Christmas Eve

In Americana only two days have “eve’s” to them, Christmas and New Years. In general, I would say a holiday is given an “eve” due to its importance. New Year’s out of necessity needs an Eve. You can’t observe the New Year unless you celebrate the day before. And most celebrations occur that day rather than the next. When you consider the holidays in Americana, in this modern America we live in, filled with consumerism and the comforts of home, Christmas is the most important of them all. Of course it needs an “eve.” Santa doesn’t come “the day before Christmas” – he comes on “Christmas Eve!” We don’t snuggle down into our beds for a long winter’s nap on “the day before Christmas.” We do it on “Christmas Eve!” We don’t go out caroling, throw Christmas parties, or stay up late on “the day before Christmas.” We do it all on “Christmas Eve!” Mostly, though, Christmas Eve has taken on its own special meaning. Yes, Santa and parties and caroling may define Christmas Eve, but you don’t need any of those to make the day special. It’s special in and of itself. There is an anticipation on that day. There’s a feeling on Christmas Eve of waiting. Of waiting for the culmination of this season, the most wonderful day of the year. Just one day away. Maybe that’s what the fullness of time feels like. We’ve waited all these weeks for Christmas, and now, it’s the day before. We can’t wait anymore, for tomorrow it’s Christmas!

The Happiest Christmas

Oh the happiest Christmas,
Is a home coming Christmas,
With the snow fluttering down,
Till the world seems new …


Christmas over the past few years has taken on a special meaning for me. When you live hundreds of miles from home, seeing your family becomes very infrequent. Those times when we get to go home are looked forward to for months. That time of year the trip is made, whatever it be, is bound to be highly anticipated and a treasured time of year.

In popular culture, Christmas is a time of family. So what better time to make an annual trip home to be with our family? And since we don’t see family but that time of year, oh what a wonderful time of year it is!

I remember growing up when we would go to the Crone’s and to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s for Christmas Eve and Christmas. I loved getting together to have our Christmas meal and cookies, and to play games and to just be together as a whole family.

Things and traditions have changed a lot over the past many years but the joy I take in being with you all during Christmas is still the same. I am grateful that I have only had to miss one Christmas from you so far. The Lord has blessed us with being able to go home each Christmastime even though we live so far away.

That Christmas that we were not at home, I called home on Christmas Day. I think you were all together at Grandma’s. At one point, when talking to Dad, he held the phone out and had everyone shout, “Merry Christmas, Tim!” I still remember that exactly. Standing outside in the dark evening in a muddy driveway in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina. I was so far from home, yet hearing everyone say Merry Christmas, in that brief moment, I was at home with my family.

That’s the happiest Christmas for me: being home. Christmas has become so much grander and celebrated for me because, after being away for so long, it’s the time I get to see everyone and be with them once again.


… And the happiest wishes,
Are just old fashioned wishes.
May your days be merry and your sorrows be small.
May the ones you love be near you,
That’s the happiest Christmas of all!

Happy Thanksgiving

I wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. It's a few days late but the longer I wait to say so the less it will be Thanksgiving. I would guess that Thanksgiving lasts for these four days between Thursday and Sunday. Especially if you don't work on Friday and are around relatives for most of these days.

We went to Joy and Duane's house for Thanksgiving this year. [Reference my blog for some specifics.] Cyndi's parents came up for the holiday too. They came straight there from Melbourne. They stayed until Saturday. On Friday evening, Grandmother and Granddad came over to our house to have Thanksgiving leftovers. So there was another family gathering the following day. That day, we also put up some outside Christmas lights. There's also a photo of such on my blog. Ron was over most of the day that day and helped with the lights.

So for the past few days the routine has been out of the ordinary. And when you have the focal point of family and a holiday, that just makes the holiday seem more extended.

I heard that a lot of us were elsewhere for Thanksgiving. I hope you all had an enjoyable time with your respective family and friends. I have not had a Thanksgiving at home for many years now. It is getting familiar down here. The strange foods are not so strange anymore (though still not one's I would eat)! The people are whom I'm coming to expect and looking forward to see.

Happy Thanksgivng.

Love, Tim

happy to be a blogger

I'm not really that happy about being a blogger, but that i finally got accepted into the account. Dad and I have played our first Christmas music today. That was a very good blog you wrote Tim, about singing songs to Abby. I liked that. I'm looking forward to Christmas and the other holidays and having the whole family together. Those times are always the best for me.
Well, I'm going to sign off, but I hope there will be some other good things to read on the Barden Holiday Blog. Love you all! Mom

Christmas Hymns

I’ve meant to blog more on here than I have so far this season. Though I have thought about our blog now and then over the past couple weeks, I keep busy and don’t have a lot of time to sit down and actually write something.

Considering the Christmas season has actually begun now, at least by my estimation, I thought I should make some time to write.

I decided some years ago to observe Christmas from the day following All Saints Day to New Years Day. There’s something that really makes me happy thinking about Christmas and listening to Christmas music. So, I thought, if I extend the season, I get to enjoy it longer. I think I came up with this idea not too long after I learned about All Saints Day. I really took to the idea of an alternative to Halloween. As the holiday brings in the month of November, it and Christmas are like the bookends to the last two months of the year. We can begin this time of year in hallowed thought and close it out with the same.

All Saints Day is more antiquely known as All Hallows Day. I am not exactly sure what the Catholic church had in mind when the name was established, (of course the holiday is a rebuttal to the day preceding, All Hallow’s Eve … Halloween … just for explanation), but in considering the use of the word hallow – “to make holy, to keep as sacred” that is an excellent way to usher in the Christmas season as we celebrate the incarnation of our Savior.

Each evening when I rock Abby to sleep for the night, I usually sing her a few hymns. Some weeks before this start of the hallowed season, I started mixing in some Christmas carols for variation. Now that’s all I’m using. I think about the words to those seasonal hymns sometimes as I sing them. There really is a wonderful meaning in some of them. That’s part of what gives me that joyous feeling this time of year, listening to those songs. I recently purchased some carols from Fernando Ortega’s new Christmas CD. I added them to my Christmas Music playlist in my iPod. It’s up to 23 songs now, most of them carols. There is a place for the lighthearted music of the season, but there is so much more meaning in the Christmas hymns. I wonder if some people, never exposed to the Christian Faith, can really enjoy Christmas carols, or maybe have never even heard some of them. It’s so wonderful not only to enjoy the majesty and beauty of the melodies of the carols but also to sing them as praise for the message they bring.

Autumn Leaves

I think one of the most beautiful and enjoyable times of the year is autumn. When the leaves are turning color and the air is cool and crisp, rather than hot and muggy in the summer. Autumn is the shortest season, at least up here where the weather changes so rapidly. It really goes from Summer to Winter in about a month. Even though Autumn occupies three months on the calendar, it really can only claim the month of October. The leaves are almost gone from the trees now and on Sunday snow was in the air. Over the last week or so, I realized how the fallen leaves can bury yards and driveways. Soon the blanket of leaves will be replaced by a blanket of snow.

I am old Kris Kringle...

I'm the king of jing-a-ling!

Well now I pretty much feel inclined to post something about the history of Santa Claus, since I've always been interested in where the idea came from. On Wikipedia there is a lot of info on him; inspiration for the idea of Santa dates back to the 4th century. What I found interesting and funny was that German origins were fashioned after the German god Odin, who had a beard, hat, and spear (nowadays a staff); and his servants carried cloth bags around to capture naughty children! Think that's where the idea of naughty or nice came from?

Anyway, needless to say I am already excited about Christmas even though it's two months away. Even though it's become so commercialized I still get excited about the holiday season because I know the real reason we celebrate is not Santa Claus! Even though he has a cool red hat.

Traditions

It gets more difficult to avoid Halloween as the kids get older. They are wanting more and more to go trick-or-treating. In the past few years, the tradition has been for them to stay at Aunt Sue's and help her pass out candy while we have helped with the "Harvest" parties put on by our church. Now that we're at a new church, there is no harvest party, but the boys have continued to go to Aunt Sue's for the evening. This year they are going to be spending the night.

I think it's a great idea to come up with an alternative tradition, especially when it's a tradition that is rooted in an historical event with great significance like the beginning of the Reformation. Since Halloween is rooted in pagan tradition, celebrating it is paying tribute to pagan ideas. But we really should have no desire to commend those ideas. Instead of trying to just ignore the various Halloween celebrations that happen during this month, it would be much better to replace them with our own celebrations within the Christian tradition.

It would be interesting to post some bits of the history surrounding the various holidays that occupy the coming months. Please post if you feel inclined to.

We've seen a few lights around here. Unfortunately they're Halloween lights. How awful to celebrate death and violence and the wicked things of this world. Ugh! Yet at the same time, some people may just be ignorant of what Halloween symbolizes and not everyone is called out of darkness into the Lord's marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).

And I guess Halloween is the first of the holidays of the season. I guess. I wouldn't really consider it a holiday. I've been partial to the Catholic holiday All Saint's Day over the past many years. I look at it as the day before the start of the Christmas seaon. Also, when it comes to minimizing Halloween, I've often heard Reformation Day observed - October 31st, the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Schlosskirche. Actually, we are going to celebrate Reformation Day / All Saint's Day this year with a spice cake. I want to put a pumpkin patch on it just like Mom used to put on my birthday cakes! Maybe a pumpkin patch spice cake will become tradition. Abby would probably like the pumpkin patch.

I'm looking forward to seeing Christmas lights come out. Usually it's after this first holiday of the season. We don't get much Christmas weather here. And it's a little sad seeing Christmas lights in green yards, when it's 80 degrees, and you know there will never be snow. But we make the most of it and the lights are still Christmas lights even without the weather being as it's supposed to be.

Christmas Lights Already!

There are Christmas lights decorating a front yard on someones house on 5th Street in Superior!! How awesome is that! Sometimes when Im out and about I get that "Christmas" sensation even though the season is stil months away. Or at least a month away. I see not many people are on here yet...I have everyones email address so If you (Marc) would like, I can send them to you.

Last year I remember noting that the first Christmas decorations we saw were in September! We were in some store in some mall and walking through one of the back departments where no ever goes, shoved all in a corner were the store's Christmas decorations for that season. They had pulled them out but hadn't yet put them up.

This year it was the same timing, but the store was already fully decked out. We went to Garden Ridge last month and they already had multiple aisles dedicated to decorations: lights, ornaments, yard fixtures, huge inflatable eyesores (which Abby thought were pretty neat), and a veritable Christmas tree forest. They had all shapes and sizes with different light patterns and colors. We took a stroll through it but Abby wasn't as impressed as I thought she would be, considering her fascination with them last year.

Now I know this isn't a Christmas blog this year but I thought I'd relate that little story as blogging here again is reminiscent of last year's Christmas blog. So everyone knows, our Christmas visit this year will be from Jan 1st through Jan 7th. We are looking forward to visiting and it will be fun blogging with you again in the season preceding.

It's the Holiday Season

Since last year's Christmas blog seemed to be no small success, I thought "wouldn't it be great to have another blog this year, but instead of having it just be a 'Christmas' blog, we could have a 'Holiday' blog to bring us all together during the entire holiday season..."

So with that, welcome to the Barden Holidays holiday web log! If you are reading this, you either heard about it from a Barden, or you are a Barden that was invited to contribute to the blog. If you are of the latter persuasion, I would like you to inform me of the email addresses of those I have not yet invited to contribute. The following Bardens have not yet been invited:

Cyndi,
Eva,
Mom,
Dad

Please send an email to mwbarden@gmail.com with the email addresses so I can add them as authors.

Last year, I set up the blog with a single author "Bardens" that we all used to contribute. With each of us as blog authors, we can easily see who posted and also we can each leave our own comments without any confusion as to who posted and who left the comments.

Now, let the blogging begin!!