When Hollywood Celebrated Christmas and Marriage

 

From The Center for Vision & Values, Grove City College

By Dr. Paul Kengor

A few days before Christmas, I checked the schedule for Turner Classic Movies, one of the few TV channels I watch. I was looking for Christmas movies, maybe the 1938 Reginald Owen version of “A Christmas Carol” or something like that—something for the family. I was pleased to find three favorites back-to-back that I’ve seen with my wife and daughters, all nice Christmas romances—and all with a similar happy ending.

The first was “I’ll Be Seeing You” (1944), starring Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotten, with a smaller role by a charming teenage Shirley Temple. Cotten is a World War II veteran struggling with what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder. Rogers is on Christmas furlough from prison (of all things), unjustly serving time for an accidental death that was purely self-defense. Wonderful as always, Gingers Rogers doesn’t dance or sing in this one (no Fred Astaire), but plays a compelling role. The Rogers and Cotten characters fall in love, with Christmas as the suitably warm and fuzzy back-drop.

South Carolina Charter School Reverses Ban on Christmas Carols; Alliance Defending Freedom Sends Letter to 13,000 School Districts Explaining "Free Exercise" of Faith is Still Permitted

Letter explains First Amendment protections for Christmas expression, participation

This Rock Hill, South Carolina charter school has reversed a previous ban on Christmas carols.

Alliance Defending Freedom issued a letter Wednesday to more than 13,000 school districts nationwide to explain constitutional protections for religious Christmas carols that some districts have censored due to misinterpretations of the First Amendment. The letter also backs up the legitimacy of schools participating in community service projects sponsored by religious organizations and offers free legal assistance to districts that need help.

“Schools shouldn’t have to think twice about whether they can celebrate Christmas,” said Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “School districts can and should allow religious Christmas carols to be part of their school productions, and they can lawfully help impoverished children through community service projects such as Operation Christmas Child.”

The letter cites recent examples of school districts in Wisconsin and New Jersey that wrongly censored Christmas carols in school productions and then changed their positions in response to public outcry and letters from Alliance Defending Freedom explaining that the inclusion of religious carols is permissible.

As the letter explains, “every federal court that has examined the issue has determined that including traditional Christmas carols and other religious music in school music programs fully complies with the First Amendment….”

Most recently, a South Carolina charter school reportedly cancelled its participation in Samaritan Purse’s Operation Christmas Child, a toy drive for needy children, after a humanist group threatened the school with legal action.

“Public schools’ confusion about this issue and the legalities of celebrating Christmas in other ways has been largely caused by inaccurate information about the Establishment Clause spread by certain groups opposed to any religious expression occurring in public,” the nationwide letter states. “Alliance Defending Freedom has produced a Christmas Memo and a Christmas and Public Schools Myths/Fact Sheet that dispel these misconceptions….

Providing students an opportunity to put together a box of gifts for impoverished children throughout the world does not become unlawful just because the toy drive is sponsored by a religious organization.”

“The Constitution both allows and protects the celebration of Christmas in public schools,” added Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “We hope the materials we are providing to school districts will help clear up the misinformation that groups attempting to cleanse all traces of religion from the public square have spread for far too long.”

A December 2011 Rasmussen poll found that 79 percent of American adults believe public schools should celebrate religious holidays.

The Twelve Days of Christmas . . . Haven't Started Yet!

From About.com

By Scott P. Richert 

Perhaps it's been going on my entire life, but I first noticed the phenomenon a few years ago. Starting on December 13 or 14, depending on how mathematically/calendrically challenged the particular blogger or business is, the countdown to Christmas begins: "On the First Day of Christmas [we put this on sale | I recapped the top stories of January | etc.]."

Except, of course, that December 13 is the Feast of Saint Lucy and December 14 is the Feast of Saint John of the Cross, and neither day is the "First Day of Christmas," because they both fall in Advent.

Lichfield Cathedral Choir - "Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending"

A beautiful hymn for these last days of Advent.  

Being the curmudgeons that we are, we refuse to yield to the dictates of Macy's Group, Inc., and begin our Christmas celebration shortly after Halloween.  And when its store divisions are taking down decorations on the Second Day of Christmas, we will be just beginning a twelve day celebration of Christmastide.  So come back often between Christmas Day and the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6 for some of the finest Christmas music available on the Internet.

How December 25 Became Christmas

From Biblical Archaeology Review

By Andrew McGowan

On December 25, Christians around the world will gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Joyful carols, special liturgies, brightly wrapped gifts, festive foods—these all characterize the feast today, at least in the northern hemisphere. But just how did the Christmas festival originate? How did December 25 come to be associated with Jesus’ birthday?

The Bible offers few clues: Celebrations of Jesus’ Nativity are not mentioned in the Gospels or Acts; the date is not given, not even the time of year. The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) might suggest the spring lambing season; in the cold month of December, on the other hand, sheep might well have been corralled. Yet most scholars would urge caution about extracting such a precise but incidental detail from a narrative whose focus is theological rather than calendrical.