Welcome Christmas

Ol' friend and new friends in Virginia.

Before we took this photograph I asked,

"Hey y'all, how about we do a group photo?"

Ellen: "Great!" Charles: "Ellen, keep cooking."

Oddly, she actually listened to him;

hence, she's still cooking in the photo.

After flying back into the metro DC area a week later than I expected, one of my good ol' Mississippi friends who moved to DC invited me to a Christmas party at his new townhouse in northern Virginia. A couple of my new DC friends were also there. At first I was expecting a simple movie night, but it soon developed into an elaborate 'Welcome Christmas' party. Instead of grabbing a bite to eat at a restaurant, we went to the only Super Wal-Mart in the area to buy stuff to cook. The two other guys were in charge of buying stuff for dinner, and another friend and I were in charge of buying supplies for Christmas activities. We ended up buying stuff to bake cookies, which turned out to be more expensive than if we had all gone out to eat. We did buy supplies to build gingerbread houses and paint stockings, but we ended up not having enough time to do these activities. I returned that stuff the next day. Other than watching Fred Claus, we lit advent candles and read verses to celebrate the religious side of Christmas. Only a couple of us had seen or lit advent candles in church.

Tacos para todos.

Who wants to play mama bird/baby bird?

As many people know, Christmas originated as an ancient pagan festival on which the Romans celebrated Sol Invictus, their sun god. This day was significant for pre-Christian Europe because it was the shortest day of the year. Every day in autumn would get darker and darker until December 25. According to the pagans, the 'Unconquerable Sun' was born on this day. Just when the winter couldn't be any darker, colder, and more miserable, this god enters into the world to bring light. Starting in early January the days became longer and brighter. Christians did not regularly celebrate Christ's birth or early childhood for hundreds of years. The first example of a celebration about Christ's birth and nativity came in the third century. Around this time the Christians celebrated Christ's manifestation, or Epiphany, on January 6; today the Armenian Church and some other eastern churches still celebrates Christmas in January instead of December (the Russians eat cakes in the shape of the sun on this day, which has ancient pagan roots). On this day the Roman Christians commemorated not only the birth and visit of the magi but also His baptism and childhood; the emphasized events or verses would shift depending upon geography and time. The celebration of Christ's birth on December 25 and the magis' visit on January 6 became widespread 300 years later. According to the liturgical calender, churches are not supposed to sing Christmas music before December 25 but during the two weeks of Epiphany. As Christianity became the dominant European religion after the fall of the Roman Empire, the celebration of Christmas replaced the Festival of Sol Invictus. The overlap of dates symbolizes what the Christians wanted to tell the pagan world: the world has become dark without God; at the moment when the would could not become any darker or more miserable, when God's people had been conquered and separated from their Creator, God entered the world to bring light. Christ was most likely not born on December 25; since the shepherds would not have been out with their flocks at night during the winter, Christ may have been born in the spring or summer. Notwithstanding, the choice of overlapping the Christian holiday with a pagan one sent a message to the Romans and others (source: HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms).

Not only did the Christians adopt the pagan holiday's date, they also borrowed several of the traditions, including the lighting of the advent candles. Lights had special meaning for the pagans as the days became darker before the winter solstice, and the pagans of northern Europe used an evergreen wreath with candles in order to show that life continued in winter. Though it may have been used in the Middle Ages, the advent wreath may not have become common until the 1500s or the 1800s. It probably developed in Germany. During each Sunday in Advent, the four weeks before Christmas according to the liturgical calender, churches light a candle that commemorates the events around Christ's birth. Today, the meaning of the candles change from church to church and denomination to denomination. For instance, candles can represent Hope, Preparation, Joy, Love, and Christ (in that order). I don't like these symbols. Growing up, I learned that the candles represented Prophecy, Bethlehem, Shepherds, Angels, and Christ. I like those symbols more. The Christ candle is lit on Christmas day or eve. The third candle is almost always pink; the last one is white; the others are purple.

Lighting the advent candles during the Welcome Christmas party was really cool for me, especially since a bunch of the people there had never seen advent candles (a lot of Southern Baptist churches and other denominations that don't follow a liturgical calender don't use advent candles).

The breakfast nook at my friend's new townhouse the next morning

with an awesome view of a creek at the bottom of the hill.

I didn't feel like driving back to my uncle's house in Maryland

when we were finished with the party at 2 am, so I spent the night here.