A lot of classic folk stories have grown around the Christmas tree. Christ's blessing and gift to mankind in the form of a decorated tree remains in the middle theme of most households, across the world. Many, many years ago when Ronan Coghlan was a wee leanbh people used tree-based stories to teach children about the celebration of Christ's birth. A variety of conifers - such as spruce, balsam, eastern hemlock and the Scotch pine - are used as Christmas trees but the Scotch pine has surpassed the Douglas fir as the nation’s most popular Christmas tree. But in the Holy Land conifers are mostly small and insignificant, and forest few, apart from Lebanon with its magnificent cedars. Even in ancient times forested areas were small. How did the evergreen tree come to become associated with Christmas? Is it an appropriate symbol in Christian homes? Is it fixed in paganism or Christian symbolism? Is there significance to its decorations?
One classic tale tells us about a woodcutter who helps a small, hungry child. The next morning the child appears to the woodcutter and his wife, as the Christ-child. The child breaks a branch from a fir tree and tells the couple that it will be a tree that, at Christmas time, will bear fruit. As foretold, the next Christmas the tree was laden with apples of gold and nuts of silver.
Another legend tells that when Christianity first came to Northern Europe three virtues, faith, hope and charity, were sent from Heaven to find a tree that was as high as hope, as great as love, as sweet as charity, and had the sign of the cross on every bough. Their search ended in the forests of the north where they found the fir, lit from the luminosity of the stars, and that was the first Christmas tree.
Sacred trees in Europe, evergreens were a symbol of rebirth from ancient times. Egyptians brought green palm branches into their homes on the winter solstice as a symbol of life's triumph over death. The Romans decorated with evergreens during Saturnalia, a winter festival in honour of their god of agriculture. In northern Europe the pagans observed the Solstice festival of Jul, a two-month feast beginning in November with prickly pine branches hung around doorways and windows to keep away demonic spirits. But the sacred trees of the druids and Norsemen were deciduous oaks, not evergreen conifers.
The Paradise Tree - from the eleventh century, religious plays called "Mystery Plays" including the popular Paradise Play depicting the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, their sin and banishment from Eden. An evergreen tree was the logical choice for a lush garden tree on this winter festival, and it was decorated with apples symbolizing the forbidden fruit. It ended with the promise of the coming saviour and his incarnation, so gradually flat wafers symbolizing the forgiveness of sins in communion were added to the paradise tree, making it now not just the tree of knowledge but also the tree of life. This resulted in a very old European custom of decorating a fir tree in the home with apples and small white wafers representing the Holy Eucharist at Christmas time. These wafers were later replaced by little pieces of pastry cut in the shapes of stars, angels, hearts, flowers, and bells. In some areas the custom was still to hang the tree upside down.
In addition to the paradise tree, many German Christians set up a Christmas Pyramid called a Lichstock, an open wooden frame with shelves for figurines of the Nativity covered with evergreen branches and decorated with candy, pastry, candles and a star. The star of course was the star of Bethlehem, the candles represented the light of Christ coming into the world, the evergreens were the symbol of eternal life, and the candy, fruits, and pastries, the goodness of our life in Christ, the fruits of the spirit, etc. By the seventeenth century the Lichstock and the "Paradise Tree" became merged into the modern Christmas tree.
Modern Christmas Trees - Christmas trees became fashionable in the mid-1800s. In 1846 the popular royals Queen Victoria and her German prince, Albert, were illustrated in the London News with their children around a Christmas Tree. In America the White House led the way to trees for the holidays beginning with President Franklin Pierce. Despite some congregations' concerns about bringing trees into their religious traditions, trees quickly were adopted as symbols of Christ's Advent.
Thanks for reading, Merry Christmas, everyone and have a Happy New Year
Monday, December 26, 2011
Sunday, December 25, 2011
NEW HOPE THAT THE JAVA TIGER HAS SURVIVED EXTINCTION
Markus Hemmler sent this:
Droppings and paw prints to claw marks from a "big cat" collected from staff at Meru Betiri National Park giving hope (at least to them) that the Java-Tiger still exists. Therefore they plan to set up five camera traps this month. The whole story:
OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today
http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/
On this day in 1982 Time Magazine awarded their ‘person of the year’ article to a non-human for the first time, the P.C. (which was a massive cop-out if you ask me).
And now the news:
1,000 Hidden Species Revealed in Aussie Outback Un...
Oceana Pushes to Protect 3,500 Km2 of the Baltic S...
Fast-Evolving Fish Struggle to Spawn in Wild
Shark threat fears raised in NSW
Don't feed garden birds with turkey and goose fat ...
The 3 most important forests for birds
Fun Fact: popular reggae performer Pato Banton once believed himself to be a Toshiba computer. He related the interesting tale in this little ditty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uq00qe_K2A
On this day in 1982 Time Magazine awarded their ‘person of the year’ article to a non-human for the first time, the P.C. (which was a massive cop-out if you ask me).
And now the news:
1,000 Hidden Species Revealed in Aussie Outback Un...
Oceana Pushes to Protect 3,500 Km2 of the Baltic S...
Fast-Evolving Fish Struggle to Spawn in Wild
Shark threat fears raised in NSW
Don't feed garden birds with turkey and goose fat ...
The 3 most important forests for birds
Fun Fact: popular reggae performer Pato Banton once believed himself to be a Toshiba computer. He related the interesting tale in this little ditty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uq00qe_K2A
Saturday, December 24, 2011
SIMON REAMES: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale – Review
I first saw a trailer for Rare Exports just before Christmas last year, and to be honest, didn’t think much of it. Although it sounded interesting, the very clichéd American voice over makes you think this is going to be Z movie material and hardly worth watching. However, being a glutton for punishment (and there being nothing else to do) I went and saw it. All my preconceived notions about the trailer disappeared; this is a gem of a Christmas movie!Just before Christmas, and shortly after a mysterious excavation on a Finnish mountain, mysterious occurrences start happening to a small reindeer farming community. Although the adults are convinced a predator is loose, Pietari Kontio (son of one of the reindeer farmers and hero of the film) starts to piece the events together and comes up with one disturbing conclusion: Santa Claus is real, and far from the friendly fat man everyone thinks he is.
As you can see from the trailer and poster, the film is very much in B movie territory but that does not make it any less enjoyable. Full of black humour (typical of the Finish so I am told), the film starts up and continues at a fair ole pace as you watch Pietari first come to his conclusions that Santa Claus is real and then try to convince every one of his findings.
One of the best aspects of the film is that it keeps your interest throughout as you are never quite sure of what is coming next. (This works well throughout the film to the point where I didn’t know what was going to happen at the end.) The film is not all comedy and horror (or horror and comedy if you see it that way) as throughout everything that is going on, a sensitive father-son relationship/boy coming of age theme is also apparent and quite endearing so that you cannot help but like the characters. Although the acting and story are a bit thin in places, you don’t really care as the director is able to blend comedy, tension and mild horror very well into one enjoyable film. Rare Exports is spoken entirely in Finnish with English subtitles and, like Trollhunter, reading the subtitles doesn’t detract from what is happening on the screen at all.
In a sea of happy Christmassy movies, Rare Exports stands apart by doing something different.
But, it is no less endearing and should become one of those Christmas Classics that is watched every year!
Watch the trailer here!
7/10
And Merry Christmas Everyone!
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