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Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009

Herbert A. Opalek: Your own Christmas legend

More than any other holiday, Christmas has a melange of myth, legend, and tradition attached to it.

These quaint, but not antiquated, customs recur year after year and have become beloved traditions for us all.

Examples certainly abound:

In 1823, Clement Clark North published his "A Visit from St. Nicholas;" forever known to us as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas."

The magical flying reindeer that he wrote of were originally named Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder, and Blixem. Dunder was later changed to Donner (in German, "thunder"), and Blixem was later changed to Blitzen (German for "lightning").

In 1932, George May, as part of his job at Montgomery Ward, added a ninth reindeer to the mix, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. A song about Rudolph was written based on May's story, and in 1948 Gene Autry recorded it for the first of many recordings. Burl Ives later narrated the first Rudolph television special.

Rudolph possessed an unusually red-colored nose that gave off its own light; a light powerful enough to illuminate the team's path through all types of nasty weather. And so, Rudolph entered into the hearts of children and is now an integral part of Christmas lore and myth.

Together with Frosty the Snowman and Olive the Reindeer, we find the Finnish version of Santa Claus, Joulupukki. While he equates with our Santa, his name translates as "yule goat." In Finland, the tradition tells of persons dressing in goat costumes to solicit or perform for leftover food after Christmas.

Finland Radio refined this version of Santa Claus. He was created out of Finland's National Broadcasting Corp.'s radio show "Children's Hour with Uncle Markus." This Finnish version of Santa does not reside in the North Pole but in a set of mountains in Lapland on the Finnish border. His wife is named Joulumuori, or Old Lady Christmas.

He does not have flying reindeer and does not come down the chimney. Rather, he knocks on the front door on Christmas Eve and when he enters; his first words are traditionally, "Are there well-behaved children here?"

And then there is mistletoe, a most popular part of our Christmas traditions.

We have to thank the Scandinavians for the tradition that dictates that two people meeting under this plant must kiss each other. The word itself seems to derive from the German "mist" for dung and "tang" for branch, since mistletoe can be spread in the feces of birds moving from tree to tree.

In point of fact, mistletoe bears fruit in the winter at the birth of the New Year, and may have been used in Druid rites in Britain as a symbol of immortality.

In ancient mythology and in Druid rituals, it was considered a remedy for barrenness in animals. Early Christianity reinterpreted the use of mistletoe and developed a legend that it was the tree that supplied the wood that Christ's cross was made of at the crucifixion.

It is axiomatic that the great legends of the world come about to give meaning to the primary happenings of human existence; these being birth, death, conflict, loss, reconciliation and the seasons' cycles.

One can hardly question the power of myth to inform the human condition and ultimately to provide meaning as legends persist from ancient time to the present.

In this respect, Christmas myths about reindeer and legends about quaint customs are no different.

But Christmas, itself, is not a legend. Christmas, in the words of the song, really is the most wonderful time of the year. It is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ, and it is a time of family joy and thanksgiving for our Savior's birth.

Here are two suggestions on how to create your own family legends for this holiday. Read Matthew 1:18--2:23, en famille, as it tells the details surrounding the birth of Jesus, from the angel's promise of His conception until after His birth. Allow Scripture to speak for itself.

Secondly, do a service project as a family. Go caroling at a nursing home, volunteer at the Rescue Mission or another charity, donate gifts to needy children in your community and bake cookies for your neighbors.

As a family, your doing these things will tell the good news of Jesus Christ and the meaning of Christmas in a real and concrete way.

We in Merced can proclaim the Savior's birth in our own new and satisfying Christmas legends and traditions.

Herb Opalek is CEO of the Merced Rescue Mission.