Merry Christmas!! And Happy final day of the 12 Days of Blogmas!! In the classic Christmas song, "Oh Holy Night", there is the great line: "Long lay the world, in sin and error pining, Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth." I've always liked that line, "the soul felt its worth." We as... Continue Reading →
Happy Day 11 of The 12 Days of Blogmas! Christmas as we know it today has a pretty disjointed history. It’s a jumbled hodgepodge of pagan traditions, Christian traditions, commercial marketing, and lots of secular traditions. I’m no theologian, but quite a lot of the religious aspects of the holiday that are celebrated are acknowledged... Continue Reading →
New Year’s celebrations often get lumped together with Christmas here in my part of the world since they are just a week apart and schools are on break for both. As the song goes, “We wish you a Merry Christmas….and a Happy New Year”. As a kid I remember thinking it felt like some sort... Continue Reading →
Three years ago, during my last blogmas challenge, I wrote a post about Martin Luther King Jr.’s Christmas Sermon on Peace. The post includes a link to the audio of that sermon, and it’s worth a listen. I closed that blog post by referencing another sermon that Dr. King gave, and it is that sermon... Continue Reading →
1923 Washington Animal Rescue League Christmas party (Library of Congress) Throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s, humane societies around the country would host Christmas parties for horses in order to help urban residents connect with workhorses who served their communities and to bring attention to the sometimes harsh conditions that horses endured. These horse... Continue Reading →
I accidently stumbled upon an old debate that used to divide people about the proper terminology for holiday greetings. Well actually debate about holiday greeting terminology is still an active battle in some people’s minds, but that’s another topic, and not really one I want to delve into. Just noting that we humans haven’t really... Continue Reading →
Earlier this month, we took our daughter to meet Santa Claus! Technically, she met him last year, but she was only 10 months old and was pretty chill about just letting us plop her on his lap and snap a few pictures. This year it was a little more complicated. The screaming Santa picture seems... Continue Reading →
Because he was such a prolific writer of essays, we know exactly what C.S. Lewis thought about a wide variety of topics including Christmas. Turns out, he had some pretty relatable and amusing thoughts, even though fans of the Father Christmas character in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe might be surprised that the... Continue Reading →
Did you know that in 1927, Mr. Claus went to Washington and received his pilot license. The United States government didn’t begin issuing pilot licenses until 1927. The Air Commerce Act was passed in 1926 requiring everyone that was piloting aircraft to become licensed, and Santa dutifully applied for and received his. You can find... Continue Reading →
Washington’s Armory Square Hospital (Library of Congress) Christmas comes around faithfully year after year, but it doesn’t always find us well. Sometimes life circumstances find us hurting, grieving, and otherwise having a hard time and not able to celebrate the holidays the way we might like. Last Blogmas, I wrote a little about dealing with... Continue Reading →
Rachel F. Jean 