One of my best friends went to Harvard. Our freshman year, we came back for Christmas break and exchanged stories from our different colleges. He told me that their semester hadn’t ended. He had to study for finals and work on projects during the break. How horrible! I thought. That would be so stressful, wouldn’t it? How could a person enjoy the holidays with pressure like that? Now, as a...
Martin Luther loved Christmas. He preached extensively about it, wrote two Christmas hymns, and is even credited with inventing the Christmas tree. As the story goes, the 16th century reformer was walking home one winter evening and was so captivated by the brilliance of stars shining through evergreen tress that he wanted to recreate the scene for his family. He put up a tree in the main room...
Did you ever wonder what the oldest Christmas tradition is? Some of our most beloved traditions are relatively recent in origin. Take Christmas lights, for example. I remember screwing in bulbs into sockets on strings as a boy with my father but that tradition began by one of Thomas Edison’s engineers in 1882. Edward Johnson, looking for a way to sell Edison’s newly manufactured electric bulbs...
Thanksgiving is here—the holiday that is billed as the time for each of us to stop and give thanks. But is that really always possible? We are in the middle of a pandemic and are living in a polarized world with deep political and racial divisions. And those are just our public problems. We also each have our private list of things that are making life hard. Our family, like many others, notices...
For my family, the days leading up to Thanksgiving have always been full of hard work and anticipation of the holiday. We roast chestnuts for the turkey stuffing, bake rolls from scratch, and make my grandmother’s to-die-for cranberry relish. And of course, on Thanksgiving Day, we share in fellowship and fun with family and friends. Perhaps you have similar traditions and expectations of...
