Happy Christmas, goddammit!

[Peachtree Pam]

Hope everyone has a happy holiday and that all our wishes for what we would like the world to be are at least partially realized in 2012..

Here are two of my favorite songs played by the unsurpassed Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen. The first is a solo, "Samba Petit", with Oscar Pedersen quartet, Munich 1994.







This is a Danish folk song, "I skovens dybe stille ro" with Kenny Drew:

[Nordic]

If anyone can find the Loreena McKinnitt version on video, on the internet, let me know!

Wow. Your googling skills are unsurpassed. Or I may just really suck at it.

[Project Willow]

Have worked for 20 years to transform Xmas time from nightmarish into something enjoyable. I have not succeeded.

Do. Not. Like.

Is it over yet?



Well, merry fucking Christmas to you anyway Mac.

[Simulist]

Is it over yet?

Ha! How I wish... Somewhere along the line, we got it into our heads to celebrate Christmas on the 6th of January...

Doh! The fun is only beginning...

[Bruce Dazzling]

[Elvis]

Merry Christmas, MacCruiskeen...dadblingit!

A friend presently revisiting India writes from Bangalore:

Merry Christmas to you! Christmas is celebrated here, even sometimes by non-Christians. But particularly in Kerala, where I was last week, there are many Christians. The legend is that St. Thomas, one of the 12 original disciples, brought Christianity here. There are Catholics, Syrian Christians, and a sprinkling of Protestants. The cathedrals and churches are huge. In Goa, which was Portuguese until the 1950s, artificial Christmas trees were being sold by the beginning of the month. It has two restaurants next to each other there, one Muslim (with no alcohol) where I often lunched, and the other Christian where I would supper with a brew. On the mirrors in the second, someone had painted (probably years ago) Christmas trees, holy, and Santa in his fur cap raising a foaming mug. My hotel in Trivandrum had a small Christmas tree on a table in the lobby, and with the fan on all day it constantly was in motion. Some stores here display wooden Christmas trees, probably made of plywood, with lights along the edges. The churches are all decked out in strings of lights and illuminated two-foot stars.

I don't know where I'll be on the big day however. I have some Christian friends here in Bangalore but they haven't mentioned Christmas to me. I also met a Hindu who accepts Jesus (he was wearing a T-shirt that said "Sign in to the highest power -- Jesus inside") who lives some distance from town in a hostel. We exchanged e-mail addresses, but not addresses. I asked him what he was doing on Christmas and he answered, "Every day is Christmas to me." I'll phone my Christian friends here tomorrow morning and ask their advice. I'll let you know my definite plans later.

Halloween and Thanksgiving passed virtually unnoticed here, except for foreign newspaper items, but Christmas, and now Valentine's Day, are very much part of the Indian fabric.

And here's one of my favorite interpretations of this holiday:

[ninakat]

Great thread, thanks Mac, for instigating the stirrings.... some fantastic videos and postings.

I used to be a professional musician, but never liked Christmas music, and still haven't figured out exactly why.

But I'm still spiritual, thank The Rainbow, and still cry, but not often enough.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Seems MI6's sponsored anti-American muckraker, Greg Palast, shares my disgust with the one-day-out-of-364 humanity formula.

...Sunday night and not a damn user on the board....tumble weeds....

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opin ... -christmas

My Declaration of War on Christmas
By Greg Palast, GregPalast.com
25 December 11

....

America's problem seems to be that it can only be cruel 364 days a year. Christmas is that time of year when the United States of Scrooge takes a vacation from heartless profiteering and the nasty joy Americans get, that "I'm-not-one-of-those-losers" frisson.

Listen to Rick and Newt and Mitt and Michele and Ron and what you get is the Great American F***'em! They lost their jobs? F***'em! Their kid has a tumor and they don't have health insurance? F***'em!

Unless, of course, it's Christmas and you have to look at the tumor on TV. Then, it's like, Someone buy them a big-screen television so we don't feel bad.
.....

[Seamus OBlimey]

This christmas I managed to keep my mouth shut, toothache, so didn't fall out with anyone, which leaves me at a loss for a couple of days, having noone to apologise to.

Oh well, there's always a New Year.. speaking of which I get paid twice in february. How lucky is that?

Seamus, age 49

xxx

[Bruce Dazzling]

[beeline]

Link


Clergymen clash at Bethlehem birthplace of Jesus
BERNAT ARMANGUE

The Associated Press

2011 BETHLEHEM, West Bank - The annual cleaning of one of Christianity's holiest churches deteriorated into a brawl between rival clergy Wednesday, as dozens of monks feuding over sacred space at the Church of the Nativity battled each other with brooms until police intervened.

The ancient church, built over the traditional site of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, is shared by three Christian denominations , Roman Catholics, Armenians and Greek Orthodox. Wednesday's fight erupted between Greek and Armenian clergy, with both sides accusing each other of encroaching on parts of the church to which they lay claim.

The monks were tidying up the church ahead of Orthodox Christmas celebrations in early January, following celebrations by Western Christians on Dec. 25. The fight erupted between monks along the border of their respective areas. Some shouted and hurled brooms.

Palestinian security forces rushed in to break up the melee, and no serious injuries were reported. A Palestinian police spokesman would not immediately comment.

A fragile status quo governs relations among the denominations at the ancient church, and to repair or clean a part of the structure is to own it, according to accepted practice. That means that letting other sects clean part of the church could allow one to gain ground at another's expense. Similar fights have taken place during the same late-December cleaning effort in the past.

Tensions between rival clergy at the church have been a fact of life there for centuries and have often been caught up in international politics.

In the 1800s, friction between the denominations at the church , each backed by foreign powers , became so fraught that Russian Czar Nicholas I deployed troops along the Danube to threaten a Turkish sultan who had been favoring the Catholics over the Orthodox.

Those disagreements threaten the integrity of the church itself, which was originally built 1,500 years ago and parts of which have fallen into disrepair. Although the roof has needed urgent work for decades, and leaking rainwater has ruined much of the priceless artwork inside, a renovation has been delayed all these years by disagreements among the denominations over who would pay.

Only recently, the Palestinian Authority brokered an agreement to move ahead with replacing the roof, and officials hope work will begin in 2012.

[sunny]

The image of monks beating each other with brooms will amuse me for the rest of the day.

[Laodicean]

[conniption]

The Twelve Days of Christmas - Frank Kelly - With Lyrics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbejNNCTr7k

[Laodicean]