In Auckland New Zealand
They
don’t say Happy Christmas
As
it’s built on a strip of land
So instead,
they say Merry Isthmus
In Auckland New Zealand
They
don’t say Happy Christmas
As
it’s built on a strip of land
So instead,
they say Merry Isthmus
It was in the 4th century when The Catholic Church decided to celebrate Christmas on December 25th.
The
idea behind it was a simple enough one in that they wanted to eclipse the
festivities of a rival pagan religion that threatened Christianity's existence.
At
that time of the year The Romans celebrated the birthday of their sun god,
Mithras.
Church
leaders decided that in order to compete with the pagan’s they needed a
festival of their own at the same time, so they chose to celebrate the birth of
Jesus Christ.
And
it worked.
I have always hated the use of Xmas instead of Christmas and in fact I always believed it to be a vulgar Americanism.
Well, I was wrong
The Xmas abbreviation for Christmas is in fact of Greek origin as The Greek
word for Christ is Xristos.
It was sometime
during the 16th century that Europeans began abbreviating Christ’s name with
and "X" in Christmas as a form of shorthand for the word.
The 16th
century Christians at that time would have understood that X stood for Christ's
name.
Unlike 21st
century Christians who don’t understand Greek and think using the word
"Xmas" is disrespectful or just one more vulgar Americanism.
Jack (Andrew McCarthy) is an executive in a financial brokerage firm and seems to have it all.
He
is a rising star in line for a big promotion and has already impressed the
boss, Drew Clayton (Chris Gillett), He is also dating the boss’s daughter’ the
beautiful and elegant Demi Clayton (Stephanie Mills).
Jack
plans to propose to Demi at her father's lavish annual Christmas Dance but in
order to create the perfect impression on the night he signs up for ballroom
dance lessons.
Which
is when he meets dance instructor, Christine (Michelle Nolden), and the story
really begins.
Tinsel like many things about Christmas is symbolic and what glittering tinsel symbolizes is light and light in all forms was held to have magic qualities in both the pagan and Christian faiths.
Light
was the magic against the darkness of winter and was the power of Christ against
the forces of darkness.
My wife was in the kitchen
And
I went in to take a look
While
she cooked the goose
Just
before I goosed the cook
On the morning of Christmas Eve in 1818, an Austrian priest called Joseph Mohr, was told that the church organ was broken and would not be repaired in time for the Christmas Eve service.
He
was so saddened at the prospect of Christmas without music that he decided he
would try to write a carol that could be sung by the choir and be accompanied
by guitar music.
So,
Joseph sat down and wrote three stanzas and later that night the people in the
little Austrian Church in Oberndorff sang "Stille Nacht" for the
first time.