Justifying War Interrupts Christmas

Well, I wanted to try out a movie on CBS this evening called The Christmas Blessing based on a book by Donna VanLiere. I was in the mood for a movie with commercials--let me explain that, a nice holiday movie I could enjoy and then read a book or a magazine during the breaks. There's a method to my madness...I'd seen the very excellent King Kong which required a 3 hour marathon sit and I'd just had enough of that.

When it was time for the movie to start, however, I was very annoyed to learn that President Bush had chosen this time to come on television and justify the war in Iraq. I was so angry, not just because I totally disagree with the war and not just because I feel we were deceived and rushed into it but because it's just inappropriate at this time of the year to tell me we should be involved in a war. It's Christmas and no one is going to convince me that I shouldn't despair about us being there and our young people being separated from the families at the least and killed at the worst. Grrrrr!

Anyway, I turned on a special about Christmas trees and learned a few things and managed to calm down.

Here is some of what I learned:

Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree. Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.
...

In 1846, the popular royals, Queen Victoria and her German Prince, Albert, were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their children around a Christmas tree. Unlike the previous royal family, Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court immediately became fashionable—not only in Britain, but with fashion-conscious East Coast American Society. The Christmas tree had arrived.

Christmas trees were introduced to New York City in the 1850s by an enterprising man who rented a lot for $1 and sold every single tree he'd brought in. Christmas trees became so wildly popular that the following year when he came back to rent the same lot, he had to pay $100!

President Harrison brought a Christmas tree to the White House in 1899. The trees were lit with candles in those days until Edison invented electricity. The first President to use electric lights on his tree was Calvin Coolidge. President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor switched back to using candles on the tree because they felt it was more romantic. Awww...

Some tidbits about our National Christmas tree:

The 1941 tree lighting, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, included a surprise appearance by Sir Winston Churchill at President Franklin Roosevelt's side on the south portico. Wartime blackouts kept the tree unlit from 1942 until 1944. Following World War II and the Korean War, the Christmas Pageant of Peace Inc. was organized and the scope of the National Community Christmas Tree Celebration was broadened to emphasize the desire for peace through the spirit and meaning of Christmas. On Dec. 17, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower lit the first National Christmas Tree for the Pageant of Peace. It was the first time the program had not been held on Christmas Eve.

In 1980, the tree was only fully lighted for 417 seconds--one second for each day the hostages had been in captivity. In 1984 The nativity scene was reinstated as being historically and legally appropriate for display during the Pageant of Peace in light of a U.S. Supreme Court decision. The tradition of displaying the nativity scene had been discontinued in 1973, following a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit which decided an argument based upon U.S. Constitutional rights of religious freedom.

On Christmas Eve of 1985, President Bush directed that the lights on the tree be turned down momentarily in support of American hostages in Lebanon and their families at home.

The tree in Rockefeller Center in New York appeared for the first time in 1931--or was it 1933? Workers lined up in front of it to pick up their paychecks.

Sources: About ... The National Christmas Tree

History Channel

There was a special on TV tonight called "O Christmas Tree" but I have no idea what channel. Oh well...






You are...Caspian. You are young and somewhat
insecure, but great potential is within you.
You are fiercely loyal to friends and are not
afraid to claim your rights, and theirs, when
threatened.


Which Chronicles of Narnia character are you?
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