I have inherited aboutb a dozen plastic candy canes, from some old Christmas decorations. A couple are solid, most are hollow transparent plastic and originally had miniature lights inside.
Before I throw them out, or maybe give them to Goodwill, does anyone have any ideas for reusing them?
Christmas decorations?
canes, from some old Christmas decorations. A couple are solid, most are hollow transparent plastic and originally had miniature lights inside.
Goodwill, does anyone have any ideas for reusing them?
Look for a field of three foot tall shephards abiding in their fields? It's almost the right season. Merry Christmas.
mas decorations. A couple are solid, most are hollow transparent plastic an d originally had miniature lights inside. Before I throw them out, or maybe give them to Goodwill, does anyone have any ideas for reusing them?
OK for Christmas decorations, but I need some ideas. I cold just scatter t hem about in the front yard, but I relly think some sort of theme or struct ured basis would be better.
Well, clocks have twelve numbers on them. Are you into clock making? Of course, only people over 30 or so could read them.
Shepherds were NOT abiding in the fields in the middle of winter. They wou ld have been "abiding in the fields" in the spring, which is when Jesus wa s probably born. However, the Church took over the Winter Solstice and con verted it to its own use, just as it converted thousands of pagan wells, sh rines, festivals to its own use.
As primitive humans saw the days getting shorter, they feared that the Sun would disappear and they would die. So every belief system (religion) has come up with some kind of event aimed at pleading with the Sun not to disap pear. Christmas, Hanukah, Diwali, and many, many other "festivals" take pl ace around the Winter Solstice.
I understand what you're saying, but people living 2000 years ago were of equal intelligence to people today. They knew from past experience that the days got shorter in the winter and longer in the summer, and had no more genuine concern that the days would continue to get shorter until the Sun stopped rising than we do today.
The festivals they held back then were no doubt to thank the Gods for restoring the Sun to shine for another year, but just like festivals nowadays, the reasons for having them really revolved around the fact that every one sincerely wanted to eat, drink and have a great time, not really so much to celebrate the fact that the world wasn't going to end after all.
Today, we celebrate Thanksgiving, to thank God for the bountiful harvest that we have reaped from our farms that will sustain us for the winter and into the new year. But, really, if that were the driving force behing Thanksgiving, it would be mostly only farmers would celebrate it. Instead, everyone celebrates Thanksgiving, including the fishermen on the east and west coats and the cattle ranchers in Alberta, Montana and Wyoming. And so, it's a safe bet that the real driving force behind Thanksgiving is the big Thanksgiving Day meal that everyone looks forward to. A time to really pig out on some good eats.
I expect you had a similar level of "hypocracy" with the Winter solstice festivals 2000 years ago. Officially, it was to celebrate the Sun coming back for another year, but unofficially it marked the end of one year and the beginning of another year, and that in itself was good enough reason to party.
An awful lot has changed in 2000 years, but people haven't changed one bit.
Millions of children will cry all day, because you cancelled Christmas on them.
Is Higgs that old? Really?
Agree, people haven't changed that much. Some of the same Bible characters can be seen now days.
The average overnight low temperature in Jerusalem in December is 54 degrees F.
I have some of those (plastic candy canes), which I want to put LED lights in. I've already done the reindeer (put LED lights on them).
OK, even if I put lights in them, which I can do, then what do I do with the lighted candy canes, string them across the front of the house, or what?
Maybe put lights in them, and THEN give them to your local church rummage sale.
But the "shepherds abiding in the fields" were at altitude in Jerusalem, wh ich is much colder than the lowlands and sometimes has snow.
(There was a huge snowstorm a few years ago where many snow-laden trees wer e snapped off at the base. Typical of lousy city planning the world over, t he wrong trees were planted -- shallow root systems.)
ISTR that Bethlehem was supposed to be Jesus' birthplace (actually, histori cal research has proved that it was Nazareth).
However, in the interests of research
and
If I were a shepherd abiding in the fields, I would choose the warmest set
-up with the most pasturage. Which would be in the Spring, at lambing sea son, where shepherds need to be alert for lambing problems.
Here's a note (from a Messianic site) that bears out this logical suggestio n.
"And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by, keeping wa tch over their flocks at night" (Luke 2:8, NIV).
Whilst many commentators who have remarked on the impossibility of Messiah being born on 25 December because of the shepherds have opted for an autumn al birth, they have invariably overlooked one vital piece of information wh ich in my opinion gives us an important key to a spring birth for the Messi ah, namely the fact that spring is the lambing season. In Israel and in sur rounding nations lambing occurs over a two week period from late March to e arly April. During this season the flocks require the constant attention of their shepherds, who keep careful watch over their sheep and their newborn for their own safety. At no other time of the year are shepherds so closel y tied to their flocks.
Whilst it is true that the flocks are also under the shepherds' watchcare d uring the summer and autumnal/fall months as well (they are outdoors from l ate March to early November), it is by no means as demanding as in the lamb ing season when predators are more likely to exploit the vunerability of bo th sheep and lambs. We should also recall the prophetic events surrounding Yah'shua's (Jesus') birth and how it was that Herod the Great, that human p redator, attempted to massacre all the newborn children of Bethlehem follow ing Messiah's reported birth (Matt.2:16-20).
Considering how the seasons of the year affect the behaviour of the sheep a nd the shepherds, it seems reasonable to conclude that the shepherds in the Judean hills would be "keeping watch over their flocks at night" in the sp ring and that, therefore, spring was a likely time for the birth of Messiah . The early morning of 6 April falls during the lambing season.
HB
There are those people who believe Obama is The Messiah. o_O
TDD
He acts like Santa Claus some times.
The only people making that claim are right wing nut jobs. I've never heard anyone on the left thinking that highly of Obama. Not even close
- the farther left you are, the more critical you are of his performance. As has been said many a time by many a leftie, Obama's the best Republican president we've had since Clinton.
Ah, but not every culture in every era treats the winter solstice as the end of the year/start of the new year. For many Asian cultures, it is based on the lunar calendar. Even for Western societies the date has not always been in mid-winter. European countries in the middle ages celebrated the New Year at the spring equinox. A remnant of that tradition continues in April Fools Day. After the change to celebrating the New Year on January 1st, people celebrating January 1st as the new year made fun of those foolish people who continued to celebrate the new year as starting in the spring.
Despite our instinctive belief that 'traditional' means unchanged, even traditions change over time. Reading up on the evolution of Christmas into a family-centered holiday, and the customary practices in the US of celebrating of Halloween reveal how comparatively recent many such 'traditional' holiday practices are. In a nutshell, the primary driver of developing new practices (or evolving customary ones) centered on making both holidays more children-friendly. That had the beneficial effect of making both holidays good for business as well, by spurring demand for goods associated with the holiday (candy, costumes, decorations, and gifts).
Did you just feel that tingle run up your leg?
I'm in the most vilified category "Independent" because we actually think, research, analyze -- all without benefit of ideology. Something the extrem ists on either side have trouble grasping.
The Mad Dogs on the far-far-far Republican Right swore to bring Obama down (Mitch McConnell on the record) by obstructing his every initiative for the benefit of the people rather than the corporations and Wall Street. Treas on!
Even so, Obama blew it by trying to make nice to the Mad Dogs. You don't re ach out a hand to someone who's sworn to bite it off. LBJ would never have allowed the chutzpah they display toward the President; he had decades of rough&tumble legislative experience before JFK picked him for VP.
Obama hires really stupid people to represent him on TV, and seems to surro und himself with unqualified advisors.
Get with it, Mr. President! You only have a few more years to make a differ ence. Stop making speeches and make a difference. GROW A PAIR!
HB
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