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HISTORY OF LUCIADAGEN
In Sweden, December 13 is Luciadagen, or St. Lucia’s Day, or in English, St. Lucy. It is the beginning of their holiday season. The Lutheran Danes and Norwegians also celebrate this day. St. Lucia was a young woman who lived in first century Rome. She was a Christian who would not give up [...]
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HISTORY OF THE WISE MEN
You’re familiar with the song that begins “We Three Kings of Orient Are…” but it is inaccurate in at least three ways. We don’t know how many there were, but we know they weren’t kings. They did not originate in the Orient, meaning the Far East.
How could they have seen the [...]
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HISTORY OF THE STAR
The Star of Bethlehem has puzzled scholars for centuries. Some have skeptically dismissed the phenomenon as a myth, a mere literary device to call attention to the importance of the Nativity. Others have argued that the star was miraculously placed there to guide the Magi and is therefore beyond all natural explanation. [...]
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HISTORY OF THE POINSETTIA
I studied one summer in Cuernavaca, a little town south of Mexico City. There is a story told there that long ago the people flocked to church on Christmas Eve because they loved to fill the Christ child’s manger with flowers. A little boy named Jose was too poor to [...]
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HISTORY OF SANTA CLAUS
December 6 is “Saint Nicholas Day”. Santa Claus, a contraction for Saint Nicholas, was born in the 3rd century, perhaps in A.D. 270. He became a bishop in Greece and gained distinction in the councils of the church, being especially famed for unexpected gifts, and later associated with the giving of presents [...]
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HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS
Many of the customs that we associate with Christmas come from largely pagan or pre-Christian backgrounds.
The word Yule comes from an old Norse word for a twelve-day celebration.
Mistletoe was prominent in the traditions of the Druids and the lore of northern Europe.
The wassail bowl was first known in [...]
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HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS MUSIC
Music early became a marked feature of the Christmas season. But the first chants, litanies, and hymns were in Latin and too theological for popular use. The 13th century found the rise of the carol written in the vernacular under the influence of Francis of Assisi. The word carol comes from the [...]
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HISTORY OF A SACRED ORATORIO
The genteel reception accorded the original debut performance stood in marked contrast to the savage hostility which greeted the work less than a year later in London. The English aristocracy and churchmen began an unrelenting campaign against the work and its creator. They labeled it “a profanation,” scandalized at “the sacrilege [...]
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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 [...]
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HALLOWEEN
Halloween (Allhallows Even) is the evening of October 31. In its strictly religious aspect this occasion is known as the vigil of Hallowmas or All Saints’ Day , November 1, observed by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. In the fourth decade of the 8th century, Pope Gregory III moved this [...]
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