sequences of numbers. Eventually one of these ended up in Disney's Fantasia. In any case, The Nutcracker Suite should not be mistaken for the complete ballet.

Although the original ballet is only 90 minutes long, and therefore much shorter than Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty, some modern staged performances have omitted or re-ordered some of the music, or inserted selections from elsewhere, thus adding to the confusion over the suites. In fact, most of the very famous versions of the ballet have had the order of the dances slightly re-arranged, if they have not actually altered the music.

For example, in The Nutcracker: a Fantasy on Ice, a television adaptation for ice skating from 1983 starring Dorothy Hamill and Robin Cousins, Tchaikovsky's score underwent not only reordering, but also insertion of music from his other ballets and also of music from Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov's Caucasian Sketches.

The 1954 George Balanchine New York City Ballet version, first broadcast on TV in 1957 by CBS, and filmed with Macaulay Culkin in the title role for movie theatres in 1993, adds to Tchaikovsky's score an entr'acte that the composer wrote for Act II of "The Sleeping Beauty". It is used as a transition between the departure of the guests and the battle with the mice. During this transition, Clara's mother appears in the living room and throws a blanket over the girl, who has crept downstairs and fallen asleep on the sofa; then Drosselmeyer appears, repairs the Nutcracker, and binds the jaw with a handkerchief. In addition, the "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy" is moved from near the end of Act II to near the beginning of the second act, just after the Sugar Plum Fairy makes her first appearance. To help the musical transition, the tarantella that comes before the dance is also cut.

In 1964, on New Year's Eve, ABC-TV telecast a one-hour abridgement of choreographer Lew Christensen's version created for the San Francisco Ballet (the choreographer was one of Willam Christensen's brothers).

A filmed German-American co-production, first telecast in the United States by CBS in 1965, hosted and narrated by Eddie Albert, and choreographed by Kurt Jacob, featured a cast made up from several companies, including Edward Villella, Patricia McBride and Melissa Hayden from the New York City Ballet. Famed German dancer Harald Kreutzberg appeared (in what was probably his last role) in the dual roles of Drosselmeyer and the Snow King (though in one listing, Drosselmeyer has been re-christened Uncle Alex Hoffman — presumably a reference to E.T.A. Hoffmann, who wrote the original tale).[1] This production cut the ballet down to a one-act version lasting slightly less than an hour, and drastically re-ordered all the dances, even to the point of altering the storyline (instead of defeating the Mouse King, who does not even appear in this production, Clara and the Nutcracker must now journey to the Castle of the Sugar Plum Fairy, where the Fairy will wave her wand and turn the Nutcracker back into a Prince) . This version inserted some music from Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty, as two bluebirds were brought in as characters to dance the Bluebird Pas de Deux from that work.

Rudolf Nureyev's 1967 version for the Royal Ballet, in which he dances both the roles of Drosselmeyer and the Prince, but not the Nutcracker, changes the order of some of the musical numbers, repeating the music of the "mice attack" and the departure of the guests at the end, and omitting the Final Waltz and Apotheosis which normally conclude the ballet. It was filmed in 1968.

In Baryshnikov's American Ballet Theatre version, staged in 1976 and first broadcast on TV in 1977 by CBS, all of the original Tchaikovsky score is used, but the order of most of the dances in Act II (the section of the ballet with the least plot) is changed, and the "Arabian Dance" had to be omitted in the television version in order to bring the program in at ninety minutes with three commercial breaks. Drosselmeyer makes his appearance at the Christmas party earlier, just before the Marche, and the music normally used for his entrance is here used as scoring for the puppet show. Baryshnikov also turned the Adagio from the "Pas de Deux" into a dance for Clara and the Prince rather than one for the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier, making it the emotional climax by shifting it to immediately before the "Final Waltz and Apotheosis" which closes the ballet.

Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker, staged in 1983 and filmed for movie theatres in 1986, with sets and costumes by Maurice Sendak, adds a duet from Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades which is heard during the Christmas party sequence. Also, the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is placed very early in the second act, rather than its traditional place toward the end, and is danced by the dream Clara. This one also omits the Sugar Plum Fairy herself. It should be noted that this version tries to be truer to E. T. A. Hoffmann's original story, complete with its darker aspects and a second act with more context and flavor, although much of that flavor comes from the imaginations of Sendak and choreographer Kent Stowell, rather than from the actual Hoffmann story.

In the Royal Ballet, London's 1985 version, telecast on A&E, Tchaikovsky's score is used and the original order of the dances is not changed at all, but the Mother Ginger dance is omitted. This version was re-staged with some of the same dancers taking different roles, as well as with new dancers, in 2001. In the 2001 version, Alina Cojocaru danced the role of Clara, a role danced in 1985 by Julie Rose. Anthony Dowell, who had danced the Sugar Plum Fairy's Cavalier in 1985, danced the role of Drosselmeyer in the 2001 version, telecast by PBS.

And still another ice skating version, 1994's Nutcracker on Ice, starring Oksana Baiul as Clara and Victor Petrenko as Drosselmeyer, shown on several cable stations, was also condensed to slightly less than an hour, radically altering and compressing both the music and the storyline.

However, nearly all of the CD and LP recordings of the complete ballet present Tchaikovsky's score exactly as he originally conceived it.

[edit] Pop versions

In 1962 a novelty boogie piano arrangement of the "Marche", entitled "Nut Rocker", was a #1 single in the UK, and #21 in the USA. Credited to B. Bumble and the Stingers, it was produced by Kim Fowley and featured studio musicians Al Hazan (piano), Earl Palmer (drums), Tommy Tedesco (guitar) and Red Callender (bass). "Nut Rocker" has subsequently been covered by many others including The Shadows, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and the Dropkick Murphys. "Nut Rocker" is commonly connected to the NHL team the Boston Bruins. In 2004, The Invincible Czars (from Austin, Texas) arranged, recorded, and now annually perform the entire suite for rock band - guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, trumpet, saxophone, and violin - reinventing the music with the stylistic, rhythmic, and dynamic twists and turns that mark their original music.

On the other end of the scale is the humorous Spike Jones version released in December 1945 and again in 1971 as part of the long play record Spike Jones is Murdering the Classics, one of the rare comedic pop records to be issued on the prestigious RCA Red Seal label.

[edit] Musical comedy version

During the Christmas season of 1961, ABC presented a musical special on television entitled The Enchanted Nutcracker. It starred Robert Goulet and Carol Lawrence, with child actress Linda Canby as Clara, and featured a script by Samuel and Bella Spewack, who had written the libretto for Kiss Me, Kate. The show, advertised as a "free adaptation" of The Nutcracker, was choreographed by Carol Haney. Information on this program is currently scant, so it is not clear how much of Tchaikovsky's music was used, but the story was still about a nutcracker who comes to life and takes a little girl to the Kingdom of Sweets. The Nutcracker was portrayed, not by a dancer, but by French actor Pierre Olaf, who also played a new character named Dr. Gombault. Patrick Adiarte, who had played Prince Chulalongkorn in the 1956 film The King and I, also played a Prince in The Enchanted Nutcracker, though clearly, the Nutcracker and the Prince were two entirely different characters in this version. The roles that Goulet and Lawrence played were also created especially for this adaptation.^[3] This television production was shown once and then fell into complete obscurity, never even being rerun on ABC-TV.

[edit] Animated versions

There have been several animated versions of the original story, but none can really be actually considered an animated version of the ballet itself. All of these invent characters who do not appear either in the original E.T.A. Hoffmann story or the ballet.

Selections from the Nutcracker Suite were heard in the 1940 Disney animation film Fantasia. In this film, the music from The Nutcracker is accompanied by dancing fairies, mushrooms and fish, amongst others, and as Deems Taylor mentions, the Nutcracker himself is nowhere in sight. As mentioned before, this suite should not be mistaken for the entire Nutcracker. The suite used is a slightly altered version of the Nutcracker Suite selected by the composer, as described below in section 5 (The Suite) of this article.

In 1979, a stop-motion puppet version, entitled Nutcracker Fantasy, was released, using some of the Tchaikovsky music. This version featured the voices of Christopher Lee as Drosselmeyer, and Melissa Gilbert as Clara.

Care Bears: The Nutcracker was an 1988 animated television special based extremely loosely on the original ballet. It was made for video, and was first shown on TV on the Disney Channel.

In 1990, another animated version, The Nutcracker Prince, starring the voices of Kiefer Sutherland and Megan Follows, was released. This one also used Tchaikovsky's music, but was actually a straightforward full-length animated cartoon, not a ballet film.

In 1999, a comedy version entitled The Nuttiest Nutcracker became the first computer-animated film released straight to video. An example of the skewed tone that this version took may be inferred from the fact that Phyllis Diller provided the voice of an obese Sugar Plum Fairy. Some of Tchaikovsky's music was used.

Barbie in the Nutcracker is a direct-to-video version of the story starring, of course, Barbie the doll, released in 2001. It significantly alters the storyline.

Princess Tutu's last episode, entitled Finale- The Nutcracker follows Tchaikovsky's version of The Nutcracker, though with some alterations. The episode also borrows some elements from Swan Lake.

A 2007 straight-to-video animated film, Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale, features, of course, the cartoon characters Tom and Jerry, and incorporates elements of the ballet, including some of Tchaikovsky's music, into the film. However, it uses a totally different storyline. As in Fantasia, none of the actual characters in the ballet appear, including the Nutcracker himself.

[edit] Jazz versions

In 1960, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn arranged their own adaptation of the Nutcracker Suite for the Duke Ellington Orchestra featuring the Overture, Toot Toot Tootsie Toot (Dance of the Reed-Flutes), Peanut Brittle Brigade (March), Sugar Rum Cherry (Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy), the Entr'acte, The Volga Vouty (Russian Trepak), Chinoiserie (Chinese Tea), Dance of the Floreadores (Waltz of the Flowers), and Arabesque Cookie (Arabian Coffee). The suite is arranged for the traditional five saxophones (two alto, two tenor, one baritone), four trumpets, a small three trombone section, drums, piano and bass, with second alto doubling on clarinet, bamboo flute, both tenors doubling on clarinet, baritone doubling on bass clarinet, and first trumpet doubling on tambourine. The arrangement has been played by Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra side-by-side with the New York Philharmonic performing the respective original movements. In 1999, the arrangement was expanded to fit Donald Byrd's adaptation of The Nutcracker with modern choreography and themes revolving around an African-American family in Harlem, and an aged Clara's experience through the Civil Rights movement. David Berger composed, arranged, performed, and recorded expansions from Ellington and Strayhorn's suite to mesh with the modern ballet.

In 2001, another jazz version appeared on television, this one entitled The Swinging Nutcracker.

Another one, using the Ellington-Strayhorn jazz arrangement of the score, and entitled Nutcracker Sweeties, very recently (2006) appeared on cable television, and is available on DVD. It sets the ballet in the United States during the 1940s, and all of the dances, except for the last two, which he actually sees, are visualized by a World War II soldier on leave roaming the streets of New York in a rented car and listening to the jazz arrangement, which is being broadcast over the radio. The choreography is by David Bintley, and the work is performed by the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

A variation of The Nutcracker is performed in the Broadway musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. During a scene in a speakeasy, "The Nuttycracker Suite" is played. It features jazz versions of the famous dances within The Nutcracker, especially the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

[edit] The ballet

(Numbers given according to the piano score from the Soviet collected edition of the composer's works, as reprinted Melville, NY: Belwin Mills [n.d.], in English where possible, with explanations added here in square brackets).

Overture

[edit] Act One

[edit] Tableau I

Konstantin Ivanov's original sketch for the set of The Nutcracker, Act II (1892)

1. Scene of decorating and lighting the Christmas tree
2. March
3. Little Gallop [of the children] and entry of the parents
4. Scene dansante [Drosselmeyer's arrival and distribution of presents]
5. Scene and dance of the Grandfather
6. Scene [Departure of the guests -- night]
7. Scene [the battle]

[edit] Tableau II

Konstantin Ivanov's original sketch for the set of The Nutcracker (1892)

8. Scene [a pine forest in winter]
9. Waltz of the Snowflakes

[edit] Act Two

[edit] Tableau III

10. Scene [Introduction]
11. Scene [Arrival of Clara and the Prince]
12. Divertissement
- a. Chocolate (Spanish dance)
- b. Coffee (Arabian dance)
- c. Tea (Chinese dance)
- d. Trepak (Russian Dance)
- e. Dance of the Mirlitons [also known as "Dance of the Reed-Flutes," "Dance of the Shepherdesses," and "Marzipan"]
- f. Mother Ginger and the clowns [or "Mother Ginger and her children"]
13. Waltz of the Flowers [featuring the "Dew Drops" in Balanchine's production]
14. Pas de Deux: Adagio (Sugar-Plum Fairy and a cavalier)
- Variation I (for the male dancer) [Tarantella]
- Variation II (for the female dancer) [Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy]
- Coda
15. Final Waltz and Apotheosis

[edit] In most schools

Most schools, when doing the Nutcracker as a performance, use the order in this outline:

I. Act One
- A. Overture
- B. Party Scene
- C. The Christmas Tree
II. Act Two
- A. Journey through the Snow
- B. Waltz of the Snowflakes
III. Act Three
- A. Chinese Tea
- B. Candy Flutes
- C. Arabian Coffee
- D. Spanish Chocolate
- E. Russian Trepak
- F. Sugar Plum Fairy

(Some schools even use a "Snowflake Queen" in their performances)

[edit] The suite

The suite derived and abridged from the ballet became more popular for a time than the ballet itself, partly due to its inclusion in Walt Disney's Fantasia. The outline below represents the selection and sequence of the Nutcracker Suite culled by the composer.

I. Overture
II. Danses caractéristiques
- A. Marche
- B. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy [ending altered from ballet-version]
- C. Russian Dance
- D. Arabian Dance
- E. Chinese Dance
- F. Reed-Flutes
III. Waltz of the Flowers

[edit] As heard in Fantasia

The version of the suite heard in Fantasia, however, omitted the Overture and the Marche, and the remaining dances were placed in a different order (Note: In the parenthesis are what was shown during the music.):

I. Danses caractéristiques
- A. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy (Dew Fairies)
- B. Chinese Dance (Chinese Mushrooms)
- C. Reed-Flutes (Blossoms)
- D. Arabian Dance (Goldfish)
- E. Russian Dance (Thistles and Lily Plants)
II. Waltz of the Flowers (Frost Fairies & Snow Fairies)

[edit] Pletnev's piano adaptation

The pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev adapted some of the music into a virtuosic concert suite for piano solo:

A. March
B. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy
C. Tarantella
D. Intermezzo
E. Russian Trepak
F. China Dance
G. Andante

[edit] Source notes

Gantz, Jeffrey. Taking the Nutcracker Home

This article, however, has one glaring error: it states that the Baryshnikov Nutcracker was first telecast on PBS, when in fact, it was first telecast on CBS, complete with three commercial breaks (one between the Overture and Act I, one between Acts I and II, and one placed after the ballet ended and before the closing credits appeared onscreen). It moved to PBS in later years, when commercial TV began to telecast even fewer classical music programs than they were showing already. On PBS, it was/ is usually shown during pledge drives, where the pause between Acts I and II provides the opportunity for a pledge break. The article, written in 2003, also does not mention that the current re-mastered DVD edition of Baryshnikov's Nutcracker is available on Kultur Video, not on MGM/UA.

Christmas in Holland

St Nicholas arrives early in Holland with his gifts, in November. He is dressed in Bishop's robes and journeys in a boat with his helper who is called Black Peter and who wears Spanish clothes. It is said that the pair live most of the year preparing lists of presents and writing every child's behavior in a very large book. Many people go to Amsterdam docks to greet him. He mounts a snow horse and rides through the streets in a great parade, amid many festivities.

December 5th is Sinterklaas Eve or Sinterklass Eve, and presents are given and received.

Farmers in Holland blow long horns at sunset each evening during the Christmas period. The horns are blown over water wells which makes the sound extremely loud. This is done to announce the coming of Christmas.

All Dutch children know that Sinterklaas or Sinterklass lived in Spain, where he spends his time recording the behavior of all the children in his little red book, while Piet stocks up on the presents.

Christmas Day is a religious time, and the day is spent with visits to Church. In the afternoon, people sit around the tree, sing carols and tell stories.

http://www.santas.net/dutchchristmas.htm

Eggnog Crème Brûlée

Total: 1 hr 30 mins

Active: 30 mins

Servings: 6 servings

By Ray Lee

Crème brûlée enriched with a little homemade eggnog is a surprisingly easy dessert. We recommend making it with our own Best Eggnog recipe.

Special equipment: You can brown crème brûlée under the broiler, but a small kitchen blowtorch is a nifty gadget that makes the process even easier.

INGREDIENTS

2/3 cup Best Eggnog
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
5 large egg yolks
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

Heat oven to 250°F. Bring a small pot of water to a boil.
In a medium saucepan, combine the eggnog, cream, milk, and nutmeg, and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat.
Meanwhile, beat the yolks with the granulated sugar in a medium bowl until well mixed and pale yellow in color. Slowly pour the heated eggnog mixture into the yolks in a slow stream, whisking continuously to thoroughly combine.
Divide mixture among 6 (4-ounce) ramekins and place in a large glass baking dish. Add enough of the hot water so that the level reaches about halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Cover baking dish with foil. Poke a few holes in the foil with a skewer or knife to allow steam to escape.
Place the covered baking dish in the oven and bake for about 50 minutes, or until the custard is set. It should jiggle slightly in the center if you gently shake the ramekins. Remove baking dish from the oven, then remove the ramekins from water bath. Let cool for about 30 minutes at room temperature. Cover each individual custard with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
To brown the top of the custard, heat the broiler and position oven rack on the top level. Unwrap the custard cups and place them on a rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle about 2 teaspoons brown sugar evenly over each. Place under the broiler until the sugar melts and browns slightly, rotating the baking sheet to ensure even caramelization, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from oven and refrigerate again until sugar crust hardens.

http://www.chow.com/recipes/10785

Christmas in Provence

In Provence, the Christmas season begins on 4th December, the day of St. Barbe, with the ritual sowing of wheat and lentils on dishes to provide some fresh green shoots to decorate the Christmas table. The Christmas festivities last for three whole days, from 24th to 26th December.

Further celebrations are held for the new year, Epiphany on 6th January, Candlemas on 2nd February and also for Shrovetide, which signals the end of winter and the beginning of Lent.

For the people of Provence, Christmas is a series of traditional customs beginning with the "gros souper," the large supper served on Christmas Eve before Midnight Mass. The table around which the family gathers is decorated according to custom with sprigs of myrtle and St. Barbe's wheat and lentil sprouts, which are symbols of prosperity.

Additional places are laid for the poor or for parents who have died, and during the whole three days of Christmas the table is not cleared, so as to allow angels to take part in the feasting.

THE NATIVITY

The nativity scene is an integral part of the Christmas atmosphere and setting. The "santons" (literally the "little saints," colourful carved wooden or clay figures of the Christmas story) such as those from Aubagne, or the nativity plays of Allauch and les Baux, which feature local shepherds who come down from the mountains to participate, are known throughout the world.

THE "GROS SOUPER" ON CHRISTMAS EVE

For this special meal three tablecloths are laid one on top of the other (such as those seen here in a white paisley-patterned Jacquard weave) and three large white candles are lit, symbolizing the Holy Trinity and Hope.

Seven meat-free courses are traditionally served, representing the labour pains of the Virgin Mary, including fried fish, "brandade de morue" (salt cod pounded with garlic, oil and cream) and stewed vegetables.

Each village has its own speciality dishes, always based on simple local produce. The custom requires starting with the traditional "cacho fio" (lighting of the fire). The youngest and the eldest member of the family together put into the fireplace a large log from a fruit tree, sprinkling it three times with a home-made sweet wine (vin cuit) while intoning the following words: "May the log rejoice, for tomorrow is the day of the Christmas bread, may only good enter this house, may the women give birth safely, the goats bring forth kids and the ewes lambs, may there be much wheat and flour and a full vat of wine. "

The meal ends always with the famous thirteen desserts which represent the Christ with the twelve apostles, the four "beggars" (almonds, figs, raisins and nuts) and finally the apples, pears, dates, plums, jujube fruit and dried fruits, white and black nougat, quince cheese, fondants and "pompe à l'huile" (Provencal Christmas cake) accompanied by the traditional Christmas vin cuit.

Each family may add its own variations such as oranges, mandarins, the almond paste sweets known as "calissons d'Aix," chocolates, often accompanying them with the delicious Vin Frizzant de Muscat.

THE "REPAS GRAS" AFTER MIDNIGHT MASS

The midnight feast follows after the Midnight Mass. The setting shown here is one of the quiet epicurian delight, with the table groaning with dishes such as assorted game, a variety of roasts and many fine Provencal wines.

To crown the feast, delicate fruit paste are offered, as well as an assortment of chocolates from famous makers and regional speciality liqueurs.

CHRISTMAS DAY

On the elegantly laid table, around which the family gathers for the traditional Christmas meal, the turkey has the place of honour. This is also a time to savour those lovingly-made aperitifs, whether flavoured with walnuts, oranges or peaches, which have been specially prepared and kept for this occasion.

The yule log made by the local master baker accompanies the thirteen desserts. Finally, on the evening of the 25th, tradition dictates a simple garlic and herb soup, "l'aigo boulido," as a respite from any seasonal excesses.

NEW YEAR

In Provence more than any where else, the setting is the essence of the feast. On this, the first day of the year, a roast and stuffed cock must be served, alongside twelve partridges, thirty black truffles and thirty white eggs: the cock stands for the year ahead, the twelve partridges for the twelve months, the truffles for the nights and the eggs for the days.

EPIPHANY

For the arrival of the three Wise Men, the people of Provence have a special dessert, a brioche (rather than a galette) garnished with crystallized fruit from the Pays d'Apt, accompanied by Frizzant de Muscat wine.

For sheer indulgence, the "calissons d'Aix", almonds, "oursins" and glacé chesnuts are brought in, shown laid on one of our Estello tablecloths.

The custom is that whoever finds the hidden bean in the Epiphany brioche should pay for the cake, reason enough for some people to swallow it!

http://www.franceway.com/regions/provence/noel/noel.htm

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree with LEDs for the First Time

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree this year will be decorated with LED lights for the first time, instead of the old-fashioned incandescent bulbs that consumed lots of energy.

The famous tree will have 30,000 multicolored LED lights strung on five miles of wire, and this will reduce the energy consumption from 3,510 kilowatt hours per day to 1,297.
In other words, the 84-foot-tall The Norway Spruce will save this year the same amount of electricity consumed in a typical 2,000-square-foot house in a month.

"Now they will see an example of green leadership which may inspire them to make greener choices in their own lives," said Bloomberg.
Tishman Speyer who owns the Rockefeller Center showed another spectacular thing, a new 365-panel solar energy array that will generate capable of generating 70 kilowatts on the roof of one of the buildings.

The spectacular lighting ceremony will take place on November 28 and the tree will be illuminated between 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. until the first week of January.

http://www.techpin.com/rockefeller-center-christmas-tree-with-leds-for-the-first-time/

The Christmas Group can now be found on

Christmas Music

About This Blog

Christmas Photos

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Norwegian Christmas

Santa Lucia Day, December 13

Julenisse

Trees

Food

Christmas Eve

Oslo

Saint Lucy's Day

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Celebration

[edit] In Scandinavia

[edit] Sweden

[edit] Denmark

[edit] In Italy

[edit] United States

No Ho Ho.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Holiday season brings religious strife

Piece of Mind

D.R. Bartlette

Monday, November 26, 2007

My sister-in-law made one of these for me a few years ago.....

Baby Food Jar Christmas Tree

What you'll need:

How to make it:

Tips:

Notes:

Christmas lights

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History

[edit] Types

[edit] Incandescent

[edit] Bubble Lights

[edit] LED

[edit] Fiber optic

[edit] Power considerations

[edit] Control technology

[edit] Sizes

[edit] Troubleshooting

[edit] Light sets

[edit] Ornamentation

[edit] Safety

[edit] Outdoor displays

[edit] Light sculptures

[edit] Other holidays

Christmas cracker

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] History

[edit] In popular culture

Ten Ages of Christmas

By Christine Lalumia

Weihnachten

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Traditions

Réveillon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Food

[edit] Differences

Bewitched: A Vision of Sugar Plums

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Festivus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Festivus Rituals

[edit] The Festivus Pole

[edit] Festivus Dinner

[edit] Airing of Grievances

[edit] Feats of Strength

[edit] Festivus Miracles

[edit] Etymology and origin

[edit] Other references

Christmas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History

[edit] Pre-Christian origins