In 2012 an Arizona gun club caused a stir when it raised funds by charging folks $10 to have their photo taken next to Santa Claus and a firearm of their choice. Families could choose from an arsenal — pistols, semiautomatic AR-15s, even grenade launchers – and there were lineups willing to hand over their cash to do so.
This move tapped into an American tradition of associating Santa with the sales of weaponry as these images testify.
And for those who can’t afford a gun:
Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space. – Dave Barry, “Peace on Earth but No Parking”
The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Savior, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected. – Samuel Johnson in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
This holiday which only reminds me of the birth of a Jew who gave the world debilitating and devitalizing theories. – Benito Mussolini, December 1941
I know many Americans think of Christmas as a single day and like to clear away the trappings of the season well before the fifth of January, but that is sheer barbarism, if you ask me, morally only a few steps removed from human sacrifice, cannibalism, or golf. – David Bentley Hart, The Dream-Child’s Progress and Other Essays
There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmastime. Mature responsible men wear neckties made out of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw eggs and cottage cheese in them. – P.J. O’Rourke
I return your seasonal greeting card with contempt. May your hypocritical words choke you and may they choke you early in the New Year, rather than later. – Professor Kennedy Lindsay, a Vanguard member of the Northern Assembly, returning a Christmas card from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr Garret FitzGerald, in the Irish Times
So if a Christian is touched only once a year, the touching is still worth it, and maybe on some given Christmas, some quiet morning, the touch will take. – Harry Reasoner
The Christmas Truce of 1914 is famous but it was not the first Yuletide cessation of hostilities. The Educational News, of Edinburgh, Scotland, in its issue of December 25, 1914, recorded a striking incident which occurred during the Franco-German War of 1870. An American editor who reprinted it said, “It is not impossible for history to repeat itself, and, perhaps, a similar incident to that described below may have happened during Yuletide, 1914.” And indeed it had.
It was late on Christmas Eve. All day long the troops had been engaged in heavy fighting; the fire had been unceasing and the artillery deadly. Now, as darkness enfolded them, the soldiers, tired with their hard day’s work and weary of games in the trenches, were falling asleep, oblivious of the terrible conditions around them. Not many remained awake except the sentries, whose constant footsteps were heard regularly passing to and fro.
Only a hundred yards separated the two armies, and there was fear of treachery in the night watches. As it neared midnight, a young Frenchman rose up quietly and stealthily from his uncomfortable position, left his rifle lying in the trench, and started to cross the intervening space, after giving the password to the guards. They would have held him back, but he refused to stay, although warned of the extreme danger he was running into. The sentries were at a loss to understand his action, but he pleaded hard for liberty for an hour. Picking his way cautiously, the soldier crawled towards the German ranks, and by careful maneuvering arrived within a few yards of their trenches before being noticed by them. Suddenly, however, a sentry leaped, as it were, out of the darkness, demanding in gruff tones to know the business of the midnight intruder. For an answer, the Frenchman stood erect. Then quietly, yet very sweetly, in the stillness of the night, he commenced to sing. His voice rang out clear, and the Germans listened while he continued the beautiful carol:”Nöel, Nöel, Nöel, Nöel, Born is the King of Israel.”
The sentry remained spellbound; the Germans lying in their wet trenches awakened from their slumber, listened eagerly to the singer reminding them of the first Christmas joy. The Frenchman finished the verse and chorus, then, as quietly as he had come, turned back towards his own station. Passing the sentries, he lay down in his trench tired out, but happier because he had given a message of cheer to his enemies.
Not long afterwards the sentries on duty outside the French trenches, hearing footsteps approaching, challenged a soldier coming toward them, whereupon a German halted, and in a melodious voice, began their version (which is reputed to be the prettiest) of the carol which the Frenchman had just sung.
The Frenchmen listened intently while the German continued the carol. The words they could not understand, but they knew the melody, and that it spoke of Christmas. As the singer completed the first verse the Frenchmen in the trenches rose up in a body, and as with one voice joined heartily in the chorus.
Silence reigned again for a few moments. when the singing stopped. Then, as if in echo, the answering chorus came from the German lines. The Frenchmen listened with rapt attention, and as soon as it was finished, started the chorus again on their side. The Germans took up the refrain, and together both armies sang eagerly on Christmas morning the carol which tells so beautifully of the first Christmas Day.
Historians disagree on the carols that were sung. I’m very doubtful that French and Prussian troops serenaded each other with an English song “The First Noël” and am inclined to believe that either they both sang versions of Silent Night” or that the French contributed “Cantique de Noël” and the Germans replied with “Von Himmel Hoch”.
A remarkable protest took place in Cologne Cathedral during the 2013 Christmas morning service. A woman who had been sitting in the pews suddenly leapt onto the altar, bared her breasts, and revealed a message scrawled across her torso: “I Am God.”
Closer inspection determined that she was not, as she had claimed, the Supreme Being but was, in fact, Josephine Witt, a member of the international provocation group FEMEN, upset at the conservative hierarchy of the Catholic Church. After her arrest, Witt told reporters: “Cologne is the capital of Catholics in Germany, and [Cardinal] Meisner stands for a very conservative orientation.”
Cardinal Meisner was unfazed, saying “I’m 80 years old. I’ve lived through so much: first the Nazi period, then the entire Communist period – something like this can’t shock me after that.”
An outraged parishioner who slapped Witt as she was pulled from the altar was fined 100 euros while Witt was found guilty of disturbance of the free practice of religion – a crime which could have seen her imprisoned for up to three years but she got off with a mere 1,200 euro penalty.
In 2014 a topless blonde, inscribed with the message “God Is Woman” and shouting anti-Catholic slogans, tried to steal the image of the Baby Jesus from the Nativity scene erected by the pope in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. The act was a protest against “the centuries-old Vatican stance on women’s rights for [their] own body and reproductive function.”
The perpetrator was a member of the international feminist provocation squad named FEMEN famous for their bare-bosomed stunts drawing attention to their opposition to various manifestations of the patriarchy. The 2014 kidnapping attempt was part of FEMEN’s anticlerical “Massacre of the Innocents” campaign, which called for the theft of Baby Jesus from crèches around the world. “The maniacal desire to control women’s fertility is a common trait of many religions, National Socialism, nationalism and other antediluvian, anti-humanist ideologies. Abortion is sacred,” said the group. Three years later the group again staged a raid on the papal nativity scene but, as in 2014, was unable to make off with the Bambino.
Have you ever wondered what happens to the image of the Baby Jesus when it is not in the Nativity scene displayed during the Christmas season. Probably not; you have much better things to do with your life. But I can, thanks to diligent research of my part, and I am gong to share a couple of examples today.
In the church of San Domenico in Naples a creche is set up in a grotto; it contains every figure of the Nativity scene except the bambino. On Christmas Eve a procession emerges from the church and a woman from the crowd places the missing baby in the hands of the Dominican priest who then places it in the crib. All then kneel and sing the old lullabye “Dormi, Benigne Jesu, in dulci somno”. After Christmas the bambino is kept by a family in the congregation.
A similar ceremony is held in New Mexico at the Jemez Indian pueblo (above). A pious couple is chosen as “padrino” or godparents to the baby Jesus. On Christmas Eve at 11:30 the padrinos and a procession go to church where the padre emerges with the statue and gives it to the madrina. They process home while guns fire in salute; at their home the baby is placed on a small altar. Candles are lit, prayers are said and the godmother then leads the procession to return the baby to the church, reciting the Hail Mary in the native dialect. The crowd enters the church at midnight for mass, after which the baby is venerated on the altar and then given to the seated madrina. All pass by her and kiss the “Bethlehem Babe” while hymns are sung. After the ceremony the baby is placed in its crib until the Three Kings Day.
“Bambino” is Italian for “baby” but at Christmas the term refers to the figure of the infant Jesus placed in family and church manger scenes. The most famous was the late-medieval doll in the Church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli, Rome, carved by a Franciscan friar from wood from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Ceremonies attended its placing every Christmas Eve; children preached before it; and miracles were attributed to it, including one where it returned itself home after a kidnapping. In 1994 thieves broke into the church and made off with the image which had been covered with valuable objects; the Franciscans discouraged any attempt to pay ransom for its return. Instead a modern copy (also made from wood from the Garden of Gethsemane) replaced the original, paid for in part by outraged convicts, ashamed that fellow criminals might have been responsible for the theft. The new image is also richly adorned, decorated with gold and jewels.
When Circe, the witch, caught Ulysses’s men,
She gave each a dram that soon made him a hog;
The identical mixture–’tis now as ’twas then;
So attend to the moral, Beware of Egg-nog.
When the circle is form’d, the glass passes round,
Old Satan draws night, tho’, as usual, incog.,
And chuckles to see good Sobriety drown’d–
Would you frustrate his malice–Beware of Egg-nog.
But why do I rail at one liquor this way?
Is no other as fatal; rum, brandy, or grog?
Yes, yes, they’re all one, I mean all when I say,
And I’ll say but once more now, Beware of Egg-nog.
A contemporary warning about the health hazards posed by this stent potable may be found at: https://news.yahoo.com/why-careful-eggnog-110000451.html
Christmas in Romania sounds like a fun time for those who like pork. Here is a description of one particular custom as related on a Romanian website:
Five days before Christmas, on 20th of December, a very sharp knife is used to cut the pig in the honor of Saint Ignatius and this ritual is known as ‘Ignatius’ too after him. It is washed nicely and covered with a piece of cloth for 10 minutes. Then, the housewife puts the straws in the pig’s snout and covers it with burning straws and singes it. Then, the husband makes the sign of the cross on the pig’s head and announces to the family – “Let’s eat the pig!”. Then, a feast is held known as the pig’s funeral feast or alms and all the family, friends and neighbors are invited to the feast. Besides bacon, people also eat small pieces of fried pork and drink wine or plum brandy.
Here is a recipe from Radio Romania International. I can’t say that I’m too eager to sample it:
The main pork-based Christmas dish is the hog’s pudding, TOBA in Romanian. It is a mix of pieces of pork with fat, cut out from the goiter region, added to which are pork rind and pieces of liver, heart, kidneys and tongue, as well as ears. All that is minced and then used as a filling for the pig’s stomach. Traditionally, the stomach of the pig is used for the hog’s pudding. Right after the slaughter of the pig, salt is rubbed in and the inner membrane is cleaned. The stomach is then soaked in a mix of water and vinegar, with an onion cut in four also placed there, in order to get rid of the bad smell. Pieces of meat, ears, pork rind, tongue, heart, liver and kidneys are washed and cleaned. Then they are put to the boil with two bay leaves, several pepper and pimento corns, an onion and a spoonful of salt. As soon as boiling time is over, the meat and the other ingredients need to be minced. All those minced pieces are used as a filling for the hog’s pudding, TOBA in Romanian.
As soon as the pig stomach is filled, the slit needs to be sown. The hog’s pudding is then pierced several times before it is put to the boil once again, on medium heat. The hog’s pudding is boiled for about thirty minutes, in the same juice where crushed garlic has been added. Then the hog’s pudding needs to be cooled. For that, it is placed between two wooden boards: the extra juice is thus squeezed as the boards press the hog’s pudding. The hog’s pudding can also be smoked. It is kept cool and sliced before it is served on the appetizers platter, alongside pork rind, pork scraps, slices of liverwurst, black pudding or smoked or half-smoked sausages, with or without paprika.