| |
| |
|
Holidays Information |
|
|
|
Christmas and New Year Celebrations: How Significant?
I remember vividly as if it were yesterday when I was only a little boy; I looked forward to Christmas and New Year holidays with an air of relief, satisfaction and relaxation. Relief, because I had the rare chance of putting a pause to the hectic and daily school schedule; satisfaction because it was a time to show off that cloth that 'daddy' bought for me and relaxation because I would go out with my family and friends to have a nice time. As I cracked open the hard shell of childhood and emerged into adulthood, I discovered there was more to Christmas and New Year celebrations than just frolicking, chewing the fat and having a good time. The significance of these festivities cannot be overlooked, cannot be disputed and cannot be buried into the ground. Christmas may be a celebrated festival by Christians but its origin shows that it is more than just an ordinary celebration for Christians. Though it is believed that Jesus Christ was not given birth to on the 25th of December, this date was picked by the early Church because it was a day when pagans celebrated their god. They did this with the hope and intention of converting pagans to Christianity. The date fixed for the commemoration of our Lord and Saviour does not really matter much, what matters is that a redeemer was borne, a rabbi who took a human form in the quest of changing humanity positively. He came so that humanity can be saved, so that sin can be wiped out, so that darkness can be totally separated from light. Christmas is a time for somber reflection, a time to make up with the creator, a time to relive the birth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth which took place over 2000 years ago, a time to put a pause to evil and darkness and embrace good and light. It is a time to count our numerous blessings and say a big thank you to God. January 1st, the beginning of every year is without doubt a memorable and significant day which goes to show why it is accepted and celebrated in such grand fashion. By midnight on the eve of January 1st, shrill shouts of 'Happy New Year' could be heard in almost every nook and cranny of the world. Fire crackers go bang as happy youth throw them in midair. There is always an extraordinary chill in the heart of everyone as the clock strikes 12.00am; everyone alive is a year older or has witnessed a New Year roll in. There is always high hopes and people pray intently to God for blessing, prosperity and better health. New Year resolutions are muttered or announced publicly by those who believe in it. Old characters are quickly striped off and thrown in the dustbin while new and better characters are quickly embraced. Calendar systems are based around major historical events and calendars have continually been altered and corrected and sometimes completely rewritten. Fortunately, stability in the alteration of calendar was reached in the year 525AD. It was conceived by a monk named Dionysiux Exiguus. The beginning of the year then was celebrated randomly, in England it was celebrated on 25th March but after the year 1752 it was moved to 1st January. January is named after a Roman god 'Janus' who is depicted as a two-faced god as he looked in opposite directions. One face looked forward while the other one looked backwards. He is said to be 'the god of all going out and coming in to whom all places and entrance and passage, all doors and gates, were holy'. He is also depicted as carrying two keys, one of them was a silver key and the other was gold to unlock the seasonal gates of the winter and summer solstices. Literally, this means that the month January allows us to look back on the past years we have spent on earth and forward to the future years we will spend. The question January tends to ask us is; 'how rewarding was the past years? Did we achieve anything worthwile or did we just sit down and watch it pass by us? How do we hope to approach the next year, with relaxed ease or with a burning desire to achieve more and better things?' Only a fool would be content with what they have. If we think we have done enough, what have we given to the poverty-stricken people in our world? What contributions have we made to alleviate the sufferings of so many orphaned children? How about the disabled among us, what is their fate? These are food for our thought, let us reflect on them and do the right thing.
MORE RESOURCES:
Holidays - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Top 20 New Years Quotations "Here's to the bright New Year, and a fond farewell to the old; here's to the things that are yet to come, and to the memories that we hold."-- Anonymous"People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas. Valentines Day Ever wondered how February 14 became, the day on which we celebrate and explore love in all its many ideals, Valentines Day.There are many differing opinions on how Valentines Day started. Planning a Spectacular Christmas Party The holiday season is typically filled with large fancy parties, small intimate gatherings, and extravagant dinner parties. Planning your own Christmas party can seem like you're competing with hundreds of other festive events during this time, but by adding special touches to every aspect of your party, its sure to be a success. Where Have All The Wise Men Gone? Jesus Is Not Acceptable For Christmas! It's CHRISTmas!Where are the wise men?WOW - The wise men are MISSING! What kind of Christmas is this anyway?Are you caught up in the "season" with this Christmas thing? Do YOU know where the wise men are?For over 200 years we have celebrated Christmas and all of the joys and festivities that go with the "holidays" in this great country of ours. Christmas was declared a federal holiday in 1870 by President Ulysses S. Home Made Gifts, The Best Way To Teach Your Kids The Value Of The Holiday To a large extent the holidays have come to be more about materialism than the original values of peace, harmony, and faith. Advertisers hit us from all sides with messages of greed and pettiness. The Five Best Cigar-Related Fathers Day Gifts According to a recent study by the internet cigar retailer WhatsKnotToLove.com, Father's Day -- that shameless day of the year when wives, daughters and sons have to publicly humiliate themselves in a quest for a gift they know will go unappreciated -- has become a national epidemic. The Only Way to Turn New Year Resolutions Into Reality! So you ate, drank and spent too much over the Holidays. Now you are overweight, bloated, tired and broke, and you are promising yourself that you are going to change all that this year!There are two reasons why New Year Resolutions don't work;1st we try and take on too much,2nd we don't believe in ourselves. Valentine Gifts From The Heart One of my fondest childhood memories is of my mother helping me make a Valentine's box to take to school. We pulled out white paste, an old shoebox, scraps of doilies, and construction paper. Single During the Holidays Mistletoe. Holiday parties. Birthday Journals Last year, as I turned 50, (FIVE-OOOH!!!), I decided to give myself a birthday party. Part of the party was to have a birthday journal, or diary. Getting Great Pictures of the Kids this Halloween There she was in all her glory. Long white lab coat, frizzy hair, safety goggles -- and a face smeared with the black ash of an experiment gone terrifically wrong. Strategies for Surviving Holiday Dinners, Family Events and Other War Zones No matter how well we may have weathered our basic training, nothing can fully prepare us for the front lines of family gatherings. We're in the thick of it, dodging live ammunition, and fighting the urge to return to our old, reliable patterns that helped us to survive while we were growing up. Preparing For the Holidays: Ho Ho Ho... or Bah Humbug! Some of my clients dread the holiday season because it often represents stress, pressure, expectations, guilt, disappointment, pain, loneliness, exhaustion.. Dear Santa: Christmas Sucks! Christmas time is finally here, and most people during this holiday are happier than a fat kid eating a Krispy Kreme donut. Christmas brings so many great things to the table; the caroling, the NO SCHOOL, the snowmen and hour long snowball fights that ends with bloody noses, the eggnog and drunken relatives, the presents, holiday parties, and the drinking hot coco next to a roaring fire while cuddling up with your loved one. Ready for Christmas? Enjoy an Organized Holiday This Year 1. Keep a stack of directions TO your place for people who need to know how to get to your home or office. A Resolution Worth Keeping New Years Resolutions: Making them is a tradition -keeping of them is usually optional. That's unfortunate, because some of the pledges we make in those moments before the calendar changes are wonderful things to aspire to - spending more time with our children, exercising regularly, stopping a bad habit like smoking - or considering chocolate one of the main food groups. Holiday Health: Give Get-Fit Gifts 'Tis the season to celebrate -- and a time to eat! Most of us gain a few pounds during the holiday season. With family dinners, holiday parties and gift baskets loaded with goodies, who thinks of staying fit?Instead of giving a pyramid of chocolate, a basket of tempting treats or a bottle of bubbly this year, why not be different? Give your loved ones a Holiday Health Kit to start out the New Year right. The Rose Lifestyle is style over amount. And style is an art - the art of living. I Just Love It! "I Just Love It!"You know the scenario. You're sitting at the family Christmas gathering and your ten-year-old opens one of Aunt Martha's itchy homemade sweaters. St. Patricks Day Quotations "It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
