This year, once again, I wish you a very Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday is appropriate to your beliefs. I have collected a few Christmas Songs for your enjoyment.
Performed by Olivia Newton John
Performed by the Harry Simeone Choir
Performed by Martina McBride
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Performed by Celtic Woman
And finally, Happy Holidays to our Republican visitors. Here’s what you want most. 😉
Performed by Bing Crosby
May I Cross Your Path?
Wild poppies grow on the verge of a Flanders field near Passchendaele as dawn breaks on the centenary of the Great War. Getty
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, Canadian physician
The setting sun creates long shadows at Sanctuary Wood Military Cemetery in Ypres. Getty
The morning sun falls on the fortified Advanced Dressing Station, near Essex Farm Cemetery in Ypres, where Canadian doctor Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae treated the wounded and is believed to have composed his famous poem 'In Flanders Fields' after burying his friend, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, on 3 May 1915. Getty
A preserved WWI trench system is pictured in Sanctuary Wood in Ypres. Getty
Bomb craters scar the woodland floor in the preserved Sanctuary Wood. Getty
A surviving tree, damaged in the Great War, is covered in tributes. Getty
Ypres was the centre of five battles between German and Allied forces from 1914 to 1918. The deadliest of these was the Third Battle of Ypres or the Battle of Passchendaele, between July and November 1917.
Casualty numbers are disputed, but it is thought that around 325,000 Allied and 260,000 German troops lost their lives.
5 January 1917: Soldiers march past the ruins of St Martins Church and Cloth Hall in Ypres. Getty
5 October 1917: Australian troops march towards the front line to relieve their comrades, who had won Broodseinde Ridge the previous day, during the Battle of Passchendaele. Getty
11 November 1917: Soldiers pose for a photo near the ramparts at Ypres the day after British, Canadian, ANZAC, and French forces finally recaptured the Passchendaele Ridge east of Ypres. Getty
19 April 1918: Soldiers lie dead in the mud on a battlefield during the Lys Offensive, also known as the Fourth Battle of Ypres. Getty
With respect for those who fought & Died in Two World Wars
For all the victims, and for the victims of all wars past & present
Remembering the human cost of war, not the financial or political cost of warfare.
Remembering every animal not given a choice, each one a tragic victim
of wars past and present
Lest we forget
A big thank you to Wendy Kelly, Coventry, UK, a Care2 member who sent me the pictures and captions
In Canada, Thanksgiving dates back to 1578 and the exploration of the Northwest Passage by Martin Frobisher. Canada was untouched by Columbus but many non Canadian people associate Thanksgiving with the US Columbus Day. Rather our first contact with Europeans came in the 12th century with the arrival of the Norse explorer Leif Erikson of Iceland, and later Greenland. From Wikipedia Thanksgiving in Canada
"Years later, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, in 1604 onwards also held huge feasts of thanks. They even formed the Order of Good Cheer and gladly shared their food with their First Nations neighbours."
The Canadian Thanksgiving "… corresponds to the English and continental European Harvest festival, with churches decorated with cornucopias, pumpkins, corn, wheat sheaves, and other harvest bounty, … drawn from biblical stories relating to the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot."
I know that my own church has large displays of harvest bounty. We support others with a "modern bounty" . . . food donations that go to our local food bank.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Although we see far too little of her recently, Marva has been here from the very beginning of Politics Plus, years before here was here.