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Like many children, some of my most vivid early memories center on the Christmas season. Preparations always began immediately after Thanksgiving. My mother and I would drag the dusty boxes of decorations down from the attic, while my father ascended onto our rooftop to string up the lights. A few weeks later we would go to the tree farm, ideally on a cold and overcast day, where my sister and I would run around searching for the ideal Christmas tree to be felled by my father’s handsaw. (more…)
2,759 words
An interesting incident occurred in Sicily recently: A Roman Catholic bishop was accused of telling a group of schoolchildren Santa Claus does not exist. The Church has since apologized for these remarks, explaining to outraged parents that the cleric’s intention was direct children away from the consumerism of contemporary Christmas celebrations and towards veneration of the historic Saint Nicholas. This incident provides an opportunity to reflect on the figure of Santa Claus, how he emerged in Northern European and Anglo-American history, and his role in contemporary Christmas festivities. (more…)
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The sky was gray and scuffed, like someone had wiped their feet on it.
It had stayed that way since the dogs came and took Rinty. Mom always said she could do her chores without watching me because Rinty never left my side. (more…)
2,199 words
“The White Witch? Who is she?”
“Why, it is she that has got all Narnia under her thumb. It’s she that makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!”
— C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Students of the subject are well aware that the tradition of ancient pre-Christian rites and ceremonies lingered on in the East long after they had been banished by the more practical genius of the West.
— Jessie Weston, From Ritual to Romance (more…)
5,813 words
About a week ago a young black employee brought back news from the ghetto (colored folks are now the only reliable and honest sources left when it comes to these sorts of adventures). Earlier that afternoon, “authorities” had placed her high school on lock-down. A student had marched through the front doors with a gun and then began shooting up the place. Only notoriously bad black marksmanship prevented the school from becoming an abattoir. He then turned and fled, hiding somewhere inside the building (supposedly). (more…)
227 words
The Meaning and History of Christmas
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1,506 words / 9:56
Translations: Czech, French, German, Swedish
Audio version: To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save target or link as.”
It was about twenty years ago when I first noticed that the greeting “Merry Christmas” was being replaced by the bland, neutral “Season’s Greetings” and “Happy Holidays.”
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1,217 words
On Christmas of 1996 I was at a crossroads. I had spent seven years in Boston — a life’s goal, and they were seven of the happiest years of my life — but in 1991 I moved to Columbia, Missouri, to live with Mother. I had worked and saved money, ostensibly planning to go to library school at the university, then return to Boston, ready to get hired. But things didn’t turn out that way. (more…)
1,048 words / 5:45
Audio version: To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save target or link as.”
Translations: Danish, French
Did the system cancel your Thanksgiving? Time to cancel their Black Friday.
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Phil Eiger Newmann, Final Notice, 2020.
1,090 words
Apparently, Uncle Sam has decided to dress as Ebenezer Scrooge this Christmas.
I don’t know much about economics — if I did, I’d be a millionaire rather than a writer — but I know enough to realize that the US economy is wrecked beyond belief. (more…)
Philippe de Champaigne, Saint Augustin, 1645-1650
2,637 words
The key problem of our age is disconnection from truth. This takes several distinct forms. The first, and most obvious, is the prevalence of lies. As everyone knows, modern, Western civilization is founded upon lies about human nature, culture, and history. The most significant of these — underlying, in one form of another, most of the rest — is the equality lie; the myth of human equality, which is the chief myth of our age. (“Myth,” as most of my readers know, can have a positive or a negative connotation, as there are salutary myths; here, obviously, I am using the term in its purely negative sense.) (more…)
1,167 words
The Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, gave me the gift of time to reflect on much that has been on my mind. I hope you’ll use the dark days to do the same, remember old traditions, and find the beauty that still exists. When the nights are long and cold, we as a people have always turned inward to search, and outward to create something beautiful.
Autumn collapses into winter through low-hanging gray clouds and lands in the deep-cold. (more…)
4,087 words
