The 'paganism' of Christmas

Gene Edward Veith of World Magazine helps clear up some mythology about the so-called origins of Christmas in a pagan Winter Solstice festival:

True, the Emperor Aurelian, in the five short years of his reign, tried to start (a winter solstice festival), "The Birth of the Unconquered Sun," on Dec. 25, 274. ... But Aurelian's new festival was instituted after Christians had already been associating that day with the birth of Christ. ... Christians were not imitating the pagans. The pagans were imitating the Christians.

Read the whole article.

And Douglas Wilson helpfully tells us something about where all the pine boughs came from:

(T)he Christmas wreath custom did not come from paganism, but from a remarkable defeat of paganism. Boniface (680-754), missionary to the Germans, had chopped down a great oak, sacred to Thor. Three days later, on the first Sunday of Advent, he prevented a human sacrifice and used the sacrificial knife of the Druid priest to cut fir boughs for the people to take home as a reminder of Calvary. And of course, the inventor of Christmas tree lights (non-electric) was Martin Luther.

Wilson's article is here.

New gig! Friday, Dec. 9

Yes, this is a new gig! Come out to The Anchor Room on Friday, Dec. 9, from 7:30-9:30 p.m. and hear a special, Christmas-y gig. You can sing along! You can drink mochas! You can stop shivering!

Other changes:

• The gig for January 13 has been canceled due to an accidental double booking by the venue.
• Another new gig has been booked for Friday, February 24, at The Anchor Room.

As usual, details are on the engagements page.

Gig today at 1 p.m.

Come out to The Anchor Room today if you're in a Christmas-y mood. I'll be playing songs of the season from 1 to 2 p.m. Go to my engagements page for details.

And I'm happy to report that the medicines have pummeled my sinusitis.

Hope to see you there!

The cough-y house

Well. After two weeks of having what felt like the cold that would never leave, I went to the doctor and got some antibiotics. Sinusitis, most likely. Strong medicine, too.

But now, thanks to my illness-induced asthma, I have begun to cough.

I still hope to be feeling better before my gig on Saturday. If this medicine works, I'll be able to sing for an hour, no problem.

If not, expect to hear an awful lot of instrumental music.

My Christmas songs

We pause at last for Christmas past
Simplicity of Babe and creche
We sing the songs, confess our wrongs
As hearts of stone are turned to flesh

If you are looking for the lyrics to my Christmas songs, here are the links:

• Christmas in Our Town (quoted here)
• And Mary Said
• Nativity
• Blanket of Snow

And God descends and calls us friends
And grants the presence Jesus gave
We eat His meal and humbly kneel
Before the Son who came to save

Come and sing along at my gig Saturday afternoon at The Anchor Room.

How I spent my Saturday

But I'm not done yet. We bought a few more boxes of lights for the downstairs windows, which are still bare.

I want our house to be seen from space.

New gigs for December and 2006

UPDATE: The Dec. 17 gig at The Anchor Room has been canceled. By me. I may try to get another gig on a different day instead.

The good folks at The Anchor Room are allowing me to perform a Christmas gig during December. Plus, I have three new gigs to mention for 2006.

The December gig is on a Saturday afternoon:

• Saturday, Dec. 3, 2005, from 1-2 p.m.
• Saturday, Dec. 17, 2005, from 1-2 p.m.

The gigs for 2006 are:

• Friday, Jan. 13, 2006, from 7:30-9:30 p.m.
• Friday, March 10, 2006, from 7:30-9:30 p.m.
• Friday, May 12, 2006, from 7:30-9:30 p.m.

And and always, go to the engagements page for more details, including maps.

Two updates

Some very small, but good, news:

• Today, the men came to cut up and clean up the fallen tree in our neighbor's yard, and they went ahead and got all the tree in our yard, too!
• I received my Behringer UB802 Eurorack 8 Input Mixer in the mail on Wednesday, just two days after ordering!

Joke o' the day

While looking through cookbooks, Mary said:

I found a recipe for leftovers, but it takes two days to make.

This is your brain on sleep

This is a repost of something I put on a former blog on Feb. 17 -- but my wife still finds this funny:

Someday, it is our hope that science will discover the secret part of the brain that gives my wife such wacky dreams.

In her dream earlier this week, a couple of close friends were arguing. Then Friend 1 accused Friend 2 of just being “hypochronical.”

Not “hypocritical.” “Hypochronical.”

Now for the funny part.

In the dream, my wife does a double take and thinks to herself, “How does a woman of that intelligence make a mistake like that? She made that word up!”

Part of me wants to make fun of my wife for having a brain that makes up weird words, broadcasts them in the middle of her dreams, and then alerts her while she is still dreaming that it made up a weird word.

But making fun of her would be hypochronical.

The Behringer UB802 Eurorack 8 Input Mixer

So, why am I buying the Behringer UB802 Eurorack 8 Input Mixer?

As many of you know, I've been experimenting with doing some home recordings of some of my songs, perhaps even to be able to produce a demo CD.

I own an eMac, which is cool enough, but I also have GarageBand, an easy-to-use and dirt cheap digital recording application. I've have plenty of success recording from my keyboard -- actually, I'm recording MIDI notes from the keyboard, not its actual sounds -- and you can even listen to and download two of my songs over at my downloads page.

But I have not been able to record any good vocals. The problem is one of impedance.

Most devices you plug into your computer or stereo have high-impedance signals that need no boosting -- the sound comes in at a level that can be heard by whatever you're plugging them into. But, as the folks at MacJams say:

professional-level microphones are typically low-impedance signal devices. ... As such, if you plug a good quality mic directly into your Mac, you won't hear anything.

And I wasn't hearing anything. I needed something to boost that microphone signal so my Mac could hear it. And the Behringer UB802 Eurorack 8 Input Mixer does just that.

But it doesn't do just that. The Behringer UB802 Eurorack 8 Input Mixer also has separate EQ channels for each track.

EQ is just music-geek for equalization, which is still music-geek for the adjustment of highs and lows of sound. Simple EQ adjustments are your treble and bass knobs on your car radio. By using the Behringer UB802 Eurorack 8 Input Mixer at my gigs, I can adjust the highs and lows of my vocals separately from the highs and lows of my piano, so if my vocals are too "bass-y" and the piano is too "treble-y," I can adjust each.

Which means a better-sounding gig for you.

Fueling up, cleaning up

After this spread, how can you not work in the yard all day?

Mary and the girls -- Sarita, at top left, and Hannah -- put together a great brunch for us this morning, so we men would have plenty of energy to clean up the yard all day.

(If you're wondering, "Clean up what?" check out this post about the tree that fell into our yard.)

Micah, Caleb and I were able to clean up a lot more of our yard today. We have 11 bundles of sticks at the curb and at least that many sore muscles a piece.

But what was really fun was climbing on and over all the fallen logs in the yard. Here, the girls try walking down one of the logs.

And here, the boys try to shake them off.

And here, Hannah (in green) plays cowgirl, while Sarita wields her quarterstaff.

Plenty more to clean up tomorrow.