Christmas tide Jumble
Fun Fact #449
Christmastide
Beginning at the conclusion of Advent, the Christian season of Christmastide more commonly known as “The Twelve days of Christmas (Twelvetide), or Svyatki (The Holy Days) by the Russian Orthodox Church is the season of the year which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ and includes 8 other widely celebrated Christian holidays.
The season was first set up at “The Council of Tours” in 567 in a tidal calendar for churches to unite the Lunar Calendars of the East with the Julian Calendars of the west to reduce confusion around the timing of holidays for travelers. While the Calendars have changed a lot since then the tidal calendar has stayed largely the same with Christmastide beginning at sunset December 24th and lasting until Epiphany (traditionally).
Fun Fact #454
Blue Christmas
For many people who aren't Christians the Christmas season tends to be either confusing or viewed as misguided –if they think of it at all. Yet they may be surprised to hear that there are actually holidays during this time which are meant to be shared with them as well, with the biggest example being “Blue Christmas”.
Traditionally Blue Christmas is a church service held on the Longest night of the year (most commonly December 21st) and is a time to share the pain, grief, loss, and heartbreak suffered during the year. Afterwards Christians are invited to focus on the Hope of Christ. However, in many churches they will also focus on helping non-believers work through their pain and develop hope that things will improve. No one deserves to experience pain –no matter what they believe.
Christmas is a cool (Brr snow!) time of the year, and even if you don't believe it is often encouraged that people take the time to get together with family so I hope you enjoy and have a wonderful Season – even if you celebrate boxing day, Hanukkah or any other holiday during this festive time of the year.
Fun Fact #455
What the Dickens?!
On December 19th, 1843, Charles Dickens shook the Victorian era world with his book “A Christmas Carol” which centers around an elderly Miser named Scrooge and his radical change overnight by spirits taking him on a journey through the past, present and possible Future. The book did quite well reshaping Christmas from a large feast given by feudal lords, into the family gatherings we know today and the book has never gone out of print. Also thanks to its plot device of time travel, it is considered one of the earlier works in what we now call Sci-fi –although there are many arguments for and against this and most just chalk it up as “It's a classic” (Sci-fi first got its beginning from “Frankenstein” in 1818).
Yet bigger still was its impact on giving. The idea that a “..Coveting Old Sinner.” could start giving and make genuine impact on the lives of those around caused a yearly surge in Philanthropy (Charitable Giving) which continues onto today. Furthermore Mr. Dickens took the opportunity to write an additional 4 Christmas Carols focusing on other themes of morality. Then one day he was asked to give a public reading of his Carols and upon seeing how much children liked it and the impact it made on them, he began to regularly give public readings (127 known) to children and even began to teach the illiterate how to read when he died in 1870. By the time of his death he had succeeded in sharing his view that the only way to prevent poverty and crime was to teach children skills they’d need later in life.
SIdenote: If you’re looking for a good movie to watch, I’d highly suggest watching “THe Man who Invented Christmas” its a comedy-dramatization of how Mr. Dickens came to write “A Christmas Carol” and manages to stay surprisingly accurate to what actually happened (about 85% of the movie is factually true with only Dickens Maids being made up for the movie as he instead got the idea of spirits from a visit to a children’s mine and listening to the stories they told each other involving spirits.
