[E. Pluribus Unum]

I thought Abraham Lincoln created Juneteenth? 🤡

[Jemian]

No. Jesus Christ, being the incarnate God, created the modern, the past, and the future Christmas.

Immanuel, God with us.

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

Abe Lincoln created the modern Christmas just before the Imperial German Air Force bombed Pearl Harbor, bringing the US into WW1 in 1914.

</UUUGE sarc>

[Lazamataz]

Well, he’s got a beard like Santy Claus.

[Jemian]

What a wonderful Christmas spirit that was: visiting those wounded in a righteous cause and creating art celebrating generosity.

That is NOT AT ALL the Christmas spirit. Matthew 1:21, "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."

Jesus is the wonderful Christmas spirit.

[Drew68]

OPEN QUESTION:

When do you fellow FReepers set up your Christmas Trees?

My family tradition was to set it up on Black Friday and take it down on January 2nd.

But lately with children and time constraints, I've settled on the indoor Christmas Tree goes up during the Veteran's Day weekend and comes down after Russian Orthodox New Years (January 8th).

My kids now get nearly two full months of a Christmas Tree.

[Dr. Franklin]

I did my genealogy. I had ancestors who got married at Christmas here in the U.S. before the Civil War. So I imagine Christmas to New Years was their honeymoon. For people living an agrarian lifestyle, it was a time of relaxation as there wouldn’t be as much work as other times of the year.

[Pelham]

Christmas celebrations in British North America began in Virginia some time after Jamestown was settled in 1607. They decorated their homes and had parties all December.

The New England Puritans didn’t celebrate Christmas. They treated it just like any other day.

[x]

On Christmas Day that year Lincoln visited soldiers in hospitals. Then the president commissioned artist Thomas Nash to create the first modern image of Santa Claus, in the cause of freedom.

I think that was Thomas Nast, who also created the Republican elephant amd Democratic donkey. I don't know if Lincoln actually commissioned Nast's Santa Claus.

Anyway, it was probably Charles Dickens who created the modern Christmas.

[Chode]

something else for the RATS to b!tch about...

[MNDude]

actually, secular Jews created a lot of what we think of Christmas culture in USA. More than a dozen of the most popular non religious Christmas songs were written by non religious Jews. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, Winter Wonderland, Here Comes Santa Claus. Many more.

[Ezekiel]

Now I know that Christmas is affiliated with Christians, but I had just posted to you about the "Bethlehem" location over on Lincoln Street, unaware of this thread that had appeared about the time I was writing that.

It's so hard to keep up, but there's always hope. 🙃

You are probably aware anyway, that the First Noel [נואל] in the Bible occurred where the sun first rose on Israel, when some odd thing happened with the name:

Genesis 32

30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
31 And as he passed over Penuel [*פ*נואל] the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.

Scholars mostly say eh, same place, vowels schmowels.

But I do wonder what's the deal, because it was *Jacob* who called the name of the place Peniel, but then in the very next verse the name of the place that he passed over was "Penuel".

Perhaps the appropriate question is *who* named "Penuel".

[Vermont Lt]

I kept telling my kids that Christmas wasn’t about Santa Claus. Now, I guess I was wrong. LOL

[hinckley buzzard]

Dickens published A Christmas Carol in 1943, so there’s that.