Merry Christmas everyone!

Thanks Kat for the NORAD link, I meant to look it up.

hi Nilly

and you are right, extra light -- good good good

extra light -- good good good

There's a past religious discussion regarding Hanukkah, about the number of candles to light on each day of the holiday. One opinion says that the first day should have 8 candles, the second day 7 candles and so forth, until just the one. The other opinion switches the order, and starts with one candle, adding one each day to get to the needed 8. This opinion won, and one of the strongest reasons for it was the one of "adding light rather than subtracting it". I love that.

beth, is the Newton in your tag the one with the apple falling on its head and the standing on the shoulders of giants and the thee laws of motion?

For posterity:

Yay Newton!--The Librarian

I'm asking because this "Yay Newton!" line is pretty much the subject we're just finishing at the class I'm teaching, and my students are pretty certain that I'm probably a groupie of his or something. Like I'd stand outside of ivy-covered walls of academia to ask for his signature or swoon that he shook my hand and I'd never wash it again.

Like I'd stand outside of ivy-covered walls of academia to ask for his signature or swoon that he shook my hand and I'd never wash it again.

Hee!

I'm vegging out now and watching TV. Just watched Year Without Santa Claus, and at 8, going to watch It's A Wonderful Life.

beth, is the Newton in your tag the one with the apple falling on its head and the standing on the shoulders of giants and the thee laws of motion?

yup -- in the last librarian movie he does something based on Newton and it works -- hence the yay Newton

Hi NILLY!

Um, hi? Remember me?

Nilly! I swear I was just thinking of you, and how long it had been since I'd seen you around here, as I iced the carrot cake for dessert tomorrow. I hope you are well. I hope you enjoy the growing light over Hanukkah. It's also apt this time of year, because the days are just starting to get longer, at least in this hemisphere.

You can also follow Santa on Twitter:

[link]

Also, I am thanking the heavens for the Bones marathon on Fox. It's such a relief from Xmas specials.

I was raised Catholic, in a very Catholic city, and it wasn't until I joined the FAC (a non-denominational evangelical Protestant church) that I ever heard anyone suggest that Catholics aren't Christians. (Of course, they also pretty much believed that any other people who claimed to be Christians -- but weren't in the FAC -- probably weren't *actually* Christians.

This is very much my experience too. I will note, as an atheist too anti-Catholic prejudice still makes little sense to me. I mean, if Catholics aren't Christian, Protestants are pretty much screwed, since their claim to authenticity heads stright through the Roman Catholic church. Christ told Peter he was founding a church, not writing a book.

And yet it took me 4 years to leave them, despite the fact that when a group claims to be the ONLY "true believers," that's a strong-ass sign of being a cult.

Took me ten years to leave mine. You're not doing so badly.

Oy. Dude must not be comfortable with himself or his traditions, then. One can celebrate/co-opt Christmas in one's own secular/agnostic/pagan way, but there's really no denying that Christmas is at root a Christian holiday, Jesus-y parts and all.

My FAC was happy to deny it. It doesn't have Christian origins. It was a Roman festival celebrating the rebirth of the sun (hence the winter solstice timing) that was co-opted by the early Christian church because it was popular. My FAC kept the feasts in the Pentateuch.

Christianity is like the English language, it co-opts from pretty much everything it's come into contact with.

I'm watching It's A Wonderful Life. There's sure a lot of drinking for a movie that mostly takes place during Prohibition. In the scene where George and Mary get married, which is around 1930, I think, the cop gives them a bottle of champagne. And they're openly discussing how much gin to drink at the high school dance, which is May or June of 1928.