By Beatrice Hayes-Klein I grew up in a home without Christmas or religion. My father was raised a Methodist and my mother was a practicing Catholic early in their marriage. Frequent house moves and a life filled with other priorities kind of kept religion on the back burner in our home. It may not have […]
By Christina Vance It was small for an ornament, maybe a little more than 2 inches in length. Its ivory color made it blend with whatever the overall color-scheme was for the tree. It was always the last decoration put on the tree and my mother always made a production about giving it a place […]
He was a man — that’s all. A man like any other man. His story is one shared by many of the millions who fought in World War II. Fate intervened not once — but twice — to remove him from a train just before it left the station. In both cases the sudden change […]
By Brenna Hall Would you ever think that if you were in a war, trying to kill everyone that wasn’t on your side, that you would be friends with them for Christmas? That is how it was for some of the soldiers during World War I. At one point during World War I, in 1914, […]
By Bill Nelson The world’s first practical light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison in 1879, and it was to be only three years later that an associate of his, one Edward Johnson, electrically lit a Christmas tree for the first time. The tree was in the parlor of his New York home, located in […]
By Jeff Westover Clement Clarke Moore was one of New York’s wealthiest men. And clearly, one of it’s most highly educated. He was born in 1779 to Benjamin Moore, a patriot and and Episcopalian minister. His mother was Charity Clarke, a fiesty and ardent supporter of the American cause. He inherited from her side of […]
By Tomm Larson “Grandpa, why is there an orange in my Christmas stocking?” “Cause when I was a little boy. . .” “You were a little boy? That must have been a loooong time ago.” “It was, I was little way back in the thirties.” “What’s the thirties?” “That was a time called the Great […]
By Jeff Westover On August 22, 1741 George Frideric Handel sat down and began to compose music to Biblical texts compiled by his friend Charles Jennens. Handel was, by all accounts of the time, a typical creative eccentric. Known for varied mood swings, Handel was prone to excessive eating, a boisterous sense of humor and […]
By Jeff Westover As Martin Luther ushered in the Reformation, celebrations steeped in pagan rituals and holidays featuring religious feasts and riotous behavior were banned. In some places, such as Scotland in 1583, Christmas observance was outlawed altogether. As the political landscape in England changed, and those of Puritan ideals came to power, the very […]
By Anna Tatalin It was late in the Christmas season and if it got much later General William Booth would not be in time to send a Christmas greeting to his various command posts throughout the world. As the chief commanding officer of a very frugal organization, Booth, searched endlessly for the shortest message that […]
By Nicole Harms What was a new father to do? Recently married to a wealthy widow, George Washington had an ambitious shopping list for his new step-children that Christmas of 1759. He wanted to get them “A bird on Bellows, A Cuckoo, A turnabout parrot, A Grocers Shop, An Aviary, A Prussian Dragoon, A Man […]
