We’re still in Clermont today—that’s a tree in one of the homes in the Historic Village Museum. Worked and stayed home all day yesterday. Today I’m going to post office–more Christmas orders and then on to Sam’s to pick up some stuff for some old friends and associates. No Blog tomorrow as am meeting a friend for lunch and then doing some Christmas Shopping…hopefully that will be the last I need to make.
Why is Christmas like a day at the office?
Because you do all the work, and the fat guy in the suit gets all the credit.
– A Guy Named Kelly @kellysdf
Christmas is also referred to as Yule, which is derived from the Norse word jól, referring to the pre-Christian winter solstice festival.
Yule is also known as Alban Arthan and was one of the “Lesser Sabbats” of the Wiccan year in a time when ancient believers celebrated the rebirth of the Sun God and days with more light. This took place annually around the time of the December solstice and lasted for 12 days http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/december-solstice-customs.html
The practice of gathering around the fire on Christmas Eve to tell ghost stories was as much a part of Christmas for the Victorian English as Santa Claus is for us. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705363363/Telling-ghost-stories-is-a-lost-tradition-on-Christmas-Eve.html?pg=all
In fact this appears in a more modern instance in Andy William’s song: “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” for instance, clearly says, “There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago”
So I guess my roomie putting up a ghost on our house as part of the holiday celebrations isn’t so weird after–Don’t ask! 
Christmas sweaters are only acceptable as a cry for help.
– Andy Borowitz
AN OLD FASHIONED CHRISTMAS is probably not what we’re looking forward to either:
Oh, by gosh, by golly. It’s time for . . . rowdy bands of drunkards roaming the streets, lighting firecrackers, and firing off guns? Gangs of masked youths invading people’s houses, demanding food, drink, and money—and threatening to break the windows (or worse) unless they’re given what they want?
Welcome to Christmas, circa 1800. Yes, the season of light, joy, and gift-giving was once regarded as a time of darkness, danger, and dissipation—and celebrated with all-too-public displays of noisemaking, inebriation, and gluttonous consumption. Christmas Curiosities: Odd, Dark, and Forgotten Christmas by
Sounds way too much like the present century for me.
Christmas is a state of mind and that special feeling that only comes with an empty bank account. – Melanie White
Even in the same year we don’t do it the same:
Christmas Day is a public holiday in Ethiopia and Eritrea that is celebrated on January 7 or on 27 Tahsas of the Ethiopian calendar.
Christmas is a public holiday in South Korea. According to The Washington Post, the Korean version of Santa Claus (Santa Haraboji, which means Santa Grandfather) can sometimes wear a blue suit instead of a red suit.
Indonesia: Generally every Christmas Day is filled with cookies, like nastar (pineapple tart), kastengel (from Dutch word kasteengel), or ‘putri salju
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_traditions
Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas. – Johnny Carson
Other countries even of the same faiths do it different
Simbang Gabi (Mass at Dawn) – also known as misa de gallo is a Filipino Christmas tradition that is centuries old. It is a 9 day novena of Christmas masses beginning on December 16 and culminates on Christmas eve with the misa aguinaldo (mass gift) since Christ is God’s gift to mankind. www.lhcla.org/asianpacificministry/…/Filipino-Christmas–Tradition.pdf
“I bought my brother some gift-wrap for Christmas. I took it to the Gift Wrap department and told them to wrap it, but in a different print so he would know when to stop unwrapping.” Stephen Wright
And Christmas was once just the start of the celebration:
By the time of the late Renaissance, Christmas was a day of low-key observance that opened an annual twelve day festival of religious ceremony and secular celebration. The English word “Yuletide” actually means the twelve-day period between Dec. 25 and Jan. 6. In many communities, large bonfires were set in village centers and, on Christmas eve, each family burned a ceremonial Yule log to start the hearth fire around which its members and visitors would gather throughout the rest of the Christmas festival days. http://historiccamdencounty.com/ccnews93.shtml
Merry Christmas, nearly everybody!
– Ogden Nash
And what about our American early traditions?
To the first English colonists who arrived in Virginia in 1607, Christmas was both a holy day and a festival which they celebrated here with the same merriment and feasting that they did in England. They also began the practice of exuberant noise-making, with horns, drums, and firecrackers, that’s still part of Christmas in the South.
But the Pilgrims took a dim view of the singing and dancing, feasting and drinking that characterized the Yuletide celebration back in England. For them, Christmas was strictly a religious event, and merrymaking on this holy day was an unwelcome reminder of pagan winter rites. So the Pilgrims who landed in Massachusetts in the winter of 1620 spent December 25th erecting their first building, refusing to make the day special in any way. By the Revolutionary War, they began to lift their bans, but it was not until 1856 that Massachusetts recognized Christmas as a legal holiday.
. On Christmas day, 1624, an expedition of the Dutch East India Company went ashore to the now island of Manhattan to give thanks with a merry feast. As more colonists arrived from Holland, they brought their Christmas customs of a gift-bearing St. Nicholas, the stocking filled with treats, and the spirit of family closeness that’s so much a part of Christmas today.
http://www.genealogytoday.com/articles/reader.mv?ID=2681
I don’t mind fruitcakes. They’re the one thing during the holidays I’m not tempted to eat. – Melanie White
My wife, like many women, actually LIKES wrapping things. If she gives you a gift that requires batteries, she wraps the batteries separately, which to me is very close to being a symptom of mental illness. – Dave Barry
“I love my family but my family — they’re the type of people that never let you forget anything you ever did… I was in the first grade Christmas play — I’m playing Mary. Now, during the course of the play, I dropped the baby Jesus… They still talk about this. I go to my family reunion, and one of my cousins just had a baby. So I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s a cute little baby. Let me hold the baby…’ And my aunt runs over, ‘Don’t you give her that baby! You know she dropped the baby Jesus!'” Wanda Sykes
