Watt gave us a little take on Christmas, so I thought what the heck?

The accounts of the Nativity of Jesus in the New Testament appear in only two of the four Canonical Gospels, namely the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew. Events preceding the birth of Jesus, e.g. The Annunciation to Mary and the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth appear almost entirely in the Gospel of Luke. The account of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem appears in both the Gospels of Matthew and Luke - which also includes the Adoration of the Shepherds by itself. The follow on events such as the Adoration of the Magi and the Flight into Egypt appear mostly in the Gospel of Matthew.^[1][2][3][4] The Quran, like the Gospels, places the virgin birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nativity

Well it’s Christmas Eve and South Carolina just celebrated its 150^th anniversary of secession. And what better way to celebrate than with a secession ball? The actual event celebrated was called the Ordinance of Secession.

The South Carolina NAACP showed up marching and singing We Shall Overcome and a good time was had by all.

The ‘ballers’ of course claim that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War; but rather about Southern honor and duty and freedom and liberty…….who the fuck cares?

They are celebrating the first step in a process that killed between 600,000 and 700,000 soldiers and civilians; almost all of them Americans.

What a country!!!

Well the New York Times printed a nice little look back to the days of yore, the actual days surrounding the execution of this Ordinance of Secession and three sections of this wonderful essay really grabbed me.

In the North, it appears that Christmas was really catching on in terms of drunken celebrators and the impending marketing of this holy feast day.

American Christmases in the mid-19th century do not seem to have had much religious significance – neither for the callithumpians, nor the proto-shopaholics, nor anyone else. Many, if not most, Protestant churches did not even have Christmas services, though some staged holiday parties, pageants, and “entertainments.” The New-York Tribune remarked in 1860 that only gradually was the festival starting to become as widely observed as more important national celebrations like the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Day.

At the same time in the South, Christmas was indeed a time of giving and was somehow tied to the end of the calendar year which was also the fiscal year. That is, the final accounting measures were being taken. Warehouses had been cleaned out of merchandise and the plantations were taking a week off.

The South chided the North for their puritanical take on life:

In the South, the Augusta Chronicle accused the Yankee Puritans of being joyless Christmas-haters: “Our broad Union is divided between the descendant of the Norman Cavalier reverencing Christmas, and the descendant of the Saxon Puritan repudiating it … Let us hear no more of a “Cotton Confederation” but let us have instead (what may sound like a jest, but which has something of seriousness in it) a Confederation of the Christmas States

I just love this sentiment; The Confederation of the Christmas States.

What a country!!

So this new Ordinance would lead to a happy confederation of states no longer tied to those terrible unhappy folks in the north.

But there was a third group of Americans, a third perspective to all of this:

Frederick Douglass, remembering boyhood Christmases on the Eastern Shore of Maryland wrote:

¶From what I know of the effect of these holidays upon the slave, I believe them to be among the most effective means in the hands of the slaveholder in keeping down the spirit of insurrection. … These holidays serve as conductors, or safety-valves, to carry off the rebellious spirit of enslaved humanity. But for these, the slave would be forced up to the wildest desperation; and woe betide the slaveholder, the day he ventures to remove or hinder the operation of those conductors! I warn him that, in such an event, a spirit will go forth in their midst, more to be dreaded than the most appalling earthquake.

¶The holidays are part and parcel of the gross fraud, wrong, and inhumanity of slavery. They are professedly a custom established by the benevolence of the slaveholders; but I undertake to say, it is the result of selfishness, and one of the grossest frauds committed upon the down-trodden slave.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/ghosts-of-a-christmas-past/?ref=opinion

The article cites one great example of Southern Christmas Tide and that was a certain Senator James Henry Hammond.

It seems that the ex senator (for he resigned his office upon the signing of the Ordinance) was particularly cruel to his slaves. He loved the whip and he loved to rape his female slaves on a constant basis.

I looked him up in Wiki and this pervert not only fathered a score of Black Children but also dallied with four of his white nieces and this was all recorded in one of his very own diaries. He was proud of his heritage as a slave owner and a pervert.

Anyhow, it seems that Hammond saw to it that his slaves celebrated with a week off of hard labor and that they feasted upon the best there was to offer in terms of Southern cooking.

The idea was to keep them Colored Folks from thinking of rebellion as Mr. Douglass points out.

So with all this in my mind I come across a modern day example of Southern Hospitality except this all takes place in our glorious Southwest:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has his own way of getting in the Christmas spirit: he has inmates perform Christmas carols for him "American Idol"-style and serving them a "full turkey dinner with all the real trimmings" as opposed to the usual gruel, which the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office says "vaguely resembles an average Christmas meal" and costs 14 cents.

A press release from Arpaio's office says the man who describes himself as "America's Toughest Sheriff" would be holding a caroling contest for pre-trial inmates in "a move likely to make Ebenezer Scrooge smile."

The contest was held on Tuesday and included about 50 inmates "held on charges ranging from burglary and DUI to murder." They were judged by Arpaio, Santa Claus, and Elfis, the singing detention officer, who performed "I'll have a blue Christmas without you.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/merry_christmas_sheriff_joe_makes_inmates_sing_for_good_food.php?ref=fpb

WHAT A COUNTRY!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL!!!