Odds & Ends
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Family on Tuesday, December 23, 2008 4:00 PM
Myth #3 in Danielle’s post below persuaded me to post this video, which I made the mistake of showing to my kids. Not that I get the joke.
Here are a few other items for your amusement and edification.
Are you a colored lights or white lights person? This is perhaps my favorite secular Christmas column ever.
White lights make the statement that one is a refined sort who appreciates that less is more and who celebrates Christmas (and life in general) in such a fashion that one would not be absolutely mortified if Martha Stewart dropped by unexpectedly for tea. Colored lights make the statement that one is the sort of person who believes that Christmas is not Christmas without an electric sled and reindeer on the lawn, an electric Santa on the roof, an electric Frosty by the front gate and an electric Very Special Person in a manger on the porch.
Most of the houses in my neighborhood are white-light houses, and I have to admit they are lovely, but I was raised in a colored-light family, and I am raising Tom and Jack to be colored-light men too. They do not take a lot of convincing on this. Boys are naturally colored-lighters.
The Anchoress has the lovely habit of promoting wares from monks & nuns for Christmas. She posted this slideshow of Dominican nuns baking Christmas stollen.
A favorite homily from Benedict the XVI. It’s from Midnight Mass 2006, in which he explains how it came to be that we think of there being a donkey and ox beside the manger.
Reading Isaiah (1:3), the Fathers concluded that beside the manger of Bethlehem there stood an ox and an ass. At the same time they interpreted the text as symbolizing the Jews and the pagans – and thus all humanity – who each in their own way have need of a Saviour: the God who became a child. Man, in order to live, needs bread, the fruit of the earth and of his labour. But he does not live by bread alone. He needs nourishment for his soul: he needs meaning that can fill his life. Thus, for the Fathers, the manger of the animals became the symbol of the altar, on which lies the Bread which is Christ himself: the true food for our hearts. Once again we see how he became small: in the humble appearance of the host, in a small piece of bread, he gives us himself.
The entire homily is about the simplicity of God; I just love it.
Straight No Chaser’s twisted version of the 12 Days of Christmas.
Want to see an actual manger from the time of Christ? Go here.
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