Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:05 — 5.3MB) | Embed
Hello, everyone! My name is John McGrail, I was there to see my beloved Tarheels win their fifth National Championship in Detroit, Michigan in 2009 and I was devastated watching them not win their sixth on Monday night, and I believe that if you’re not learning, you’re not living. Today I’m going to be talking about holding onto that Christmas spirit—even just a piece of it throughout the year.
So, what’s today’s fun fact? Since I’m in a Christmas kind of vibe today, here’s some interesting tidbits about this worldwide holiday: Darrell’s own home state of Oklahoma was the last U.S. state to declare Christmas a legal holiday, in 1907. There are two competing claims as to which president was the first to place a Christmas tree in the White House. Some scholars say President Franklin Pierce did in 1856; others say President Benjamin Harrison brought in the first tree in 1889. President Coolidge started the White House lighting ceremony in 1923. And this one is by far my favorite: According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), there are 2,106 million children under age 18 in the world. If there are on average 2.5 children per household, Santa would have to make 842 million stops on Christmas Eve, traveling 221 million miles. To reach all 842 million stops, Santa would need to travel between houses in 2/10,000 second, which means he would need to accelerate 12.19 million miles (20.5 billion meters) per second on each stop. The force of this acceleration would reduce Santa to “chunky salsa.” Ho, ho, ho indeed.
Speaking of amazing velocity, the Friday Forum is coming up quick—your chance to share what you have been learning. You can add your voice to the Friday Forum in several ways—by calling 3048372278 and leaving a voicemail, going to www.goldenspiralmedia.com/feedback and leaving your feedback by uploading an audio file, using the provided speakpipe widget, or you can type out an email and send it in that way.
Now, here’s what I learned yesterday:
Stuff I Learned Yesterday is going through a change now that the hiatus is over. There are now six of us serving as hosts and our first round of episodes have all been finished before mid-February. The reason I bring these “inside baseball” details up is for you to understand why I’m so still in the world of Christmas. As I write this we’re in the process of deChristmasifinication—a term I made up several years ago to describe the arduous process of putting (placing, cramming) all of the Christmas decorations back in their eleven-month storage spot. In my house our stuff takes up an amazing amount of space and every year I’m both happy and sad to see it all go.
Some of the reasons I hate to see it all go is that the “putting away” of the Christmas spirit that fills people during the end of every calendar year. Why is that? Another part that I hate is putting away all of the Christmas music. There is something amazing about the songs, carols, and orchestrations, anything that is musically oriented around the holiday. I enjoy singing it, listening to it, sharing it with my family and friends, anything that makes it a part of my day.
So there is some of it that I keep on my ipod music all year round. As a rule I don’t put Christmas music on my ipod but keep it on physical CD’s or use services like Pandora—but—there are a few songs that I keep on there all the time, because I just need them.
Do you know the song “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day?” It’s based on a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1863 and was first put to music by John Baptiste Calkin in 1872. Equally as important as the song, do you know the story behind the song? Longfellow was having a bad couple of years—really bad. His oldest son joined the Union army without his consent, his son saying that even though his father didn’t approve, it was his duty to lay down his life for his country. He was deeply wounded in the war, losing a good portion of his spine from a bullet. The following Christmas after his son’s wounds Longfellow wrote: “I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace.” In 1862, the year before the “Bells” poem, Longfellow had written these words: “How inexpressibly sad are the holidays,” after losing his wife in a tragic fire.
But, in 1863, the story goes that both sides of the war declared a cease-fire for Christmas. Longfellow, living in Virginia, was certainly within ear shot if not closer to some of the Civil War’s action. Anyway, the story goes that Longfellow woke up on that Christmas morning and instead of the sound of war he heard bells—“Christmas Bells,” which became the title of the poem.
“Christmas Bells”
(The original poem, complete with all seven stanzas)
“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Here’s what I learned:
The Spirit of Christmas needs more than a month’s coming out of the boxes each year. DeChristmasifinication can’t ever be 100% complete. I keep this song and select others to hold onto truths that I need reminding of more than just at Christmas. We can look around the world and easily get discouraged at the situations and hurts that are constantly aired by our 24 by 7 news media. Fear of something that might happen—or worse, losing ourselves in depression over a part of our own history that is too painful to bear can too easily consume us. For me, I need to know that right wins in the end. I’ve been drawn to heroes my whole life—superheroes, men and women larger than life fighting for truth and justice—not because it’s a nice trope. I need to know that I am not just here to take up space. I need to know that there is a greater good at work and that maybe the choice I make for good for me, my family, my community, matters. If you and I chose to deliberately practice peace on earth, good-will to men as much as it is within us to do would our world sound and look different? I’d like to think so.
I’m John McGrail, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
Follow Golden Spiral Media on Twitter at GSMPodcasts and facebook.com/goldenspiralmedia. To subscribe to Stuff I Learned Yesterday visit goldenspiralmedia.com/subscribe, to join our popular Facebook group go to facebook.com/groups/stuffilearnedyesterday and if you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in ITunes by going to goldenspiralmedia.com/itunes.