And To All, A Good Night

Quote of the day:
“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
--Sir Isaac Newton

Today after opening presents and having breakfast I sat out in our back yard, basking in a bright, dry, 75-degree day. I don’t think I’ll ever adjust to Southern California weather on Christmas day.

I thought I had. After all, I’ve lived here for 28 years. But this year I am remembering the crisp coldness and sometimes snow that Christmas brought to Maryland when I was growing up. Notice I said “remembering.” This is different from “longing for.”

Remembering is an important part of the season. More interesting than this, though, is that most of the world (including the Middle East) does not associate snow or cold weather with this time of year. This reminds us that our Christmas traditions originate in Europe and northeastern America.

It’s like our favorite carols. Almost all of them originate in the nineteenth century (and in Europe or America). People celebrated Christmas for 1800 years before any of them were written. And this is a very important, fixed, tradition. Notice that new carols (and there are many, many excellent ones) are never permanently added to our celebration. New popular music for Christmas may be with us for a few years, but our core favorites never change.

The specific traditions we associate with Christmas must be very important to us--culturally just as much as spiritually.