A happy Tuesday morning to you. Welcome to the world of awake people. It is a cloudy thirty nine degrees out side but it is comfortable sitting here in my recliner watching guests come in and out at the Backyard Buffet. I didn’t get the feeders filled yesterday and they are mostly empty. Perhaps that is why the squirrels are hovering about and staring at the sunporch from the trees. Even “Stubby” the one with practically no tail is out there today again. He checks the feeder and runs of and then checks it again in about five minutes just in case I was there and he didn’t see me. Silly squirrels, they are fun to watch. 

Well, I did get to the post office and got all of the Christmas Cards and December Birthday cards off and away, or maybe I told you that yesterday. I don’t know rom day to the next what I wrote the day before. It’s all just stuff that falls out of my brain and onto my keyboard. I realize that most days what I write is of no importance but, I do appreciate you reading and sharing with me. 

I started working on my Christmas Eve sermon last night ad I found out some very interesting stuff while researching. I always thought that Christmas was a long celebrated holiday and my premise was that 2020 was unlike any other Christmas with things being cancelled everywhere because of COVID-19. I knew that it was a couple of centuries before there actually was a Christmas Celebration and have written and talked about that before. It was around 379 AD before any recognition of the birth of Christ became a “thing”. The Emperor Constantine declared Christianity as the official religion of the Empire and Dec 25th was determined to be a holiday to eradicate a Roman Pagan fest. I knew all of that. But —- I did not know that a Christmas celebration was banned in this country from 1620 until roughly 1850. The Pilgrims did not celebrate Christmas because they deemed it Un-Christian. Being Puritans, they declared that it wasn’t mentioned as a holy day in the Bible and therefore was pagan and evil. In fact, if you were caught celebrating instead of being out side working, you could be fined as much as five shillings, which was quite aa sum. I also learned that Alabama was the first state to actually declare Christmas to be a recognized holiday, in 1850. Many states soon followed suit.It is amazing what you can learn when you want to do a bit of research. I always say that I have had a successful day if I learned something new. So, —- aren’t you glad you stopped by today??

That information has now emptied my brain so I might as well quit for today and get on my recumbent Bike and ride for a few miles. Have a wonderful Tuesday. Peace.