Family Christmas Online^TM - Musings

Do you ever just sit and think about things? Sometimes we do. At Christmas, sometimes we wonder about why certain Christmas memories are so important to us, or why we do some traditions that don't seem to make sense any more. As we publish our own musings, and some musings by other folks whose opinions we respect, we hope to give you some encouragement and some things to ponder this Christmas season.

Eventually we hope to have links to many articles about Christmas and Christmas traditions. Some you may find entertaining, some you may find educational, and some you may find encouraging. If anything "raises your eyebrows" or is otherwise worthy of comment, please contact us and let us know what you like or didn't like, or what you would like to see.

Here are some Christmas articles that we have so far.

• Remembering Our Shoestring Christmases - Shelia looks back to times when less really was more. New for 2015
• Why I Need Christmas - Paul addresses complaints that Christmas is culturally insensitive, is foolish, or brings back bad memories, then explains why people need Christmas in their lives anyway. New for 2015
• How Much Do We Really Need Anyway? - At some point you have to determine that more stuff isn't going to make your life better, and it just might be making it more complicated than you need. New for 2015
• Say "Enough" to "Life Inflation" - Why does our culture keep "setting the bar higher" in every area of our lives? And how can we put on the brakes, especially at Christmas?
• The Line for the Family Stable Starts Here - A funny and touching look at the way children perceive Nativity sets in their homes.
• In Search of Baby Jesus - Author Paul Race's musings about the dime-store nativity figures he grew up with and why they represent his family's priorities as much as they represent Christmas.
• Christmas Gifts Gone Awry - Shelia's take on how gift-giving that doesn't work out the way we planned sometimes works out for the best after all.
• A Brief History of Christmas - How did a midwinter feast become the most celebrated Christian holiday?
• Could Christmas Possibly Come at a Worse Time? - A different way of looking at holiday stresses
• Why Do We Celebrate?/Why Celebrate Christmas - Early Christians didn't celebrate the birth of Jesus in any way. Have we taken a wrong turn, or is celebration a fundamental part of our human condition?
• In Search of Baby Jesus - Author Paul Race's musings about the dime-store nativity figures he grew up with and why they represent his family's priorities as much as they represent Christmas.
• Who were the Magi? - What really informed and motivated these statesmen and scholars to begin their dangerous journey?
• The Magic Window - "Papa" Ted Althof's essay on how our earliest Christmas memories become our most precious. Updated, December 2014
• What do Trains Have to do with Christmas? (borrowed from the Big Christmas Trains^TM site)
• Don't Try This At Home (Anymore) - Dangerous Christmas Decorations People Used To Use
• A Brief History of Christmas Trees
• How Much is My Collectible Worth? - Are you hanging onto things you don't really want because you think they might be worth something? Or are you just curious about the cash value of some heirloom you wouldn't dream of selling anyway? Either way, this article gives you some things to think about.
• Who Speaks for Christmas? - The message of "Good tidings of Great Joy to All People" seems to have got derailed somewhere. Is looking for ways to get offended really the best way to honor all of the best meanings of Christmas?
• Why Our Culture Needs Santa Clause (and the Easter Bunny) - Santa gets blamed for a lot, including taking people's eyes off of "what's really important" about Christmas. But if we didn't have Santa, things could be a lot worse, even for those who claim to have a "corner" on the one, real, true "meaning of Christmas."
• Give a Toot: Busking for a Good Cause - Author Paul Race plays saxophone for a Salvation Army kettle and learns, not only how to increase donations, but how to turn givers into cheerful givers. Updated, December 2014
• Santa's Helpers: Mobilizing the Elves for a Restoration Project - A reader challenges us with an impossible task - tracking down the original colors and graphics for a rare vintage Christmas display she wants to fix up. But we knew just who to call for help, and our "team effort" gave her the information and the inspiration she needed. New for 2014
• Make Your Giving Count - A seasonal flood of requests from scammers reminded me that folks still tend to fall for this stuff, and every year millions of dollars in donation that should have gone to help real people with real needs go instead to any con artist who can tell a good story or scan a heart-wrenching photo into their materials. It would be enough to make me cynical about giving to anybody, if I didn't know so many real people out there on the front lines helping other real people. How do you know the difference? Follow the money. New for 2014
• Mary's Unexpected Journey - Our family's attempts to complete a specific nativity set before Christmas were almost tharted by the post office sending our Mary "by the scenic route." Plus a bit of research into nativities that represent kids dressed as nativity characters. New for 2015

Here are a few articles about other holidays we've been musing about:

• Introduction to Easter - Author Paul Race digs deep into his personal experiences to report on topics like "Why Easter is Sacred to Me." He also puts on his "history detective" hat to address a flood of unfounded claims that everything Christians celebrate about Easter and every way they celebrate were actually stolen from an ancient, pre-Christian religions. Here are two ironic results of this investigation: The so-called ancient religion was invented in 1835 and some of its most popular mythology was invented in 1990. Plus even the so-called "secular" icons of Easter - such as Easter bunnies and Easter eggs - were invented by Christians, making Easter the most Christian of all holidays. New, October, 2014
• Thoughts About Halloween - Does the fact that some people (and, apparently most of Hollywood) take the "dark side" of Halloween to extremes mean that Beggar's Night is intrinsically evil? What about rumors that it started out as a religious holiday? Author Paul Race doesn't have all the answers, but he has chewed on the questions a while.
• Thanksgiving, Then, and Then, and Now - Thanking God for a good harvest is as old as civilization - so why do Americans associate that with "Indian corn" and people in funny hats?
• About Valentine's Day - Who was St. Valentine, and what, if anything, did he have to do with paper hearts and DeBeers commercials? As always, there's more to the story than you might think.
• Groundhogs and Candles and Midwinter Feasts - Learn about the old and new history of the holiday(s) we celebrate on February 2.
• Saint Patrick: His People, His Work, and His Day - What are we really celebrating on St. Patrick's day? What should we be celebrating? During the so-called "Dark Ages," this humble man reached out to an "unreachable" people and established an outpost of civilization that contributed to literacy and scholarship throught the Middle Ages.

Okay, sometimes we think about other things besides holidays and holy days. So we've invented a new place for those articles as well:

• Can You Worship God on the Flutophone? - A look at the musical instruments of the Bible and how they relate to the instruments we play today.

Finally, if you're looking for some of Paul's articles on other subjects, please visit SchoolOfTheRock.com's "Things to Think About" page. Music, philosophy, theology, humor, whatnot. Warning: Paul doesn't always take the popular or "politically correct" views.

If you've been reading our pages, you know that we have big things planned, and a lot on our plate, so keep checking back. And contact us with any questions or suggestions you have in the meantime.

Paul and Shelia Race

www.familychristmasonline.com