Resolve to Better Yourself in 2015

A tradition of making New Year’s Resolutions goes back to the Roman Empire during the first century B.C. because of a god who had two faces. The mythical god Janus was depicted with one face looking to the past and another face looking to the future. He became the ancient symbol for resolutions at the beginning of each New Year.

The Romans believed Janus offered them a chance to redeem themselves of past transgressions if they promised to improve themselves during the eve of the upcoming New Year. Julius Caesar named January, the first month of his new 12-month calendar, after Janus in 46 B.C. Caesar’s calendar was very similar to the one most of the populated world uses now.

The custom of making resolutions for the New Year extended throughout the centuries as a way of starting off with a clean slate. People hope to use the first day of the year to improve themselves.

Typical New Year’s resolutions include losing weight, exercising more, and stopping a variety of bad habits such as smoking.

About 45 percent of Americans make New Year’s Resolutions. The University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, researched how often people keep their resolutions. These figures were published in the university’s “Journal of Clinical Psychology” on the first day of 2014. According to the study, the number of people who kept their resolutions for the first week was 75%. Past two weeks the number was 71%. Then the figures drop to 64% after one month and 46% after six months.

The university’s results seem completely contrary to reality. From what I've seen, most people stop keeping their resolutions after only one week. After one month the number of people still keeping their resolutions would be 15% at best. And after six months, forget about it.

Scranton’s clinical journal based at least part of the conclusions about keeping resolutions on interviews with test subjects. It’s human nature to give interviewers what they want to hear. So people who made the resolutions want to say they kept them to please the testers and keep their egos intact. That’s my opinion, anyway.

Kissing at the stroke of midnight on December 31st is a New Year custom unique to the United States. The custom derived from masked balls where disguised dancers supposedly didn’t know the identity of their masked partners. The masks symbolized evil spirits from the ending year. A kiss was the purification of the evil or bad luck from the old year into the new.

Follow the inspiration passed down by Janus from the ancient Romans. Make your best resolutions. Don’t worry if you don’t keep them, because you won’t.

Thanks for taking time to read this blog. Look at my website www.joevlatino.com to get information about my book of short stories “The Device.” It’s available from Amazon.

Why Santa Looks That Way

The image we know as Santa Claus came from a 19th century poem and a 20th century advertising campaign.  

Henry Livingston Jr. wrote “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas.” Published in 1823, it’s commonly known by the first line of the poem, “Twas the Night before Christmas.” Livingston described a magical elf who traveled in a sleigh with a team of eight flying reindeer. In the poem, St. Nicholas’ use of a sack to carry toys is mentioned. The flying sleigh and a sack of toys stayed part of the iconic Christmas figure. 

The elf, who later used the name Santa Claus, had a broad face and a round belly. He dressed in fur from head to foot. Santas everywhere were depicted wearing red clothes many years later.

The Coca-Cola Co. solidified the image of a red-suited, jolly man during an advertising campaign that started in 1923. Artists painted a thin, unsmiling Santa to advertise the company’s soft drink. This image lasted until 1930.

Haddon Sundbloom painted an image of a friendly Santa Claus in 1931. That image of a red-suited, jolly man wearing black boots has been the accepted view of how Santa Claus looks for more than 80 years. Showing him enjoying a Coca-Cola sold many millions of dollars of soft drinks for the company.

Sundbloom drew Santa in numerous company advertisements until 1964. The Coca-Cola company holds a trademark for the Santa image. While that particular image of Santa Claus has been trademarked, the names Santa Claus and St. Nicholas are in public domain.

The name “Santa Claus” goes back to St. Nicholas who was a bishop born about 280 A.D. He was canonized as a saint for his lifetime of piety and kindnesses to the poor. The name Santa Claus came from St. Nicholas’s nickname Sinter Klass. That is what Dutch children call him.

An 1804 gathering of the New York Historical Society helped cement the images of Santa and Christmas. The society distributed woodcuts of St. Nicholas during an annual meeting. The background of the engraving contained familiar images of Santa. It included depictions of stockings hung over a fireplace. Toys and fruits filled the stockings.

During the early 19th century, gift-giving became a popular part of the Christmas celebration. Stores began to advertise shopping specials to attract customers into their businesses. By the middle of the 1800s, newspapers created separate sections for holiday advertisements that often featured images of Santa Claus. It was the beginning of the commercialization of Christmas.

Gift-giving extended to the many charities in need of money. The Salvation Army saw an opportunity to get money for their work in helping needy families. Unemployed men were dressed in Santa suits and placed on New York street corners to solicit contributions. The red kettles and constant bell ringers began. Now the red-suited ringers are in all cities and shopping centers.

The image of Santa Claus began evolving as far back as the third century. The change of Christmas to a time of gift-giving plus a push from commercialism led to what we know today as the jolly old elf.

Thank you for reading this blog. Look for my website at www.joevlatino.com where you can see information about my book of short stories, “The Device.”

Americans Imitate Brits and Decorate Trees

Christmas in American was a formal celebration lacking a festive atmosphere until the middle of the 19th century. That's when Christmas trees changed the tone of the season.

 

Europeans used evergreen branches to decorate inside and outside their houses during cold winter months to celebrate the upcoming spring and warmer weather. This practice goes back thousands of years before the Christian Era.  People decorated the branches, and putting an entire tree into their homes was a natural progression.

 

The tradition of decorating trees for Christmas evolved into a popular tradition in Germany long before it started in America. Well into the 1800s, the strict Puritan belief that Christmas was a time for worship and not a time for celebration dominated the way the holiday was observed in America. 

 

During the early 1900s, Irish and German immigrants brought their traditions of fun during Christmas, and people started to change their view of Christmas from strictly religious to joyful.

 

The biggest influence in using Christmas trees and making the holiday fun was Queen Victoria. She was queen of Great Britain from 1837 to 1901. During her reign, literacy in our country grew. The invention of the telegraph and the growth of  popular newspapers made mass communication a major impact on society.

 

People started admiring the popular queen, and American society looked to copy all things British. Much like today, the royals were popular and admired by Americans.

 

Queen Victoria married Price Albert, a German. He brought his country's tradition of Christmas trees to England, and the idea spread to America.

 

In 1846, the queen and Price Albert were sketched in the "Illustrated London News" newspaper with their children around a Christmas tree. The sketch was accompanied with a detailed description of the decorated tree. It was about eight feet high with six tiers of branches. Each branch held up to 12 candles.  An angel was placed on top of the tree.

 

American society embraced the idea of decorating trees in their homes. By the 1890s, the popularity of Christmas trees spread around the U.S. Early 20th Century Americans decorated their trees with homemade ornaments. The German-American crowd used apples, nuts, and cookies. Electricity replaced candles with Christmas lights. The lights were created by members of Thomas Edison's group of inventors.

 

Cities began placing Christmas trees in town squares, and communities accepted the trees as a sign of the season's celebration.

 

Top producing Christmas tree states are California, Oregon, Michigan, Washington, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. The best selling trees are Scotch Pine, Douglas Fir, Fraser Fir, Balsam Fir, and White Pine. The growing and selling of Christmas trees employs approximately 100,000 people in the U.S.

 

The American fascination with British royalty was responsible for the tradition of placing decorative trees in our living rooms this time of year.

 

Thank you for reading this blog.  Visit my website www.joevlatino.com where you can read a sample of my flash fiction. You may also find my book, "The Device," on Amazon.