Archive for December, 2007

St. Nicholas was good

Friday, December 28th, 2007

Ms. Theologian noted a story about an Oregon Washington man who put up a Santa crucifix in his yard, to protest the commercialization of Christmas. Great idea.

But rather than getting het up about Jesus getting left out, I feel for St. Nicholas, who has become a shill for shopping and saturated fat. The real […]

I, for one, welcome our new UUA overlords

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

Fans of The Simpsons will get that title.

PeaceBang opined that First Parish, YouTube from yesterday’s post might be First Religious Society, Carlisle, Massachusetts, but the video meetinghouse is missing Carlisle’s distintive clock. Not that I knew that from sight; instead, I went to UUA.org to get a link to FRC Carlisle’s Web site.

But what […]

What church is this in 1950?

Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

Yesterday, the finance blog Get Rich Slowly offered a video from 1950 of Christmas celebrations around the world as a kind of video greeting card. The United States segment was a (typical) post-war homage to the white clapboard meetinghouse in snowy New England.

I bet dime to a doughnut that the church is either Unitarian […]

Sweeney Todd!

Tuesday, December 25th, 2007

Hubby and I have had three Christmases now doing “the traditional Jewish Christmas” of a movie (all musicals so far) and a Chinese dinner. I highly recommend it, given the first stipulation below.

Before the cuttlefish in XO sauce, we had a matinee of Sweeney Todd. Quite good. No spoilers. Mostly.

Beware: “the [...]

A good Christmas Eve service for a small church

Monday, December 24th, 2007

I attended the Christmas Eve service at the Swedenborgian Church of the Holy City: I wrote about this service in 2005 and 2004.

The service is essentially the same as I wrote in 2005 except there were more people present and it began at 5pm. I didn’t time it but think the whole thing took […]

Wrapping, carrying gifts? Not paper, but furoshiki

Sunday, December 23rd, 2007

I mentioned furoshiki last year: traditional Japanese wrapping cloths that bundle, decorate and make parcels portable. Since a lot of us have square table cloths (or even large napkins) and packages to wrap, this might be an attractive alternative to using a lot of paper and whatnot. Furoshiki can be used to carry about anything […]

The alternative to getting all worked up

Sunday, December 23rd, 2007

If you’ve not read Dan Harper’s blog or Chutney’s blog lately, you really ought to see (respectively) “Problem solved, or denominational politics” and “Manufactured dissent and fake authenticity.”

Coincidentally, I’ve decided to let the GA 2008 “scandal” drop — the signal-to-noise ratio has been too poor to continue. Comment, if you like.

Gayest Christmas Ever

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Sorry Grace, back in the box!

Ho, ho, ho, Kyrgyzstan

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

OK, I’m a little tickled by the idea that Santa’s HQ — for most efficient package delivery — should be in Kyrgyzstan. And even happier that the Kyrgyz government has named a mountain for the Big Guy to promote tourism. (The area certainly looks the part.) That this non-news is getting so much press is […]

GA 2008: the one to miss?

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

Oh dear, I really did intend on going to the Unitarian Universalist Assembly General Assembly (GA) last year. I haven’t been to one since 2003 and, with the new church plant very slowly developing, I though it would be a good place to meet and consult. But perhaps not.

Last year, before [...]

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