Christmas Every Day

A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.  G. K. Chesterton – “Christmas”

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.

(from “The Dream-Child’s Progress and Other Essays” by David Bentley Hart)

A box or trough in which food for livestock is placed. Luke’s gospel relates how when Jesus was born in a stable his mother laid him in a manger; pious legend has it that the animals of the stable warmed him and watched over him there. Representations of the manger can be seen in the near-universal crèche, in artwork depicting the Nativity as well as in the lattice-work crust of the Christmas mince pie and the straw placed under the tablecloth in eastern European homes. Carols celebrating the scene include “Away in a Manger”, “O Holy Night” and “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day”.

The church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome claims to possess pieces of the original Bethlehem crib, seen above — five wooden slats of sycamore brought from the Holy Land in the seventh century which are exposed on the high altar every Christmas Eve. These are believed to have formed part of an x-shaped support for the manger itself which was probably made of the same limestone that formed the cave where Jesus was born. In the sixteenth century Frederick the Wise of Saxony, Martin Luther’s patron, also had portions of the manger among his vast collection of relics but the fate of these pieces is unknown.

When legal threats by the Freedom From Religion Foundation forced the Minnesota town of Wadena to take down its traditional nativity scene in 2015, disappointed citizens responded by turning the township into an orgy of crèches. A local movement sprang up to replace the single banned nativity scene with hundreds of them in businesses, offices and private yards. The mayor, who had reluctantly yielded to the FFRF demand, put up eight displays in front of his own house

On December 23, 1927 Santa Claus robbed the First National Bank in Cisco, Texas. Dressed as St. Nick, Marshall Ratliff and three undisguised companions looted the bank and took hostages but were greeted by police and heavily-armed townspeople when they emerged from the building. In the shoot-out that followed, two officers and a bandit were mortally wounded. Though Ratliff and his two remaining partners temporarily escaped after a series of car-jackings and hostage takings, they were forced to abandon the stolen money and were all rounded up within a week.

The erstwhile Santa, who killed again in a failed escape attempt, was eventually taken from his jail cell by an angry mob and lynched. A piece of the rope used in the impromptu hanging is on display in the Callahan County Courthouse in Baird, Texas.    

Shoes have played a number of roles in Christmas observances around the world. The most common dates from the Middle Ages — the placing out of shoes on St. Nicholas Eve or Christmas Eve or Epiphany Eve so that the Gift-Bringer can fill them with treats or gifts. In many European countries it is essential that these shoes be freshly-polished if they are to be used in this way. These same shoes often hold grass or grain for the Gift-Bringer’s animals. A related use is to place one’s letter to Santa or other Gift-Bringer in a shoe so that he will know what to bring for a Christmas present.

In Greece, some people burn their old shoes during the Christmas season to prevent misfortunes in the coming year while others burn them to prevent the monstrous kallikantzaroi from coming down the chimney to torment the family. In Scandinavian  countries it is believed that shoes placed side-by-side on Christmas Eve will prevent a family from quarrleing in the year to come.

Throwing shoes is also a means of Christmas divination. A girl who successfully throws her slipper into a tree or who throws her shoe at a door at midnight and finds that it points toward the door will receive a marriage proposal within the year.

The Salvation Army, part church, part world-wide social service agency, has become identified with Christmas charity since its foundation in London in 1865 by General William Booth. The sounds of Army brass bands playing Christmas carols and the sight of street-corner kettles are an integral part of Christmas in many countries.

In 1891 Captain Joseph McFee of San Francisco set up the world’s first Salvation Army street kettle to collect donations for Christmas charities. It was such a success in raising money to provide a Christmas meal for the area’s poor people that within a few years kettles were a common site on the West Coast. In 1897 the idea spread to Boston; though some officers were reluctant to man the kettles lest they make a spectacle of themselves enough money was collected to feed thousands. In 1901 the Salvation Army set up the first mammoth sit-down dinners for the poor in New York’s Madison Square Garden, a custom that perisisted for decades. This kind of communal Christmas dinner is still offered to the homeless but around the world today the collections from street kettles also fund groceries, clothing and toys for poor families with their own homes, meals for and visits for shut-ins, services for the families of prisoners and the Christmas needs of inmates.

 At one time the Army employed the homeless to dress as Santa Claus while they manned the kettles but the proliferation of street-corner and department-store Santas confused children so the practice was dropped. Nowadays many kettles are automated with a self-ringing bell, and a public address system broadcasting carols.