This Christmas, since I knew I would not be at home, I wanted to create a special project so that we could try to be closer over the holidays. I figured a blog, accessible only to those who had permission to view it (which is you!), would be the most practical choice. An Advent calendar, with 24 presents in one, would use the multimedia nature of the blog to its best effect. I wanted to give 24 nuggets of history, pop culture, art, image, music, video, and anecdote on topics related to the Advent season. I had help (and research and sources are referenced in each entry and here)—this isn’t a matter of simple cut and paste from Wikipedia! Nevertheless, it is not meant to be exhaustive, nor could it be with the present limits on my time! The subjects generally focus on the British and American experiences of Christmas though there is a sidebar on France (it could well have turned into tour-the-world-at-Christmas, but I wasn’t sure that’s really what I wanted). So forgive its Anglocentricity (“The English Christmas has provided the yardstick” according to Christmas: A Social History). This required about five months’ planning and the cooperation and time of people other than myself, so I hope in the end it is as entertaining as I hoped it’d be. I hope it is a Christmas diversion that makes each day more enjoyable and makes thinking of me more enjoyable, too.
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A note on conventions. I use C.E. (Common Era) and B.C.E (Before Common Era) instead of A.D. (Anno Domini—after Christ) and B.C. (Before Christ) which may seem very inconsistent given I’m writing about Christ’s birth, but since high school I have taken up using C.E. so that’s what I’ll use.
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