A Christmas Story
A CHRISTMAS STORY: by George Beitzel
Christmas has been celebrated for over two millennium. During this time thousand of Christmas traditions and items, religious, spiritual and commercial , have been developed by peoples around the world. Some are basic and easily understood like a baby in a cradle or a bright star in the sky. Others are more difficult to comprehend. As an example, what in the world do leaping lords, french hens, swimming swans and a partridge in a pear tree have to do with Christmas ?
If I recall my history, In England, during the 15-17 th. centuries, Roman Catholics were not permitted to practice their faith openly. During this era someone wrote the Christmas Carol song for young Catholics. It had two levels of meaning. The surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church.
The partridge refers to one God. The two turtle doves refers to the old and new testaments. The three french hens refer to Faith, Hope and Charity while the four calling birds refer to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The ten lords a leaping refers to the ten commandants. You get the point.
On the commercial side of Christmas, some bright but obviously not too busy soul at Daily Finance calculated the cost of the holiday classic twelve days of Christmas items to be $ 23,439. Perhaps we might want to opt for the 1944 classic Christmas Song.
( Subtitled : Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire ). With chestnuts at $ 8.00 / pound.
In any event Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
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