COME, bring with a noise,
My merry, merry boys,
The Christmas log to the firing;
While my good dame, she
Bids ye all be free;
And drink to your heart’s desiring.
With the last year’s brand
Light the new block, and
For good success in his spending
On your psaltries play,
That sweet luck may
Come while the log is a-teending.
Ceremonies for Christmas by Robert Herrick (1591–1674)
All memorialised events, when passing into mythology, must be seen critically. In some cases, there should be more than a hint of suspicion. The Christmas Truce of 1914 remains one sentimentalised occasion, remembered less to scold the mad mechanised forces of death led by regressive castes than to reflect upon common humanity.
Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child’s cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts. We haven’t forgotten that night down the centuries. We celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts… We forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. It’s his birthday we’re celebrating. Don’t let us ever forget that. Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most.
by NoahYep. It’s that wonderful holiday time of year again! Oh joy! There’s a new drunk on the “Supreme” Court. The biggest tax scam ever is now in place thanks to greedy repugs and those who vote for them. Carcinogenic pollutants are now free to fill our air and water like never before. Kushner’s pal is carving up journalists whenever he takes time off from beheading women.
by NoahEvery Christmas, far right loons like the barely coherent smug fratboy Tucker Carlson and screaming banshee Jeanine Pirro go on endless bitch-a-thons about towns across America that have stopped displaying Nativity scene creches on public property. The righties wring their hands, play their worn to a frazzle victim cards and cry that their "religious beliefs" are under attack.
Christmas may seem like a distant memory but the environmental effect of the annual consumer frenzy, over-indulgence and extravagance is lasting damage. And year on year the cost to the planet grows.
-by NoahI said to that man next to you that life is like this box of chocolates and his eyes got big as saucers and he grabbed them and ate them in the blink of an eye. I should tell you that the Viet Cong was more polite. I don't think my Jenny would like him. And that's all I have to say about that.
It is another anxious Christmas for the inhabitants of Bethlehem. This is the time of year when they have a chance to break out of an isolation enforced in concrete since Israel enclosed the town with a “separation wall” more than a decade ago.
On Christmas Eve, in a centuries-old tradition, Palestinian and foreign pilgrims rub shoulders as they throng into the ancient Church of the Nativity to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Jesus at its reputed location two millennia ago.
