HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS: THE YEAR It’s obvious that Jesus was born on December 25, A.D. 1 , right? Wrong. What we do know is that Herod the Great (who killed all the babies in Bethlehem younger than 2 years of age) died in the Spring of 4 B.C. according to the Jewish historian Josephus, and [...]
November 2011
NATIVITY SEASON Greeting cards depict Joseph along with Mary on the back of a donkey making their way to Bethlehem in the wintry snow. But could Jesus have been born during that time of the year, perhaps with snow on the ground? While it is uncommon it does snow in this part of Palestine sometimes [...]
THE HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS: ADVENT Here begins our series of articles on the History of Christmas. The Advent Season — Advent means the “coming” of the Christ Child — is marked by the four Sundays before Christmas and is celebrated in the church calendar as one the most festive seasons of the year. As we [...]
HISTORY OF BLACK FRIDAY While it is difficult to connect this term to the start of the Christmas shopping sales season before its use in the mid-1960s in Philadelphia, the concept appears to go back to the 19th century when Christmas sales followed Thanksgiving Day parades. In 1939 President Franklin D Roosevelt set the date [...]
HISTORY OF THANKSGIVING: FRIENDLY INDIAN? We’ve all heard the story of how the Pilgrims, landing in Massachusetts on the Mayflower in 1620, were ill equipped to survive the harsh winters of the New World. We’ve also heard how they met a Native American Indian of the Pawtuxet tribe named Squanto who befriended them, taught them [...]
HISTORY OF THANKSGIVING The origin of Thanksgiving Day has been attributed to a harvest feast held by the Plymouth Colony. In 1621, Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony proclaimed a day of “thanksgiving” and prayer to celebrate the Pilgrims’ first harvest in America the year after their arrival on the merchant ship Mayflower. The [...]
HISTORY OF VETERANS DAY A professor once commented, “We write things down so we can forget them.” Now, of course this is wrong, except in the limited sense of writing down appointments so we don’t have to worry about missing meetings. But that’s just it, we do forget things. As individuals we forget things that [...]
