vol.1 issue.18

:: Guitar Terry's Christmas Golf Tips & Tricks
:: Music teacher gets in trouble for taking class to Hooters
:: The ancient & incredible story of the Christmas holiday.
:: An extraordinary Leonardo da Vinci painting found.

Come In and get your friends and family some Christmas gift certificates.

Randy Landess
R & R Golf Shop, Inc.
301 N. State Street • Jerseyville • IL• 62052
Phone: (618) 639-2447 • Fax: (618) 639-2448
RLandess@randrgolfshop.com

Charles Dickens Character Scrooge being visited by the ghost of Christmas present.

.... December 25th
For many centuries, Christian writers accepted that Christmas was the actual date on which Jesus was born. However, in the early eighteenth century, scholars began proposing alternative explanations.
Isaac Newton argued that the date of Christmas was selected to correspond with the winter solstice, which in ancient times was marked on December 25.

German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski argued Christmas was placed on December 25 to correspond with the Roman solar holiday Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and was therefore a "paganization" that debased the true church.

In 1889, Louis Duchesne suggested that the date of Christmas was calculated as nine months after the Annunciation (March 25), the traditional date of the Incarnation.

In the early days of the first century christmas was not really calibrated like it is today. It was more or less recognized by the early Christians, but there was no feast, singing, or gift giving.

The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned Emperor on Christmas Day in 800. King Edmund the Martyr was anointed on Christmas in 855 and King William I of England was crowned on Christmas Day 1066.

By the High Middle Ages, the holiday had become so prominent that chroniclers routinely noted where and how various important people celebrated Christmas. King Richard II of England hosted a Christmas feast in 1377 at which twenty-eight oxen and three hundred sheep were eaten. The Yule boar was a common feature of medieval Christmas feasts.

Following the Protestant Reformation, groups such as the Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery".

Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War, England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647. Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans. The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 ended the ban, but many clergymen still disapproved of Christmas celebration.

In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England shared radical Protestant disapproval of Christmas. Celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681. The ban by the Pilgrims was revoked in 1681 by English governor Sir Edmund Andros, however it wasn't until the mid 1800's that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.

Christmas fell out of favor in the United States again after the American Revolution, when it was considered an English custom .George Washington attacked Hessian mercenaries on Christmas during the Battle of Trenton in 1777.

By the 1820s, sectarian tension had eased in Britain and writers, including William Winstanly, began to worry that Christmas was dying out. These writers imagined Tudor Christmas as a time of heartfelt celebration, and efforts were made to revive the holiday. In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote the novel A Christmas Carol, that helped revive the 'spirit' of Christmas and seasonal merriment. Its instant popularity played a major role in portraying Christmas as a holiday emphasizing family, goodwill, and compassion.

In America, interest in Christmas had been revived in the 1820s by several short stories by Washington Irving
1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (popularly known by its first line: Twas the Night Before Christmas).
In 1870, Christmas was formally declared a United States Federal holiday, signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant.

The Christmas tree was first introduced to the holiday in the early 1800s. It was a popular decoration that started with the British Royal family. Queen Victoria was familiar with the custom as a child, and in 1832 the young princess wrote about her delight at having a Christmas tree, hung with lights, ornaments, and presents placed round it.

Christmas as we know it today did not come about until the middle 1800s. Customs such as gift giving, caroling, feasting, Christmas cards, Christmas Trees, lights, and the iconic Christmas figure Santa Claus.

While Saint Nicholas was originally portrayed wearing bishop's robes, today Santa Claus is generally depicted as a plump, jolly, white-bearded man wearing a red coat with white collar and cuffs, white-cuffed red trousers, and black leather belt and boots. This image became popular in the United States and Canada in the 19th century due to the significant influence of caricaturist and political cartoonist Thomas Nast. This image has been maintained and reinforced through song, radio, television, and films.

In the 21st century Christmas is an economic juggernaut that has may different meanings to many different people all around the world. It is still primarily a Christian holiday, but many other groups of people including Jews, and Muslims can experience the magic that is Christmas in there own way.

Matt Capps

e-mail: matt@avalonn.com

Music teacher gets in trouble for taking class to Hooters

An Arizona music teacher whose students performed at a presidential inauguration event is on administrative leave after taking 40 high school students to a Hooters restaurant.

Paradise Valley school district spokeswoman Judi Willis says choir director Mary Segall accompanied the students to a performance in downtown Phoenix last week, and during the outing, they ate lunch at Hooters.

Willis says Segall explained that the restaurant, known for its waitresses' somewhat revealing attire, was the only place that could accommodate a group of that size. But district officials believe there were other options for lunch in the area.

Segall could not be reached for comment.

The teacher plans on retiring in January, and Willis says she does not know if she'll return before then.

contact Matt Capps via E-mail.
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