Each year, the crew gets to choose when to hold their official holiday feast, during which they gather to share special delicacies beyond the scope of their normal daily rations. Christmas comes twice to the astronauts aboard the International Space Station this year as the multi-nation crew celebrates the traditional Dec. 25 holiday as well as Russian Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7. Current station commander Jeff Williams of NASA is leading a crew of five, including Russian cosmonauts Maxim Suraev and Oleg Kotov, Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, and American spaceflyer Timothy "T.J." Creamer. Kotov, Noguchi and Creamer arrived just recently, docking at the station aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft on Tuesday. "We're privileged this time of year to be in this unique place looking back at our planet," Williams said in a video beamed down from the orbiting outpost. "It's a time for us to be thinking about our family and friends... It's also a time to look forward to the future year, finishing the assembly of the International Space Station." Each year, the crew gets to choose when to hold their official holiday feast, during which they gather to share special delicacies beyond the scope of their normal daily rations. This year, the spaceflyers have all elected to take American Christmas and American New Year's as their official holidays, NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries said. Nonetheless, there will likely be some festivities on all the upcoming occasions, including the Russian Christmas. "They'll probably celebrate a little on both," NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said. Space feast: The special treats for Dec. 25 include smoked turkey, candied yams, green beans with mushrooms, and cornbread dressing. "There's the traditional food, and also I think that Soichi is bringing up some Japanese food, and of course they have the Russian food," Byerly said. That day will be a particularly light one, with minimal duties scheduled for the astronauts. They will have a chance to make phone calls and send e-mails back home, and of course, enjoy their meals. "They gather around the table and kind of break out all the food," Byerly told SPACE.com. "They probably barter with one another and trade different foods. It's a big feast." Since 2000, astronauts have lived continuously on the International Space Station and have celebrated the holidays each year.
Walking into the Holy Apostles Greek Orthodox Church the Sunday before Christmas, one might mistake the season for some other time of year. Poinsettias dot the entrance to the sanctuary but shrink against a backdrop of iconography, crosses and gilded holy books. Musical readings of the Divine Liturgy of St. John stand in place of holiday hymns. There's no Christmas tree — Father Dennis Vierling notes that's a German tradition. And his congregants haven't been stuffing themselves at holiday parties. At least they're not supposed to. Followers of the Greek Orthodox Church abstain from meat and dairy products for 40 days prior to Christmas, beginning on Nov. 15. It's part of the purification process, Vierling explains. It prepares the body and soul for the holy season, though they do make an exception for Thanksgiving. Thursday night, families lifted the fast and began celebrating not the gifts delivered to the Christ child, but his baptism. They will feast in their homes on foods traditional to their varied origins. For the Greek Orthodox, sundown on Dec. 24 marks the beginning of the 12 days of Christmas. They'll light candles and burn logs. The children will wander neighborhoods singing hymns — or in the case of the Winterville parish, western Christmas carols. “We have a hybrid of American and Greek customs,” Vierling said. “We're very practical people.” The giving of gifts is attributed more to St. Basil than St. Nicolas in Greek Orthodox teachings. Basil was known for his kind, philanthropic nature. In keeping with the saint's habits today, families will hide coins in a slice of Christmas bread. The first piece is given to a beggar or visitor, and the fortunate person to find the money is doubly blessed in the new year.
Israel on Thursday allowed several hundred Palestinian Christians to leave the isolated Hamas-run Gaza Strip to celebrate Christmas in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem. The military said it issued 300 24-hour permits to Gazan Christians over the age of 35 so they could travel to Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity for the midnight mass at the traditional site of Jesus's birth. Many this year decided to remain in the isolated territory because they could not get permits for younger family members, and some were not allowed out despite being over the required age. "I did not get a permit even though I am over 35," Hana Mikhael, 38, said. "And many of my friends decided not to travel because even though they got permits their wives did not, or vice-versa." Israel and Egypt have severely restricted travel to and from the Gaza Strip since the Islamist Hamas movement seized power there in June 2007. Around 2,500 Christians live in Gaza alongside 1.5 million Muslims. Most are Greek Orthodox, with smaller minorities of Catholics and Protestants.
It is Christmas 2009, and instead of peace on earth and good will towards all, Muslims are busily blowing up churches and Christians all over the Islamic world. This is an awful reality but it is neither recent nor unexpected. Perhaps what is even more awful is the world’s silence and seeming passivity. We in the West who believe in religious tolerance have not stopped the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries. In the name of political correctness, we have also “tolerated” the often aggressive demands for mosques, public prayer, minarets, and loudspeakers on our own soil even though there is absolutely no reciprocity towards Christianity (or any other non-Muslim religion) in most Arab and Muslim countries. For example, this year, in a church in Bellinzona (Ticino), in Switzerland, a Nativity scene displays Jesus surrounded by minarets! “The unusual scene is supposed to make people reflect about brotherhood and human rights, after 57% of the Swiss (and 68% in Ticino) recently voted against minarets on mosques. On the crib are verses from the Bible and the Koran on the topic of water.” First they came for the Jews … and indeed, most Jews, all 800,000, fled the Arab and Muslim world in the 1940s and 1950s. No one stopped this “silent exodus” or really cared that it had happened. Individual Muslims and the Muslim governments happily, greedily, confiscated Jewish homes, factories, and farms; those Jews who were not slaughtered were allowed to leave with ten dollars in their pocket. Unlike the Palestinian refugees, the Jews and Israel took care of their own. Two days ago, in Mosul, Iraq, the Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Thomas, founded in 770 AD, was bombed — killing two civilians and wounding five others. This was the “sixth attack on Christians there in less than a month.” The Syrian Orthodox Parish of the Immaculate Virgin was attacked a week ago. An infant girl was killed and forty people were wounded. Father Faez Wadiha, of this church, says, with irony: “This is certainly a Christmas present for Mosul, a message of congratulations why we are celebrating a feast of love and peace. But we will pray in the streets, in homes, in shops. God is everywhere, not just in churches.” The Syrian Catholic Church of the Annunciation , the (Chaldean) Church of St Ephrem, and the St. Theresa Church were all bombed in Mosul in the last month. Egypt: A substantial Christian population has always lived in Egypt. They have increasingly been bombed, tortured and murdered. For example, the Monastery of Abu Fana in Upper Egypt has existed since the 5th century — which clearly predates Islam by two centuries. Last year, Bedouin Muslims attacked the monastery, “destroying a small church and burning the monastery’s farm. Nine monks and monastery employees were wounded and four others were abducted.” Pakistan: For a long time now, Christians have been persecuted in Pakistan. Their female children have been kidnapped, forced to convert and forcibly married to Muslims; both priests and believers have been attacked, and often murdered. Earlier this month, in Sargodha, Pakistan (in or near the Punjab), a mob of Muslim villagers, armed with clubs, spades, and axes attacked a showing of a film on Jesus, injuring three part-time evangelists very seriously as well as four Christians in attendance. The mob destroyed their appliances and absconded with funds. The mob also turned on Christian villagers who tried to intervene. Turkey: Last month, Turkish authorities uncovered a detailed plot by Turkish naval officers to commit violence against their country’s non-Muslims in an effort to unseat Turkey’s Islamist government. “Entitled the ‘Operation Cage Action Plan,’ the plot outlines a plethora of planned threat campaigns, bomb attacks, kidnappings and assassinations targeting the nation’s tiny religious minority communities. The scheme ultimately called for bombings of homes and buildings owned by non-Muslims, setting fire to homes, vehicles and businesses of Christian and Jewish citizens, and murdering prominent leaders among the religious minorities.” Nine hundred and thirty nine Turkish non-Muslims were specifically marked as targets. And, on December 15, 2009, in Istanbul, in response to a Swiss vote banning the construction of new mosque minarets, a group of Muslims went into a church building in eastern Turkey and threatened to kill a priest unless he tore down its bell tower. Specifically, on December 4, 2009, three Muslims entered the Meryem Ana Church, a Syriac Orthodox church in Diyarbakir, and confronted the Rev. Yusuf Akbulut. They told him that unless the bell tower was destroyed in one week, they would kill him. … Akbulut has been the target of threats, harassment before.” Indonesia: In the rapidly Islamifying Indonesia, in Jakarta, “hundreds of Muslims celebrated the eve of the Islamic New Year last Thursday (Dec. 17) by attacking a Catholic church building under construction in Bekasi, West Java. A crowd of approximately 1,000 men, women and children from the Bebalan and Taruma Jaha areas of Bekasi walking in a New Year’s Eve procession stopped at the 60 percent-completed Santo Albertus Catholic Church building, where many ransacked and set fires to it, church leaders said. Damage was said to be extensive, but no one was injured.” Somalia: “Islamic extremists controlling part of the Somali capital of Mogadishu this month executed a young Christian whom they accused of trying to convert a 15-year-old Muslim to Christianity. Members of the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab had taken 23-year-old Mumin Abdikarim Yusuf into custody on Oct. 28 after the 15-year-old boy reported him to the militants. Yusuf’s body was found on Nov. 14 on an empty residential street in Mogadishu, with sources saying the convert from Islam was shot to death, probably some hours before dawn.” Holy Land: What about the Holy Land? What kind of Christmas may we expect there? The Jewish King David was born in Bethlehem, as was Jesus. Nevertheless, fewer and fewer Christians (and no Jews) live there year-round; pilgrims come to visit at this time of year but that’s about it. According to Benny Avni, writing in the New York Post, “fifty years ago, Christians made up 70 percent of Bethlehem’s population; today, about 15 percent…Practically the only place where the Christian population is growing is in Israel.” As to the Church of the Nativity, it was treated abominably by Palestinian terrorists who, in 2002, held priests hostage there and treated it as a combination garbage dump and toilet. Israeli forces had to rescue the priests and arrange a cease-fire and surrender. In the West Bank, churches, Christian cemeteries, and Christian-owned businesses have been attacked and defaced. Christians have been leaving in droves. According to Benny Avni, the current “West Bank Christian population (not counting Jerusalem)…is now less than 8 percent of the population.” Of course, Muslims persecuted, colonized, and genocidally exterminated other non-Muslim groups too. Let’s not forget the Hindus in India who were under genocidal attack for 700 years; the Zoroastrians and Baha’i who were under attack in Iran; and the Armenians who were genocidally exterminated by Turkish Muslims. Armenians are a Christian ethnic group whose members belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church. To this day, the Turks still refuse to admit their responsibility. As the world celebrates the birth of the Prince of Peace — originally a Jewish rabbi from Bethlehem–let’s be clear: In these times, Jesus would not be safe in the city where he was born, neither as a Jew nor as a Christian. I hope that all Christians who live in a Muslim country are allowed to celebrate this day safely, in tranquility and joy. Merry Christmas.
Christmas Day comes in all sizes. By sizes I mean our Christmas Days have come with good or bad, happy or sad, memories of all sizes. Beyond the pleasant, peaceful and meaningful day of giving and receiving gifts is remembering that God gave his son on that first Christmas Day. There is an advantage for some Christians who are of the Orthodox (or Eastern Church) as they can celebrate two Christmases a year if they choose. They can celebrate Dec. 25 according to the Gregorian calendar or Jan. 7 according to the Julian calendar. History tells us that on Christmas Day of the year 800, Charlemagne was crowned as the holy Roman emperor and a mere 266 years later, in the year 1066, William the Conqueror was crowned as king of England. St. Francis of Assisi is said to have assembled the first Nativity scene. In Austria in 1818, the first singing of “Silent Night” was performed. In 1868, President Andrew Johnson granted unconditional pardon to all Civil War Confederate soldiers. The state of Alabama was the first state to recognize Christmas as an official holiday, beginning in 1836. Christmas was declared a federal holiday on June 26, 1870. Texas colonizer Stephen F. Austin was freed on bail from a Mexico jail on Christmas Day, 1834. The Christmas of 1941 was not a pleasant one for the people of Hong Kong. That was the day Japanese forces took the colony in World War II. A history-making meeting on Christmas Day 1977 was that between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat. The date also was Sadat’s birthday. Others born on Christmas Day include: Sir Isaac Newton, Clara Barton (founder of the American Red Cross), hotel magnate Conrad Hilton (whose Cactus Hotel in San Angelo was one of the first he built), musicians Cab Calloway and Tony Martin (Dean Martin died on Christmas Day), actors Humphrey Bogart and Sissy Spacek, scriptwriter Rod Serling (“The Twilight Zone” and “Requiem for a Heavyweight”), American footballers Ken Stabler (“the Snake,” Oakland Raiders and Houston Oilers) and Larry Csonka (Miami Dolphins running back in Super Bowls VI, VII, VIII). Nineteen short years ago, the first successful trial run of the system that has become known as the World Wide Web was on Christmas Day 1990. The Internet era began.
Death doesn't stop for Christmas. Neither does hunger, poverty or illness. Fortunately, there are loving people to brighten the worst of circumstances. Paul Rose, 5, was diagnosed with diabetes this week. But he smiled shyly Wednesday night, dressed in Buzz Lightyear pajamas, as he sat in a vacant multi-purpose room at Pitt County Memorial Hospital. Before him were four puppet stages reaching nearly to the ceiling. Elaborate Czech-designed marionettes danced through a show for Paul and another young patient for nearly an hour, under the skilled hands of two men from the Holy Apostles Greek Orthodox Church. The puppets acted out the story of wise men bringing gifts to the newborn Jesus. Other sick children occupied the ward but were unable to attend, based on treatment schedules or general fatigue. Lynne Rose, Paul's mother, welcomed the Wednesday night distraction and the underlying message. “Santa Claus is fun and all. But to present the real story of Christmas? That's impressive.” She and Paul's dad have spent the last several days waiting for lab results and learning what their son's new life would look like. “We're doing good,” Lynne Rose said. “We're learning how to count carbs, prick fingers and give insulin shots.” She said Paul had taken it all very bravely. He clutched a stuffed sheep under his chin — a gift from the puppeteers — and talked about the chaps and cleats he hoped to find under the tree. “Will I get them?” he asked his mother, brandishing a toothy grin. “You'll have to wait and see,” she said. But the best gift of all? The Roses expected Paul would be released Thursday morning to head back to their home in Goldsboro in plenty of time for Christmas morning.
It's always give, give, give with St. Nick. Sure, children leave him the occasional glass of milk and cookie. But what does anyone ever really give him for Christmas? Some children in Pennsylvania reversed roles with the saint earlier this month at St. John Chrysostom Orthodox Church in Springettsbury Township, a community of 24,000 people about 100 miles east of Philadelphia. They gave him presents. In the process, they learned something about the Feast of St. Nicholas -- a tradition many Christian churches observe around the world through celebrations, processions, church services and gift giving. That explains why St. Nick eschewed his more familiar red coat for gold robes and a bishop's hat. This was St. Nick. Not Santa Claus.In Springettsbury Township, the gifts children gave will eventually be donated to the needy families through Access-York and the Victim Assistance Center in York County, Pa. "I can see you've been teaching the children to love others by giving to the poor," St. Nicholas told the Rev. Peter Pier, the pastor of the church. Parishioner Ray Reitz portrayed the third-century bishop while more than 30 children handed over wrapped presents and told him about their good deeds over the past year. Some kids, though, were reluctant. "We're supposed to keep it to ourselves," 13-year-old Irene Snyder tells the York Daily Record. "It's not something we brag about." Each child received gold-covered chocolate coins. This echoes a legend about St. Nicholas. Three sisters in his village were supposedly bound for slavery or prostitution because their father couldn't afford dowries. Legend has it St. Nicholas threw three bags of gold through the family's window, providing the money so each could be married. The Rev. Pier tells the York Daily Record that people often forget that St. Nicholas was motivated by Jesus' command to love others. "The sad thing is St. Nicholas metamorphosed into the secular figure," he says. "The generosity is there still, but it has nothing to do with spirituality. Today's tradition is a good antidote to a society's materialism in that what you get is what you give." A member of St. John Chrysostom suggested celebrating the Feast of St. Nicholas as a way to give children a history lesson and remind them what Christmas is all about.