A Candymaker's Witness
A Candymaker in Indiana wanted to make a candy which would be a witness, so he made the Christmas Candy Cane. He incorporated several symbols for the birth, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ.
He began with a stick of pure white, hard candy: white to symbolize the Virgin Birth and the sinless nature of Jesus, and hard to symbolize the Solid Rock, the foundation of the Church, and firmness of the promises of God.
The candymaker made the candy in the form of a “J” to represent the precious name of Jesus, Who came to earth as our Savior. It could also represent the staff of the “Good Shepherd” with which He reaches down into the ditches of the world to lift out the fallen lambs who, like all sheep, have gone astray.
Thinking that the candy was somewhat plain, the candymaker stained it with red stripes. He used three small stripes to show the stripes of the scourging Jesus received, by which we are healed. The large red stripe was for the blood shed by Christ on the cross so that we could have the promise of eternal life.
Unfortunately, the candy became known as a Candy Cane - a meaningless decoration seen at Christmas time. But the meaning is still there for those who “have eyes to see and ears to hear.” I pray that this symbol will again be used to witness to the wonder of Jesus and His great love which came down at Christmas and remains the ultimate and dominate force in the universe today.
A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS
FOR READERS IN THEIR 23RD YEAR OF SCHOOLING
'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence, kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the wood-burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas.
The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective accommodations of repose, were experiencing various subconscious visual hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through their cerebra. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal cranial coverings, were about to take slumbrous advantage of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof.
Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing the fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline aqueous precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian itself - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensor to peruse a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by an octet of diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a miniscule, aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his undulate motive power traveling at what may possibly have been more vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen “... Now Dasher, now Dancer...” et al. - guiding them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities.
As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved - with utmost celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebon residue from the oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle.
His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiability. The capillaries of his molar regions and nasal aptenance were engorged with blood which suffused the ubcutaneous layers, the former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and supra-labials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their ambient hirsuite facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water.
Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smokingpiece whose gray fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container.
Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the aforementioned hosiery with articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about-face, placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith affected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility: “Ecstatic yuletides to the planetary constituence, and to that self-same assemblage my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn.”
December 1
Blanch carcass from Thanksgiving turkey. Spray paint gold, turn upside down and use as a sleigh to hold Christmas Cards.
December 2
Have Mormon Tabernacle Choir record outgoing Christmas message for answering machine.
December 3
Using candlewick and hand gilded miniature pine cones, fashion cat-o-nine-tails. Flog Gardener.
December 4
Repaint Sistine Chapel ceiling in ecru, with mocha trim.
December 5
Get new eyeglasses. Grind lenses myself.
December 6
FAX family Christmas newsletter to Pulitzer committee for consideration.
December 7
Debug Windows '95
December 10
Align carpets to adjust for curvature of Earth.
December 11
Lay Faberge egg.
December 12
Take Dog apart. Disinfect. Reassemble.
December 13
Collect Dentures. They make excellent pastry cutters, particularly for decorative pie crusts.
December 14
Install plumbing in gingerbread house.
December 15
Replace air in mini-van tires with Glade “holiday scents” in case tires are shot out at mall.
December 17
Child proof the Christmas tree with garland of razor wire.
December 19
Adjust legs of chairs so each Christmas dinner guest will be same height when sitting at his or her assigned seat.
December 20
Dip sheep and cows in egg whites and roll in confectioner's sugar to add a festive sparkle to the pasture.
December 21
Drain city reservoir; refill with mulled cider, orange slices and cinnamon sticks.
December 22
Float votive candles in toilet tank.
December 23
Seed clouds for white Christmas.
December 24
Do my annual good deed. Go to several stores. Be seen engaged in last minute Christmas shopping, thus making many people feel less inadequate than they really are.
December 25
Bear son. Swaddle. Lay in color coordinated manger scented with homemade potpourri.
December 26
Organize spice racks by genus and phylum.
December 27
Build snowman in exact likeness of God.
December 31
New Year's Eve! Give staff their resolutions. Call a friend in each time zone of the world as the clock strikes midnight in that country.
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The Net Before Christmas - by Jim Trudeau & Jay Trudeau (1991)
With apologies to Clement C. Moore
'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the nets
Not a mousie was stirring, not even the pets.
The floppies were stacked by the modem with care
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
The files were nestled all snug in a folder
The screen saver turned on, the weather was colder.
And leaving the keyboard along with my mouse
I turned from the screen to the rest of the house.
When up from the drive there arose such a clatter
I turned to the screen to see what was the matter.
Away to the mouse I flew like a flash,
Zoomed open a window in fear of a crash...
The glow from the screen on the keyboard below
Gave an electronic luster to all my macros.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a little sleigh icon with eight tiny reindeer
And a tiny disk driver so SCSI and quick
I knew in a nano it must be Saint Nick.
More rapid than trackballs his cursors they came,
He whistled and shouted and faxed them by name.
“Now Flasher! Now Dasher! Now Raster and Bixel!
On Phosphor! On Photon! On Baudrate and Pixel!
To the top of the stack. To the top of the heap.”
Then each little reindeer made a soft beep.
As data that before the wild electrons fly,
When they meet with a node, mount to the drive,
So up to the screentop the cursors they flew
With a sleigh full of disks and databits, too.
And then in a twinkling I heard the high whine
Of a modem connecting at a baud rate so fine.
As I gazed at the screen with a puzzling frown
St. Nicholas logged on though I thought I was down.
He was dressed all in bytes from header to footer
And the words on the screen said “Don't you reboot 'er.”
A bundle of bits he had flung on his back
And he looked like a programmer starting his hack.
His eyes how they glazed, his hair was so scary,
His cola was jolt, not flavored with cherry.
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a GIF
And the pixels of his beard sure gave me a lift.
The stump of a routine he held tight in his code
And I knew he had made it past the last node.
He spoke not a word but looked right at me
And I saw in a flash his file was .SEA.
He self-decompressed and I watched him unfold,
Into a jolly old elf, a sight to behold.
And the whispering sound of my hard drive's head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He went straight to his work without saying a word
And filled all the folders of this happy nerd.
And 'tis the whole truth, as the story is told,
That giving a nod up the window he scrolled,
He sprang to the serial port as if truly on fire
And away they all flew down the thin copper wire.
But I heard him exclaim as he scrolled out of sight
“Happy Chanukah to All, and to all a good night.”
The tube socks hung empty, no candies or toys,
and I was camped out on my old Lay-Z-Boy.
The kids they weren't talking to me or my wife,
the worst Christmas they said they had had in their lives.
My wife couldn't argue and neither could I,
so I watched TV and my wife, she just cried.
When out in the yard the dog started barkin',
I stood up and looked and I saw Sheriff Larkin.
He yelled, "Roy I am sworn to uphold the laws
and I got a complaint here from a feller named Claus."
I said, "Claus, I don't know nobody named Claus,
and you ain't taking me in without probable cause."
Then the Sheriff he said, "The man was shot at last night."
I said, "That might have been me, just what's he look like?"
The Sheriff replied, "He's a jolly old feller, with a big beer gut belly,
that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly.
He sports a long beard, and a nose like a cherry."
I said, "Sheriff that sounds like my wife's sister Sherri."
"It's no time for jokes Roy" the Sheriff he said.
"The man I'm describing is dressed all in red.
I'm here for the truth now, it's time to come clean.
Tell me what you've done, tell me what you've seen."
Well I started to lie, then I thought what the hell,
it wouldn't have been the first time that I've spent New Years in jail.
I said, "Sheriff it happened last night about ten,
and I thought that my wife had been drinking again."
When she walked in from work she was as white as a ghost.
I thought maybe she had seen one of them UFO's.
But she said that a bunch of deer had just flown over her head,
and stopped on the roof of our good neighbour Red.
Well I ran outside to look and the sight made me shudder,
a freezer full of venison standing right on Red's gutter.
Well my hands were a shakin' as I grabbed my gun,
when outta Red's chimney this feller did run.
And slung on his back was this bag over flowin'.
I thought he'd stolen Red's stuff while old Red was out bowling'.
So I yelled, "Drop fat boy, hands in the air!"
But he went about his business like he hadn't a care.
So I popped a warning shot over his head.
Well he dropped that bag and he jumped in that sled.
And as he flew off I heard him extort,
"That's assault with intent Roy, I'll see ya in court."
2) There are 2 billion children in the world (persons under 18). But since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload by 85% of the total - leaving 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there is at least one good child per house.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000 th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc. That means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, at tops 25-30 miles per hour.
4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming each child gets nothing more then a medium sized LEGO set (2 lbs), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting the "flying reindeer" can pull TEN TIMES that normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine--we need 214,200 reindeer. This increased the payload--not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again for comparison, this is four times the weight of the HMS Queen Elizabeth.
5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy per second, each. In short, they will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa meanwhile, will be subject to centrifugal forces of 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 lb. Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by a 4,315,015 pound force. In conclusion, if Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas eve, he's now dead.
Am 28. November feiern wir den 1. Advent. Mit diesem ersten Adventssonntag beginnt nicht nur das neue Kirchenjahr 2000, sondern auch die Zeit der Vorbereitung auf das Weihnachtsfest. Die meisten Haushalte, Kirchen, Geschäfte und öffentlichen Gebäude werden festlich geschmückt. Meist mit einem Kranz aus Tannengrün und vier Kerzen, dem "Adventskranz". Was uns allgegenwärtig ist, wurde allerdings erst vor rund 160 Jahren erfunden. Den ersten Adventskranz hat 1838 der Hamburger Theologen Johann Hinrich Wichern im Kinderheim "Rauhes Haus" in Hamburg aufgehängt. Wicherns benutzte einen Holzreif von etwa zwei Metern Durchmesser, der vier große weiße Kerzen für jeden Adventssonntag trug. Weitere 19 kleine rote Kerzen standen für jeden Werktag bis zum Heiligen Abend. Erst um 1860 wurde der Holzreif nicht mehr nur mit Kerzen, sondern zusätzlich mit grünen Tannenzweigen geschmückt. Nach und nach entwickelte er sich zum aus Tannengrün geflochtenen Kranz, der nur noch mit vier Kerzen bestückt war. So kennen wir ihn heute. Bis ins ferne Ausland hat sich diese Idee verbreitet. Von USA bis Japan werden mittlerweile die Kerzen auf dem kleinen Kranz als Hoffnungslichter angezündet.
Wir wünschen Ihnen allen eine schöne Adventszeit in der Hoffnung, dass sie Ihnen inmitten aller Hektik auch Raum für Besinnung und Ruhe bringt.