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30 Dec 08 - 11:00 AM (#2527435) Subject: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: GUEST,leeneia The day after tomorrow in Jan 1, what I call National Pointless Day. Because why should Jan 1st be a holiday, really? My friends and I have no interest in getting drunk on Dec 31st and no interest in the football on Jan 1st. So I call the day National Pointless Day. One day it occurred to me that daytime Jan 1 is a good time to have a session and a party. It also occurred to me that the 12 Days of Christmas are not over, and the 3 Kings have yet to come. Thus was born the tradition playing songs about the 3 Kings on Jan 1. Here is the perfect excuse to get out that dumbek that was in your Christmas stocking! It's also the chance to release your inner belly dancer as we play lots of Am's and Em's and ring pretty bells. This year's party has a new wrinkle. Our hostess has a number of friends who are women ministers. This is a chance for them to be mininstered to - to enjoy music and food that required no effort on their part. It is a curious thing that songs about Christmas (angels and shepherds) seem to outnumber songs about Epiphany (3 Kings, or more accurately, Wise Men). However, I've found about a dozen, and we are ready to roll. The Cyberhymnal was a great help in this, but not all its Epiphany songs are under Epiphany, which made for some searching. So that's the story for Jan 1, 2009. Perhaps you too, will call up some friends and say 'Let's get out the instruments on National Pointless Day.' |
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30 Dec 08 - 11:08 AM (#2527441) Subject: RE: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: PoppaGator If it is indeed a pointless holiday, it's internationally so, innit? So why not call it Worldwide Pointless Day? |
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30 Dec 08 - 06:18 PM (#2527831) Subject: RE: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: GUEST,leeneia This is a thought-provoking observation, but in the U.S. big holidays are worked up by the federal government, which makes Jan 1 a pointless national holiday. I suppose there are quite a few places where Jan 1 is not a holiday. China, for example. |
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30 Dec 08 - 06:26 PM (#2527840) Subject: RE: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: Megan L It is not at all pointless in Scotland up until fairly recently most folk worked chrismas day after having attended watchnight service or midnight mass. Therefore New years day was the annual holiday. |
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30 Dec 08 - 07:29 PM (#2527890) Subject: RE: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: Sandra in Sydney we've always had 3 public holidays - Christmas Day, Boxing Day & New Years day. I'll be attending a birthday party/new year's day lunch - held by a singer so we do have songs as well as good food & company - on a scorching hot day (30 hot humid degrees) but the party is in a tree-filled backyard in a beach suburb. HAPPY INTERNATIONAL POINTLESS DAY! sandra (water drinker who stays inside rather than go partying on New Year's Eve - as I live in the centre of Sydney's entertainment area, getting home is almost impossible) |
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31 Dec 08 - 11:20 AM (#2528319) Subject: RE: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: GUEST,leeneia Thanks for the explanations, Megan and Sandra. Your party sounds very appealing, Sandra. Singing with friends under the palm trees - delightful! |
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31 Dec 08 - 11:38 AM (#2528329) Subject: RE: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: GUEST,Ray No we haven't "always" had 3 holidays. New years day has only been celebrated in January since 1752. It was previously in March - hence September, October, November and December being the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th months respectively. Ray |
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31 Dec 08 - 12:19 PM (#2528371) Subject: RE: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: melodeonboy Er... as she's corresponding from Australia, which wasn't settled by Europeans until the late 18th century, could she not technically be right, according to her use of "we"? What's the problem with public holidays, anyway? At least a holiday which relates to the beginning (and end!) of a yearly cycle (and it doesn't have to be in January, particularly) with all its implications of the changing of the seasons, death and renewal, blah-di-blah-di-blah..... has direct relevance to our lives. What's the reason for the August bank holiday by the way? I reckon there is one, but I'm blowed if I know what it is. All countries, to the best of my knowledge, have public holidays, most of them related to religion or politics. I'm quite in favour of one which relates to our annual cycle. |
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31 Dec 08 - 01:00 PM (#2528414) Subject: RE: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: PoppaGator Now, my favorite alterative name for today's celebration (New Years' Eve) is... AMATEUR NIGHT ...when all the people who really don't know how to drink decide, all at once, to get rip-roaring loaded. Not the best time to be out driving the roads, even if you're the desigated temporary teetotaler. Better to stay home and watch the idiotic revelers on TV. (There'll be over a million individuals out in NTC's Times Square later tonight, enduring a predicted wind-chill-factor of ZERO degress Fahrenheit!) |
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31 Dec 08 - 06:05 PM (#2528648) Subject: RE: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: Sorcha Poppa, that is EXACTLY what I'm doing! Besides, I have to work tomorrow and Pizza Hut will the only restaurant open. I'm NOT looking fwd to it. A whole restaurant full of hung over people....gee. |
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31 Dec 08 - 07:07 PM (#2528677) Subject: RE: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: semi-submersible So, Leeneia, what are the songs on your list? |
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31 Dec 08 - 10:56 PM (#2528804) Subject: RE: Nat'l Pointless Day - 3 Kings opp From: GUEST,leeneia Uh oh! The books are at the hostess' house already. Here are the titles I recall: Saw You Never? (from the Cyberhymnal) modernized some by me. Songs of thankfulness and praise Christ Child Lullaby - I believe this is from the Hebrides What star is this? Star of Bethlehem - CyberH again Tua Bethlehem Dref - see recent thread Late at night upon a great highway - this is tune variously ascribed to Provence/Bize with words I learned in school - and of course - We three kings of Orient are. The poem 'Saw You Never' is set to a tune from 15th Century Chartres. How could a bunch of early-music lovers NOT play a tune from 15th-C. Chartres? There may be a few more. |