Happy Chanukkah

Sat 23 Dec 2006, 22:55

Oh, right.
Cameron Country.

Tue 19 Dec 2006, 17:41

Yes, that line doesn't work too well in West Oxfordshire though...

Tue 19 Dec 2006, 16:31

As I say to all of my British friends who damn Bush's war policies:

I voted against him twice; how many times did you vote against Tony Blair?

Sun 17 Dec 2006, 13:49

Oh, and Igor, if you want to come down to earth with a unfestive bump from the seasonal good cheer, ale and company bit and the family is reverting to prototypical form, then have a look at this to inject a bit of the real world into the melatonin deprived seasonal psyche:

http://www.waronterrortheboardgame.com/thegame/

A bomb on the bush is worth then thousand in the strip, eh.

Sun 17 Dec 2006, 13:43

Wow. As late as Constantine? Funny lot, the Papists. Perhaps old Rantin' Ian has a point after all, eh.

But then again, seeing what happened to me at Sunday school, aged 5 (never to go again), welllll ... a clever Jesuit hmmm things could have turned out different for an ex Scots Canadian Presbyterian/Calvinist if he'd been a clever little Catholic boy.

Perhaps.

Thu 14 Dec 2006, 18:01

religioustolerance.org has a list of about a dozen different faiths that celebrate festivals this time of year including the pagan winter solstice that appropriated by Emperor Constantine on behalf of Christians. But there's also Dharma Day on December 9th, celebrated by Buddhists as the Buddha's awakening day.

I don't think it matters much where the celebrations originated from except to the historically curious; good food, good company and good cheer is all it takes to celebrate the festive season and the more the merrier!

Thu 14 Dec 2006, 17:52

Jewish friends of mine as a kid in Canada used to refer to this overall period as "Chrisnukkah" - they sure as heck weren't missing out on the pressies under the trees theme, no sirree!

Personally I think the dead giveaway of the Christian appropriation of the winter solstice festivals which must be pretty well universal in all northern or southern areas beyond the tropics (err, when DID Christmas become fixed as "the birth" event and at this time of year by "Christians" - probably something to do with those Romans and their power-crazed mentalities, seems a wiki visit might be in order here) - err as I was saying, the dead giveaway that this time of year could not have been the time a particular baby was born was an EMPTY manger.

No way midwinter, even in the middle east, would a manger have been empty in a barn! So it must have been sometime in the spring or summer.

Though I suppose its all a bit more romantic a notion than the reality of midwinter gorging on semi-rotted food left to the last possible moment of edibility, with as much spice to hide the distaste as one could afford. The final blowout and hope that the pickled and salted supplies would last one out through the "starving time" unto the next harvest.

Apparently most people up in these parts starved to death in June, before much useful had grown enough.

Suppose long bright days of warm weather must have been some minor consolation...

By the way Igor, nice to know that Christians, once defined as sufficiently seperate to a sect of Judaism, simply carried on with the fratricidal traditions of their ideological ancestry!

Thu 14 Dec 2006, 11:24

Another Winter celebration that occurs this time of year is Channukah, the first night this year, being tomorrow.

Traditionally,a candle is lit each night and children receive a small present every night for eight nights. Other trappings include the spinning of dreidels (little spinning tops) and the eating of potato…

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