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Stockings: The tradition of hanging stocking up for Santa to fill with presnts actually springs from a legend begun some 17 centuries ago. Before there was a Christmas tree, the only place Santa put any gifts was in a Christmas stocking.
Canes: About two hundred-thirty years ago children when to church at the Cologne Cathedral, were really loud and noisy. To keep them quiet, the organist gave them sugar candy sticks. It was meant represent a shepherd's cane, reminding the children of shepherds at Jesus' birth.
Pointsettia: bright red flowers known as Flores de Noche Buena, Flowers of the Holy Night, as they bloomed each year during the Christmas season. |
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Thoughvlas was a child of privilege, he was raised a Christian and at a very young age was devoted to the faith. St. Nicholas, the original Santa Claus, was born nearly 2000 years ago, (shortly after the era of Jesus Christ), in the ancient southeastern Turkish town of Lycia early in the fourth century. Nicholas, a son of devout Christian parents, was Bishop to the city of Myra, where he was much loved for his benevolence, particularly by the children, his generosity was legend. We know this primarily through Roman accounts of his patronage of youth, which eventually led to his becoming the patron saint of children.
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| The British missionary monk St. Boniface was preaching a sermon on the Nativity to a tribe of Germanic Druids outside the town of Geismar. To convince the idolaters that the oak tree was not sacred and inviolable, the "Apostle of Germany" felled one on the spot. Toppling, it crushed every shrub in its path except for a small fir sapling. A chance event can lend itself to many interpretations, and legend has it that Boniface, attempting to win converts, interpreted the fir's survival as a miracle, concluding, "Let this be called the tree of the Christ Child". Early Christians believed certain trees flowered unseasonably on Christmas Eve as homage to Jesus' birth. |
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