If you went shopping today you may have noticed no lines.
No excitement.
No drama..
No fights.
And quite frankly no deals–but were there ever deals? It was all fake anyway, right?
In the end, everything is cyclical–including Black Friday’s demise.
A few reports for your viewing..
It’s over..
The real war on Christmas is the war on Krampus!?
Here is what we know.. A Facebook posting by a Leavenworth restaurant co-owner has escalated into two religion-advocacy groups warning of the “erasure of Christmas customs” and the bringing of “demonic influences” into the tourist town’s annual holiday festivities..
MORE from the iconic town..
Charge No. 1: The Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce took the word “Christmas” out of the name for its famous holiday festival. The “Christmas Lighting Festival” was rebranded “Village of Lights,” the term commonly used on travel sites and news stories about the event, although the chamber had its official name as “Village of Lights: Christmastown.”
Charge No. 2: On Dec. 4, on opening weekend of monthlong Christmas festivities, the town welcomed members of Krampus Seattle. They danced and paraded in their hairy, horned costumes inspired by the mythical Bavarian creature that’s half-demon, half-goat and that punishes those who misbehave at Christmas. The local chamber of commerce even promoted a “Krampus Drink Crawl.”
According to the Lynnwood-based Family Policy Institute of Washington, headed by Mark Miloscia, conservative former state senator from Federal Way: “At an event that is supposed [to] honor the birth of Jesus Christ, town officials have chosen to include demonic influences … These attacks on Christianity are becoming the norm throughout the country.”
MORE…
“What is the unbelievable to me is that Christmas Town USA has decided to replace a family friendly ‘Christmas Lighting’ to celebrate the ‘Village of Lights.’ And this week the Chamber had the audacity/naivety/stupidity to kick off this non-holiday by inviting Krampus Seattle, a group of demonic horned half-goat cosplayers to give speeches at our pavilion and pub crawl throughout the downtown terrifying our children.”
We took some time to look back in history as to how often newspapers of America and the world talked about Krampus during Christmas..
It was a mixture of mentions, especially tied to St. Nicholas day, and also American reporting on the Austrian tradition.
A few opinion based snippets talked about how harmful Krampus was to the mind of a child and how fear should be left out of the season..
In 1935, an AP news report circulated in various city news rags.. this cutout comes from the Pittsburgh POST-GAZETT on December 25, 1935: The devilish Santa was losing is popularity, fake news of the day reported..
The days of the unpleasant Santa were numbered, the Associated Press reported in 1935–children were so scared they would tremble for days. Authorities condemned him. And his pagan tradition had no place in the season of goodwill, the AP concluded.
Fast forward to today: Krampus has never been more popular..
Krampusnacht. The Feast of St. Nicholas is celebrated in parts of Europe on 6 December.
Some think Halloween is the most paranormal time of the year!!! Tradition tells us, it just begins on Samhain with the ultimate culmination at Christmas..
x x x
On the preceding evening of 5 December, Krampus Night or Krampusnacht, the wicked hairy devil appears on the streets. Sometimes accompanying St. Nicholas and sometimes on his own, Krampus visits homes and businesses.
The paranormal should be kept in the season!!
Beginning around Halloween, the most paranormal time of year evokes memories from ancient times, pagan festivals, and as we know today, Krampusnacht.
St. Nick is the patron saint of kids. Krampus is a force children don’t want to deal with.. with whips and punishments!
The history of Krampus dates back much further than just modern Christianity and movie theater scripts.
The notion of a Christmas demon has been around for some time.
And the parables of Christmas showcase how this time of year is a dark and bleak moment before the rebirth and rise of the sun, the solstice where the days begin to lengthen again.. When the ‘son’ is born.
Some believe Krampus is a pagan character who eventually transformed into the modern Christian version of the devil himself. Pagans today celebrate Krampus with runs, modern festivals, and homages to the night air as it descends over the land.
Krampus has been the subject of widespread European attention for centuries. Over the past few years he has regained some official authority as the pagan beast of the holiday season because of his reemergence in pop culture and movies that are named after him.
In some European lure, St. Nicholas and Krampus travel together, judging children as they meet them.
Even when I was a child in Holy Spirit School in Mt. Carmel, we celebrated St. Nicholas day with style: Kids would put their shoes in the hallway until they heard bells, knowing that St. Nick stopped by and gave candy. IF there was coal? ….a whole other story.
So today.. as Krampus looms after nightfall, lock up your house tight and hope you’ll hear the bells of St. Nick instead of the chains of the one..the only…Krampus.
It is too early to stick a fork in it, but things sure seemed quiet this year.
Despite previous years’ fights and retail mayhem, we went silent in 2021.. yes the pandemic. We know. But even with that said, a semblance of a return to “normal” tried to occur before the omicron outbreak started in South Africa.. and even with that, these numbers:
Retail watchers say that the “consumers,” as they refer to the huddled massive of bargain basement shoppers, are starting to browse earlier.. online retail is going to soon far outweigh the brick and mortar..
Stores being closed had an impact as well..
On Thanksgiving day, visits to brick-and-mortar stores cratered 90.4% from 2019 levels, Sensormatic found. Retailers including Target, Walmart and Best Buy opted to keep their doors closed to customers on the holiday. Target has said it will be a permanent shift.
Story from Alabama they show you were potentially missing packages ended up: down in the river.
More from local reports:
After all these months, all this build up… the bust. Call it the 2020 luck.
Here in this ‘neck of the woods’ of Pennsylvania, the cloud cover was too thick to see the historic Christmas star. The perfect line up of Jupiter and Saturn for the first time since the 1200s and the last time of most of our lifetimes unless science finds a way to freeze our bodies..
There is still some hope.. Experts say the so-called “Christmas star” will also be visible after sunset on Tuesday, Dec. 22.. So let’s hope the clouds clear before the Christmas storm!!
The perfect conjunction.. just as solstice occurs.. and the darkness begins before the ‘sun rises.’
This year has been one of the roughest in modern history.. 2021, for all its hope that midnight January 1 may bring, will most likely be equally challenging.
The Jupiter and Saturn alignment could not have come at a more appropriate time according to the gazers of the stars.. astrologers have looked to this conjunction as a massive moment in human history. Biblical scholars have equally paused at the magnificence of this time in their worldview. And while the wonders of the heavens made us wonder, a volcano came to life on earth.
2020 after all..
This is a big deal in the astrology world.
Jupiter and Saturn are outer planets, meaning they move much more slowly across the clock face of the sky; as such, they’re believed to have influence on a grander scale — on society as a whole rather than on individuals. On top of that, the conjunction is taking place on the winter solstice, one of the most spiritually significant days of the year. It’s the longest night, meaning it marks the point at which days will finally start growing longer — a time associated with rebirth in all forms.
Jupiter is said to be the planet of optimism, expansion, healing, growth, and miracles; Saturn, conversely, is associated with restriction, responsibility, and long-term lessons. When these energies combine, we can expect a major ideological reset
The great conjunction “sets the tone for the ethos for the next 20 years affecting the arts, music, theatre, literature, entertainment, designer fashion, food, music, mathematics, science, politics, and the government agenda,” famed astrologer Susan Miller writes on her blog…
Whenever Jupiter and Saturn change signs, the entire look and feel of life changes, too. Jupiter changes signs once a year, and Saturn, closer to three years. If you met Saturn’s demands since he entered Capricorn in December 2017, your old challenges will begin to melt away now. In fact, Saturn usually leaves a gift by the door as thanks to you for dealing with his rigors—that might come as soon as January. Both Saturn and Jupiter are moving into Aquarius—Saturn on December 16 and Jupiter on December 19 https://www.astrologyzone.com/a-note-from-susan-miller-december-2020/#ixzz6hJxwllsB
And just as the planets began their grand alignment, a grand volcano erupted on Earth.
The Hawaii county Civil Defense Agency has asked residents to stay indoors after the Kilauea volcano erupted following a series of earthquakes.. The U.S. Geological Survey says Hawaii‘s Kilauea volcano has erupted. A magnitude 4.4 earthquake hit about an hour after the volcano began erupting. Hundreds felt the earthquake but significant damage to buildings or structures was not expected
While the WORLD CATHOLIC REPORT says the star does not have much significance, another Christian site CROSSWALKS writes about why the star gives so much hope:
We’ve seen a star used in about every nativity skit we’ve watched at church. But what is the significance of this celestial body, apart from the fact it directed shepherds (and eventually the Magi) to Bethlehem? Stars do seem to play multiple roles throughout Scripture. Let’s analyze some verses in which they play an important part. Matthew 24:29: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
Astronomical signs point to the second coming of Christ. Although we cannot predict when he will return, when we see natural phenomena occurrences, we remember that such will be the conditions of the Last Days.
So if the end of days gives you hope… join in!
There is something to be said about the stars in heaven and heaven itself.. Micah Dank, who recently appeared on Coast to Coast AM with Richard Syrett, believes that much of the Bible is based on the stars and their movements..
Each December 25 the Sun is re-born as it begins to rise an additional degree each day, making the days longer until June 21 when the Sun remains in place for three days before continuing to rise again, Dank explained.The metaphor represents Jesus birth and his body remaining in the grave for three days before rising again, he noted. The signs of Capricorn and Sagittarius parallel Jesus’ birth in a stable between the constellations of the horse and goat, Dank continued.
When the Sun enters Virgo, represented by a maiden with wheat, it corresponds to Bethlehem (which means “House of Bread”) and Jesus’ title as the “Bread of Life,” he revealed. Dank covered how Leo represents Jesus as the “Lion of Judah” as well as why the New Testament account records 30 years from Jesus’ birth until he was baptized by John. This period is associated with Saturn and the planet’s 30 year orbit of the Sun, and takes place under the sign of Aquarius, he pointed out.
Christmas has some pagan origins, as most things do.
The Yule log, the evergreen, the lit candle in a window–are all documented.
Santa and Krampus used to travel as good cop and bad cop..
Even before Fox News declared that there is a ‘war on Christmas,’ many puritans in America did not even want Christmas to be celebrated. They did not like burning human sacrifices .. they did not log the phallic image of the Yule log.
They did not appreciate fearing the ghosts of the night as winter’s brutal chill set in…
For those who believe that Halloween was the scariest holiday of all, think again!
Roger Clarke authored a book titled A NATURAL HISTORY OF GHOSTS: 500 YEARS OF HUNTING FOR PROOF.
He detailed why the Victorian age became the prime time for paranormal tales to be woven by people around the holiday season!
The UK GUARDIAN’s Kim Cochrane explained this in a 2013 article profiling Clarke’s book:
The popularity of ghost stories was strongly related to economic changes. The industrial revolution had led people to migrate from rural villages into towns and cities, and created a new middle class. They moved into houses that often had servants, says Clarke, many taken on around October or November, when the nights were drawing in early – and new staff found themselves “in a completely foreign house, seeing things everywhere, jumping at every creak”. Robbins says servants were “expected to be seen and not heard – actually, probably not even seen, to be honest. If you go to a stately home like Harewood House, you see the concealed doorways and servant’s corridors. You would actually have people popping in and out without you really knowing they were there, which could be quite a freaky experience. You’ve got these ghostly figures who actually inhabit the house.”
The fondness of telling ghost stories around warm December fires also struck another author, one from a longer time ago.. Jerome K. Jerome said this in his book TALES AFTER SUPPER in 1891:
Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters.
Kira Cochrane of the UK GUARDIAN writes this to describe humanity’s long love of telling ghost stories around this time of year:
Christmas has long been associated with ghosts, says Roger Clarke, author of A Natural History of Ghosts: 500 Years of Hunting for Proof. Just before Christmas 1642, for instance, shepherds were said to have seen ghostly civil war soldiers battling in the skies. This connection continued in the Victorian era through Dickens’s story, and through the ghost stories he later published at Christmas in his periodical All the Year Round, with contributors including Wilkie Collins and Elizabeth Gaskell.
It would also continue in the tradition started by MR James, the provost of King’s College, Cambridge, who would invite a select few students and friends to his rooms each year on Christmas Eve, where he’d read one of the ghost stories he had written, which are still popular today. They include Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book (1895), in which an ancient holy book brings forth a demonic presence, first announced by a hand covered in “coarse black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from the ends of the fingers and curving sharply down and forward, grey, horny and wrinkled”.
The popularity of ghost stories was strongly related to economic changes. The industrial revolution had led people to migrate from rural villages into towns and cities, and created a new middle class. They moved into houses that often had servants, says Clarke, many taken on around October or November, when the nights were drawing in early – and new staff found themselves “in a completely foreign house, seeing things everywhere, jumping at every creak”. Robbins says servants were “expected to be seen and not heard – actually, probably not even seen, to be honest.
If you go to a stately home like Harewood House, you see the concealed doorways and servant’s corridors. You would actually have people popping in and out without you really knowing they were there, which could be quite a freaky experience. You’ve got these ghostly figures who actually inhabit the house.”
Santa Claus is even paranormal–-he can sweep across the globe and enter homes across the planet, sparing enough time to throw down some presents and even eat about 25 billion cookies and glasses of milk.
Even the reindeer have time for carrots.
We tell our children at an early age to believe in something paranormal, to put faith in something hopeful.
Adults who laugh at the notion of Santa then go to church on Christmas morning and sing about another paranormal moment when an angel impregnated a woman with God’s son..
The darkest time of the entire year begins now. And the sun rises on December 25.
While the son is celebrated the same day.
As this post is written, there are only 5 days left until Christmas. That is four shopping days. four/five food prep days.. Six stressful days of work, COVID-19 fears, and also wrapping. Santa can’t do it all, after all..
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. The night of Christmas that is…
That is one sentence from the famous Christmas song O little town of Bethlehem. The song was written in 1868 by Phillips Brooks, a rector of Philadelphia, after a trip to the Holy Land and seeing the nighttime Bethlehem from the hills of Palestine. When he returned he had his church organist, Lewis Redner, write the melody for the Sunday school choir.
It’s been a beloved Christmas classic every since.
O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
Hopes and fears are met this Christmas season.. Most states and nations are seeing COVID-19 restrictions, some are decrying government overreach and calling officials grinches who stole Christmas. Others are praising the lockdowns and hoping that Christmas 2021 could be close to “normal” again. The debate is fierce.. there is so much misery throughout the entire planet as the scourge of the pandemic shakes nations and causes hospital surges just before the season’s greeting..
But at the same time vaccines are now becoming available. Hope. But major news networks have reported of reactions, such as one nurse fainting after receiving it, and others experiencing elevated heart rates. Fear.
2020 was like many other year. Tumultuous and divisive. But this one seemed to not only hit us hard but rot us to our cores. It was rancid with toxic drama, each and every day in your morning fishwrapper or your TEE VEE.. All with the expressed purposely of seemingly dividing us even more than we were.. If that is possible.
We knew 2020 would be awful. The election and all that. But we didn’t know we would be faced with a global virus .. that one kind of took us off guard, didn’t it.
Hopes and fears… Through all the years,
Are met with thee tonight.
And after the past 12 months, with fever pitched arguments raging over fevers, not one of us knows the future, has the magic answer, or can predict what the hands of time will share with in 2021. We are spectators in this global game. Faced with fears and hopes, we can choose the mental path we want..
Lockdowns and stress have caused chaos in our personal lives. The religious will look to that star of Bethlehem and see hope. They will see intuition, and they will see promise. Others may see just a natural course of space and time meeting at the right moment. Pure coincidence. Pure luck, and nothing more.
What do you see…
It reminds me of the movie SIGNS, one of M Night Shymalan’s strongest films. There is one important scene where Mel Gibson’s character is explaining what humanity will think as lights in the skies appear globally and aliens make themselves known. Hope? Or fear.. the age old question that the LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM so eloquently captures.
We have been through change and chaos and rampages before.. 12 months have done us justice..and sometimes harm. Christmas has always felt like that summary of the year, the final period of time is which we could take a brief break and try wrapping out heads around the whirlwind of the past few months prior.
There were other times in history where we were challenged in the hope vs fear department.. The Christmas of 2004 particularly stands out. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami occurred at 07:58:53 in local time on 26 December, with an epicenter off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. It was an undersea megathrust earthquake that registered a magnitude of 9.1–9.3 Mw, reaching a Mercalli intensity up to IX in certain areas.. Back in 2004, we reported that Christmas Day ended in a disaster..
We reported these awful facts:
The wall of water was 30 feet high!
Cars, people, and homes in the sea…
We can turn to local papers to see how other Christmas front pages reported the news of the days, with fears and hopes displayed properly.. We will go local on this one.
50 years ago, the 1960s ended with assassinations and war, malaise and a Hong Kong Flu pandemic.
The POTTSVILLE REPUBLICAN front page talked about how the government was in damage control over a vast civilian spying program being revealed… sound familar?
The dawn if the Reagan era brought a new hope in 1980, forty years ago .. The same paper spoke about hope during the Christmas season. The importance of dinners.. the traditions. Maybe it was those Americana Reagan ads of the 1980 campaign .. With a Charlie Brown comic to help.
1990 brought some fear.. The Gulf War run-up was beginning and the world was on edge about what would occur.. the local paper brought that to the forefront with hopes that troops would come home safety from the Middle East. Little did anyone know it would be 40 years later with troops still there!
In 1999, just days before the Y2K fears would be blown pieces, the local paper went to Sheppton to watch Santa happily sliding. An ad appeared next to the photo talking about following the Y2K issue on the 2000 millennium site at the paper (something I recall working on when I worked there that year):
And finally, just ten years ago, the swine flu was done . . . and stores were still open (but closing).. as evidenced by this front page photo showcasing the Schuylkill Mall shoppers, with a closed store in the background:
And now 2020.. the headlines we now encounter are raging with insanity. Nothing seems normal… nothing.
Hope.
Fear. You decide…
After all, you have to ask yourself as to what kind of person are you. Are you the kind of person who signs, who sees miracles. Or do you believe that people just get lucky…
Is it possible that there are no coincidences.
The Christmas light will shine in 2020! First time since the 1200s. Look up! And ponder.. and conjure.. and wonder.
Parusing some parts of the NET, I found this great article from someone on the appeal of BATMAN RETURNS..
I loved this part of the story:
As child I loved the film for the simple reason that it was a Batman movie. I was tone deaf and just liked seeing Batman and Catwoman and the Penguin do cool and crazy stuff. I rediscovered it as an adolescent and it has stuck with ever since growing and growing in personal esteem the more I watch it. At first I loved it for being weird. Then I started to chew on it, mull it over and think about what it’s actually saying. It’s around this time I found the film had a devoted fanbase – a fanbase that has become more vocal over time.
Me too!
And as a matter of fact, I realized a few years back that this is actually a Christmas movie.. that the feeling of the season is oddly within. the musical score! the scenery! And even Max Schrek with his odd similarity to Donald Trump.. it all makes this movie amazing in all ways..
Batman Returns was released on June 19, 1992.
It grossed $266.8 million worldwide on a budget of $80 million and received mostly positive reviews.
This film has more to offer than what we all remembered.. We can now have a renewed appreciation for the movie after all this time.. all these Christmases..
CATWOMAN with her many lives.. the Penguin with his odd parents who didn’t want him (Pee Wee Herman was the dad!!) …. the scenery of snow and coldness that solidified Tim Burton’s sequel to the original 1989 film was amazing, as I look back..
It goes perfectly fine compared against the landscape of our modern times.. Burton and Elfman’s score can be thanked for that, along with Keaton’s Batman and Pfeifer’s Woman who plays the Cat.
As the film ends, as Catwoman stands tall, it gives us that melodramatic feeling of victory and an “Empire strikes back” feeling.. So much so that we wish Burton would have directed Batman 3 without the nippled suit.. without Mr Freeze.. without the rest of the awfulness that ensued throughout the rest of the 1990s…
Batman and BATMAN RETURNS…?
Greatness personified…
It is as charming now as it was then, as miserable and also equally amazing.
Some out there only think DIE HARD was a great movie for the season..Sure, that is set against the back drop of Christmas, too.. But something else magical resides in BATMAN RETURNS.
So re-discover 1992’s hit BATMAN RETURNS. Released in the month of June so many years ago….and since then a reason for the season..
The coroanvirus is hitting retailers hard… but store Santas still persist behind face shield and plastic barriers in 2020.
According to a new NHS ad in the UK, the Real Kris Kringle ain’t doing as well!
He is dying of COVID, the ad displays!
Some are outraged at the shock footage, with kids across the UK becoming freaked seeing St. Nick succumbing to the fate of the pandemic..
MORE..
Entitled “The Gift,” the British ad shows medical staff giving Santa oxygen while being transported to a medical ward as one nurse asks, “Is he responding?”
But thankfully the dying Santa lives to fly another day!
The commercial cuts to Santa waking up before he is slowly rehabilitated and subsequently receives a get well soon card from Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. After passing some children, Santa is then seen responding to letters from hopeful kids.
The final portion of the ad, a nurse who cared for him receives a gift with a note that reads: “Thank you for everything you’ve done for all of us”. It is signed “Santa” and the nurse realized who she was caring for while he was in hospital.
Concerned parents have blasted the ad as “insensitive” as several feared that young viewers would think Santa was dying.
“Disgusting idea that targets the fears of the very young. Massive own goal.”
Another Twitter user blasted the advert as a ‘miscalculation’ writing: “This is disgusting. Don’t children have enough to worry about at the moment?
“How many children are going to be brought to tears thinking Santa is going to die?”
Christmas 2020..
Santa lives.
Santa will always be no matter with the NHS says.