- The Little Drummer Child
- Frosty the Snowperson
- We Three Monarchs of Orient (Are)
- (I'm Dreaming of an) Integrated Christmas
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Politically Correct Songs for Christmas
On this Christmas Day, I was reflecting that many of our traditional Christmas songs are not politically correct and therefore need a bit of revision. So, here are a few of my suggested changes:
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Some Reflections on the Christmas Story
Since it's Christmas Day, this might be an occasion to think about some of the stories that surround Christmas and that are usually viewed as facts about Jesus' birth but which either are probably untrue or are almost certainly untrue.
First, Jesus was not born in the year 1 A.D. There was an error in the calendar at one point. Most scholars now think it probably was in 4 B.C.
Second, there is absolutely no reason to believe Jesus was born on December 25. There is no record of the date Jesus was born; and it is believed that the celebration of the birth of Jesus at some point was attracted to the time of the Roman celebration of Saturnalia or perhaps to one or more pagan feasts that centered around the winter solstice.
Third, scholars now think Jesus was probably not born in Bethlehem, as the gospel stories say, but in Nazareth.
Fourth, the story of the Magi or "wise men." I believe only one of the gospels mentions this (sorry, I haven't got a N.T. at my elbow with which to confirm this), where it simply says "three kings of the East." There is no mention of their names being Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar—that is a so-called medieval accretion—nor that one of them was black.
Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein
First, Jesus was not born in the year 1 A.D. There was an error in the calendar at one point. Most scholars now think it probably was in 4 B.C.
Second, there is absolutely no reason to believe Jesus was born on December 25. There is no record of the date Jesus was born; and it is believed that the celebration of the birth of Jesus at some point was attracted to the time of the Roman celebration of Saturnalia or perhaps to one or more pagan feasts that centered around the winter solstice.
Third, scholars now think Jesus was probably not born in Bethlehem, as the gospel stories say, but in Nazareth.
Fourth, the story of the Magi or "wise men." I believe only one of the gospels mentions this (sorry, I haven't got a N.T. at my elbow with which to confirm this), where it simply says "three kings of the East." There is no mention of their names being Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar—that is a so-called medieval accretion—nor that one of them was black.
Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Holiday Seasons Keep Getting Longer
A couple of days ago I noticed that there were suddenly a great many programs on TV about veterans and war. I wondered what was going on and then it occurred to me, "Veterans Day." But Veterans Day at the time was still six days off.
So evidently there is now a Veterans Day "season," shall we say, that lasts about a week.
Well, every holiday seems to have evolved into a whole season. Halloween--to judge from when you start to see decorations on homes and elsewhere, and horror movies being shown on TV--now lasts for the whole month of October.
This trend isn't anything new; it's been going on for many years. The Christmas season--defined as when businesses and institutions put up Christmas decorations, you begin hearing Christmas music, and you start seeing and hearing advertising for "holiday" and Christmas gift "ideas"—has been getting earlier and earlier for a very long time.
One of the reasons for this trend has to be because for marketers, Christmas--or any other season for which they can sell you something, be it Halloween costumes, home decorations tied to the season, gifts, etc.--is profitable, so of course they'd like to see the season last as long as possible. The more days when they can sell you their merchandise, the more profit for them. (That's simple and indisputable; when we hear forecasts for Christmas sales, they always take into account how long the Christmas selling season is, that is, the number of shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.) Once upon a time, the Christmas season was said to start right after Thanksgiving. Now it's the beginning of November. It's gotten to where it can't get any earlier because it's bumped right into Halloween. But maybe I should not suppose that two holidays can't overlap; if they can, then the trend for the Christmas season to begin earlier and earlier might be able to go on. If the fact that a couple of holidays come in between doesn't matter, one day we'll see the Christmas stuff start right after the Fourth of July.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
So evidently there is now a Veterans Day "season," shall we say, that lasts about a week.
Well, every holiday seems to have evolved into a whole season. Halloween--to judge from when you start to see decorations on homes and elsewhere, and horror movies being shown on TV--now lasts for the whole month of October.
This trend isn't anything new; it's been going on for many years. The Christmas season--defined as when businesses and institutions put up Christmas decorations, you begin hearing Christmas music, and you start seeing and hearing advertising for "holiday" and Christmas gift "ideas"—has been getting earlier and earlier for a very long time.
One of the reasons for this trend has to be because for marketers, Christmas--or any other season for which they can sell you something, be it Halloween costumes, home decorations tied to the season, gifts, etc.--is profitable, so of course they'd like to see the season last as long as possible. The more days when they can sell you their merchandise, the more profit for them. (That's simple and indisputable; when we hear forecasts for Christmas sales, they always take into account how long the Christmas selling season is, that is, the number of shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.) Once upon a time, the Christmas season was said to start right after Thanksgiving. Now it's the beginning of November. It's gotten to where it can't get any earlier because it's bumped right into Halloween. But maybe I should not suppose that two holidays can't overlap; if they can, then the trend for the Christmas season to begin earlier and earlier might be able to go on. If the fact that a couple of holidays come in between doesn't matter, one day we'll see the Christmas stuff start right after the Fourth of July.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The Ecology of Christmas
Call me Scrooge. Call me anti-Christian. Call me un-American. But I think this needs to be said.
Why have I never heard anyone commenting on the extra energy consumption that is represented by Christmas lights? Granted, tiny little lights, individually, don't use a lot of electricity. But this whole Christmas lights/decoration thing has gotten so out of hand, with people vying to outdo one another, that people are getting electric bills in the thousands of dollars.
This extra demand for electricity not only means more depletion of resources (coal, gas, oil) to generate the power, and the concomitant greenhouse gas emission, but also a seldom-mentioned consequence of our power consumption, the production of mountains of coal ash (from coal-burning power plants) that can be a toxic environmental hazard, according to the EPA.
And then there are Christmas trees. (I except artificial trees from these comments.) How many millions of Christmas trees are grown every year, to be used for a short time and then disposed of (hopefully turned into mulch, at the very least)? How much land is used for growing Christmas trees? Maybe that land could be used for growing food crops to feed a hungry world or even corn for ethanol production. Almost any use of that land would seem to me more sensible than use as Christmas tree farms when that's for such an ephemeral product.
Even if the land used were not good for anything else, it could be returned to wildlife habitat, which continually shrinks as humans spread themselves and their activities over the face of the planet.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Why have I never heard anyone commenting on the extra energy consumption that is represented by Christmas lights? Granted, tiny little lights, individually, don't use a lot of electricity. But this whole Christmas lights/decoration thing has gotten so out of hand, with people vying to outdo one another, that people are getting electric bills in the thousands of dollars.
This extra demand for electricity not only means more depletion of resources (coal, gas, oil) to generate the power, and the concomitant greenhouse gas emission, but also a seldom-mentioned consequence of our power consumption, the production of mountains of coal ash (from coal-burning power plants) that can be a toxic environmental hazard, according to the EPA.
And then there are Christmas trees. (I except artificial trees from these comments.) How many millions of Christmas trees are grown every year, to be used for a short time and then disposed of (hopefully turned into mulch, at the very least)? How much land is used for growing Christmas trees? Maybe that land could be used for growing food crops to feed a hungry world or even corn for ethanol production. Almost any use of that land would seem to me more sensible than use as Christmas tree farms when that's for such an ephemeral product.
Even if the land used were not good for anything else, it could be returned to wildlife habitat, which continually shrinks as humans spread themselves and their activities over the face of the planet.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Some Day-after-Christmas Thoughts
First, there is no authority whatsoever for Jesus' birthday being December 25. No one knows the exact day he was born.
Second, there is no authority in the Gospels for the "three wise men" being named Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. The Gospel of Matthew--the only one, I believe, that includes this story (check me on that if you care to)-- does not even say there were three of them; it just says "wise men from the East." This is one of many medieval "accretions," additions that somehow came to be made to stories which are to be found in the Gospels.
Third, do you think you know what Jesus looked like? Sure, you've seen his likeness in paintings, religious statues, even calendars. The fact is, there was no photography in his day, and we don't have any contemporary portraits of him, either. Our notions of Jesus stem mainly from medieval and Renaissance paintings. He seems to be depicted as having long blond hair, blue eyes, and a beard. But surely he was much more Semitic-looking than that.
Ditto for the Virgin Mary. The absence of reliable images of these personages ought by itself to give the lie to all those sightings of Jesus or Mary on tortillas or walls or water towers.
Last, we all know that in Roman times, Christians were thrown to the lions in the Coliseum, right? Well, according to an article in Smithsonian magazine, there is no good evidence for that, either.
So—a lot of what we believe just ain't so.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Second, there is no authority in the Gospels for the "three wise men" being named Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. The Gospel of Matthew--the only one, I believe, that includes this story (check me on that if you care to)-- does not even say there were three of them; it just says "wise men from the East." This is one of many medieval "accretions," additions that somehow came to be made to stories which are to be found in the Gospels.
Third, do you think you know what Jesus looked like? Sure, you've seen his likeness in paintings, religious statues, even calendars. The fact is, there was no photography in his day, and we don't have any contemporary portraits of him, either. Our notions of Jesus stem mainly from medieval and Renaissance paintings. He seems to be depicted as having long blond hair, blue eyes, and a beard. But surely he was much more Semitic-looking than that.
Ditto for the Virgin Mary. The absence of reliable images of these personages ought by itself to give the lie to all those sightings of Jesus or Mary on tortillas or walls or water towers.
Last, we all know that in Roman times, Christians were thrown to the lions in the Coliseum, right? Well, according to an article in Smithsonian magazine, there is no good evidence for that, either.
So—a lot of what we believe just ain't so.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
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