Day: December 22, 2004

  • Some unusual Christmas reflections…

    Susu presented an interesting clarification upon the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. Apparently, “five golden rings” doesn’t refer to rings on your sweetie’s finger, but ring-necked pheasants. Hence, the first seven gifts are birds and then the last five are people. So, ‘true love’ is gifting birds and then, all of the sudden, people become bird-gift surrogates? What’s up with that? My question is: who traffics in the giving of people as gifts? Slave-owners and slave-traders, of course. So maybe eight maids a’milking are actually wet nurses attending plantation babies whose momma is cavorting with indentured lords a’leaping (while her husband slips dollar bills into the thongs of the enslaved ladies dancing)???

    Melchior, King of Arabia, gifted Jesus a chest of gold. Yep. He didn’t reach into his pockets and rummage for a few spare gold coins. All the depictions I see, show a fairly hefty chest itself made out of gold and, I’d imagine, it was filled with gold, too. Otherwise, you’d end up with the ‘big-empty-box-little-gift spoof’—totally inappropriate for a child king. Last I checked, a chest of gold is a king’s fortune and, in fact, it is traditionally explained that this signifies that Jesus was, indeed, a king. Significance aside, Jesus was rich from that moment on. My question is: What did Mary and Joseph as caretakers do with the fortune? Yes, a manger scene is touching cinematographically . But if I were destitute and had a newborn relegated to a manger then suddenly came upon a fortune, I’d buy into some better lodging (even if I had to bribe a lodge manager to evict someone else) before another flea could bite my baby’s ass.

    For an extreme view of where capitalists would take us with the ‘traditon’ of holiday shopping, take a look at Commodifying Jesus or WWJDWS—What Would Jesus Do (While Shopping)?

  • A Forgotten Landmark



    Every Christmastime of late, and sometimes even upon the Eve, I have visited the site of the very first public Christmas tree in America and have stood there contemplating the possible meaning(s) of Christmas.




     


    But it’s funny because, though there’s a plaque in commemoration, there is no tree!You’d think the community would embrace the holiday spirit and celebrate the location of the first historic Christmas tree in America with a grand re-creation and festive lighting ceremony.But no. Alone, I arrive in darkness (virutal, if not actual) each Christmas and alone I have always remained.  For the site, besides the mundane plaque, is entirely forgotten and totally uncelebrated.And yet a billion dollar industry in the sale of Christmas trees and tree ornaments has spun/spawned from it, to say nothing of the joy that the 'tannenbaum' has given us all at this time of year .Oh, how quickly we forget!


     


    Here’s the story about the controversy and scandal that the first public Christmas tree in America caused.


     


    And here is the actual record of the first decorated private tree…but it was Schwan’s tree described above that launched the tradition in America.  In any case, it all started in northern Ohio.  Woohoo for my neck of the woods.

notforprophet

Recent Posts

Categories

The End of Days

December 2004
M T W T F S S
« Nov   Jan »
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031