Fun Grammar Activities Learning grammar has been compared to other fun things, like having teeth pulled or being assigned detention.But it neednt be a painful.Welcome To St. Margaret Senior Secondary School.The school provides extensive and innovative curriculum which caters to the educational and social needs of the students.Candy corn Birn Breac Ireland Colcannon Ireland Bonfire toffee in the UK Toffee Apple Australia when celebrated, England, Wales and Scotland, instead of.Christmas History and Origin.Christmas is for joy, for giving and sharing, for laughter, for coming.But mostly, Christmas is for love.It was this love for which.Jesus came to this world and sacrificed his life.Though originated by the.Roman Catholics who commemorate the December 2.Christ Child, it has gradually come to be celebrated by the non Catholics as.As far as the United States goes, the celebration of Xmas is.Much of the world was already well into.Saturnalia2011.6.jpg' alt='Saturnalia Activities' title='Saturnalia Activities' />Christmas celebrations by the time the United States began to wake up.In the. first half of the 1.Sunday schools in America held Christmas.And the celebration of Christmas in America owes its origin to.Alabama was the first state to grant legal recognition to X mas.The DC did it in 1.By 1. 89. 3 all the states and territories had.Thus Christmas is a celebration of love and mirth symbolized by the Nativity.Santa, the caribou, the poinsettia and the evergreens.So be it the. United States or in other parts of the world Christmas is celebrated with.Christ Child. And this.Christmas so popular throughout the world.Saint Nicholas. Christmas is an annual holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus.Christmas. festivities often combine the commemoration of Jesus birth with various.There are a number of traditions associated with the occassion.Modern traditions have come to include the display of Nativity scenes, Holly.Christmas trees, the exchange of gifts and cards, and the arrival of.Father Christmas or Santa Claus on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning.The. last one mentioned is a highly popular tradition that has its origin in times.Have you ever heard of Saint Nicholas St.Nicholas was born in 2.AD, in. Patara, a city of Lycia, in Asia Minor.St. Nicholas was a Christian priest.He was a very kind man and always helped the poor.He loved children greatly and gave gifts to them.He became. the gift giver of Myra.He was a rich person, and traveled the country.His gifts were. given late at night, so that the gift givers identity would remain a secret.St. Nicholas did not like to be seen when he gave away presents, so the.St. Nicholas was eventually named the patron saint of children, sailors, Russia.Greece. A famous story about St.Nicholas, is about a poor man who had no money to.St Nick dropped bags of.The. sisters found the gold and ever since, children have hung up stockings on.Christmas Eve hoping that they will be filled with presents by Christmas.You are not too familiar with Saint Nicholas.But you are so with Santa Claus.Saint Nicholas. The similarities.Like Saint Nicholas, Santa.Claus will not arrive in Christmas unless the children go to sleep early.The transformation of Saint Nicholas to Santa Claus happened largely in.America with inspiration from the Dutch.In the 1. 50. 0s people in England.St Nicholas and favored more another gift giving figure.Father Christmas.Over the centuries, St.Nicholas popularity grew, and many.Europe made up new stories that showed his concern for children.The name Santa Claus was derived from the Dutch Sinter Klass pronunciation of.St. Nicholas. In the early days of Dutch New York, Sinterklass became known.English speaking as Santa Claus or Saint Nick.Early Dutch. settlers in New York once called New Amsterdam brought their traditions of.St Nicholas. As children from other countries tried to pronounce Sinter Klass.Santa Klass, which was settled as Santa Claus.The old. bishops cloak with mitre, jewelled gloves and crozier were soon replaced.In 1. 80. 9. Washington Irving, a member of the New York Historical Society which.Dutch Saint Nicholas as its patron saint, created a tale of a.Saint Nicholas who rode a magic horse through the.New York. The elf like figure was small enough to.Santa Claus is the sum total of several trends, customs and beliefs.His story is told.America St. Nicholas.Kriss Kringle and Santa Clause.Much of the present form of the Santa story.Clement Clark Moore and the cartoons of.Thomas Nast. In 1.Dr. Moore from New York wrote a Christmas poem, A.St. Nicholas to read out to his children on Xmas Eve.Clement. was the son of the bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York.The. poem A Visit From Saint Nicholas was written as a Christmas gift for his.The following year one Ms Harriet Butler read the poem and.Later she sent it without Dr.Moores consent for.Troy, New York Sentinel.Consequently it was published and.In 1. 93. 8 Dr. Moore revealed that St.Nicholas was his.And since then it has appeared countless times.The poem is. currently better known by the title The Night Before Christmas from its.Legends of the Christmas Tree.The Christmas tree is often explained as a Christianization of pagan.Winter Solstice, which included the use.The English. language phrase Christmas tree is first recorded in 1.German language. Many legends exist about the origin of.Christmas tree. One is the story of Saint Boniface, an English monk who.Christian Church in France and Germany.One day, as he traveled.Thor. To stop the sacrifice and save the.Boniface felled the tree with one mighty blow of his fist.In. its place grew a small fir tree.The saint told the pagan worshipers that the.Tree of Life and stood the eternal life of Christ.Another legend holds that Martin Luther, a founder of the Protestant faith.Christmas Eve. As he walked he was awed by.So taken was he by this beautiful sight that he cut a small.To recreate that same starlight beauty.Yet another legend tells of a poor woodsman who long ago met a lost and.Christmas Eve. Though very poor himself, the woodsman gave.The woodsman woke the next morning.The hungry child was.Christ Child in disguise.He created the tree to reward the good.Others feel the origin of the Christmas tree may be the Paradise Play.In. Europe. The Paradise Play, which showed the.Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden was.December 2. 4th. The play was performed in winter.An apple tree was needed but apple trees do not.Evergreens were hung with.Another story comes from Germany about spiders and Christmas trees.Long ago. families allowed their animals to come inside and view the Christmas trees on.Christmas Eve. Because the Christ Child was born in a stable, they felt that.Christmas celebration.But spiders. werent allowed because housewives didnt want cobwebs all over everything.Christ Child. He felt sorry for them and decided that late at night He.The excited spiders loved the Christmas.On Christmas morning the housewives saw what the spiders.But instead of being angry, they were delighted.For in the night.Christ Child had turned all of the cobwebs into sparkling tinsel.And. even today, tinsel is often used to decorate Christmas trees to add that same.Christ Child gave the cobwebs long ago, in Germany.The modern Christmas tree tradition is believed to have begun in Germany in.Martin Luther began the tradition in.From Germany the custom was introduced to England, first.Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, and then more successfully by Prince.Albert during the reign of Queen Victoria.Around the same time, German.United States. Christmas trees may.Mistletoe. Origins of its name A popular Christmas tree is the mistletoe.The common. name of the plant is derived from the ancient belief that mistletoe was.It was observed in ancient times that.Mistel is the Anglo Saxon word for dung, and tan is the word.So, mistletoe means dung on a twig.From the earliest times.European folklore.There are two types of mistletoe.The mistletoe that is.Christmas decoration Phoradendron flavescens is native.North America and grows as a parasite on trees from New Jersey to Florida.The other type of mistletoe, Viscum album, is of European origin.The Greeks. and earlier peoples thought that it had mystical powers and down through the.For its supposedly.One is. associated with the Goddess Frigga.The story goes that Mistletoe was the.Frigga, goddess of love and the mother of Balder, the god of.Balder had a dream of death which greatly alarmed his mother.In an attempt to keep this.Frigga went at once to air, fire, water, earth, and every.Balder. now could not be hurt by anything on earth or under the earth.But Balder had. one enemy, Loki, god of evil and he knew of one plant that Frigga had.It grew neither on the earth.It was lowly mistletoe.So. Loki made an arrow tip of the mistletoe, gave to the blind god of winter.Hoder, who shot it, striking Balder dead.The sky paled and all things in.BBC Religion Ethics Did the Romans invent Christmas December 2.Last updated at 0.Io Saturnalia Two thousand years ago this was the seasonal greeting which would have chimed out across most of Europe, not Merry Christmas.The Roman mid winter festival of misrule has heavily influenced many Christmas traditions including the time of year we celebrate.At no point is a date for Jesuss birth given in the Bible, but references to the lambing season have led some theologians to conclude that he was born in spring.Why then do we celebrate his birth in the middle of winterChristmas in December is a Western, Roman idea whereas in the Eastern Church it falls later, around the feast of the Epiphany in early January, explains Dr Matthew Nicholls, senior lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading. Free App For Pc Windows 10 . For seven days from the 1.December it was party season in Roman times.Homes were decorated, parties held and slaves became masters at least for one banquet.It was the start of a lengthy mid winter period of merry making and the season of goodwill Saturnalia.Saturnalia originated as a farmers festival and commemorated the dedication of the temple of Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and the harvest.During this festival, there was a reversal of traditional roles, with slaves wearing fine garments and sitting at the head of the table.Families gave each other gifts, and homes were decorated with wreathes and greenery.Gambling was allowed and the festival is described as a joyful period.Over eating, drinking, singing and gift giving are all things that we associate with Christmas another, more modern, season of goodwill.The Christian Church appropriated quite a few Pagan festivals and Pagan activities, according to Sam Moorhead, national finds adviser for Iron Age and Roman coins at the British Museum.So many of our Christian traditions can be traced to Roman mid winter festivals that a time travelling centurion would feel quite at home sitting around the table for the Christmas banquet or joining in office party revelries.People would go round the streets and there was merry making and singing songs, which some people associate with modern carolling, adds Mr Moorhead.You were also not allowed to give lectures at the time, unless they were witty or funny which could be seen as the origin of cracker jokes.Originally a one day feast at the end of autumn, Saturnalia gradually moved to later and later dates, with longer celebrations, throughout the Roman period.By the time of Christian conversion it was running into and incorporating a number of festivals.These included the Opalia the festival day for Saturns consort Ops on the 1.December and the Sigillaria the day of present giving on the 2.December. The 2. 5 December was dies natalis solis invicti the birthday of the invincible Roman sun god Sol.Cancelling Saturnalia was unthinkable, so Christian Rome converted it to a Christian holy day instead.If Christianity moves Christmas into December, at the Saturnalia and the birthday of Sol, you can then fade out these other festivals and incorporate elements into the Christian festival.You can attempt to move on as if nothing has happened.Mr Moorhead. To ban or not to banPagan ritual and Christianity coexisted for many decades after the conversion of Constantine the Great.This period was not always harmonious, especially in the fourth century, with tense and bloody episodes between the new Christian elite and those who still worshipped the old gods.Simon Sebag Montefiore looks at some of the Christian pagan hybrid celebrations.Festivals like the Lupercalia held in February where men ran through the streets of Rome naked, whipping women with strips of goat hide, were still marked by Pagans and Christians alike.According to Dr Nicholls, it may have seemed expedient for the new Christian ruling classes to allow Pagan traditions to be merged with the new state religion.Pagan temples and shrines were a frequent focus of religious conflict, and bans or interdicts provoked riots and civil unrest.In that climate a complete ban on Pagan worship would be provocative, and allowing some festival practices to continue under a new religious regime would be a way of softening the transition.But there have been more modern attempts to ban aspects of Christmas because of their links with Paganism.Carolling, or rather the dancing and drinking that often accompany it, has yo yoed in and out of favour with Churches because of its association with the more debauched side of pagan festivals like Saturnalia.The Puritan led Parliament of Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas in church except for a plain service of prayer.Dancing, feasting, gift giving and carol concerts were doubly damned as Papal and Pagan.The edict was incredibly unpopular and often openly flouted until it was overturned during the Restoration.Too embeddedThe social need for a festival of some sort around that date mid winter would have made Saturnalia or Christmas a powerful social institution, as it still is.Too popular and embedded to be easily done away with.Dr Nicholls. As well as Roman traditions, rites and rituals from the Vikings and Anglo Saxons have survived into our modern celebration.The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe is sometimes attributed to the Viking goddess of love and marriage Frigg whose legend is associated with the plant.The origin of the traditional Christmas tree may also linked to Pagan tree worship.While such traditions have been amalgamated into Christmas festivities the influence of the Romans, especially in terms of the festival calendar, is clear.Archaeological finds highlight the Pagan heritage of many familiar traditions.In Rome, nuts were used as gambling tokens and in games similar to our marbles throughout the Saturnalia period.A sarcophagus of a Roman boy in the British Museum is carved with pictures of children playing with nuts during the festival period.Even some quirkier Christmas traditions have eerie parallels with the Romans.In Oaxaca city, Mexico, every 2.December since 1.Noche de rbanos the Night of the Radishes whereby radishes sculpted to depict Nativity scenes and dioramas are exhibited in the square.Although its a relatively recent innovation to the Christmas calendar, the people of Oaxaca would perhaps be amused to hear that at the famous Roman fort of Vindolanda, next to Hadrians Wall, around AD 1.Saturnalia. Although its likely to be merely a coincidence, Mr Moorhead says it is perhaps the most intriguing discovery in his research.Has the notion of radishes at Saturnalia somehow survived and spread far beyond Europe like so many other Roman traditions He adds There are at least half a dozen pagan Roman rituals which have made their way into modern Christmases.So next time you kiss under the mistletoe, sing a carol or pull a Christmas cracker think back a few thousand years to the masters and slaves of the Roman empire and the festival of misrule.
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