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15 Facts You Now Know About Christmas

1. The modern Christmas custom of displaying a wreath on the front door of one’s house, is borrowed from ancient Rome’s New Year’s celebrations. Romans wished each other “good health” by exchanging branches of evergreens. They called these gifts strenae after Strenia, the goddess of health. It became the custom to bend these branches into a ring and display them on doorways.
2. The northern European custom of the candlelit Christmas tree is derived from the belief that it sheltered woodland spirits when other trees lost their leaves during winter.
3. The poem commonly referred to as “The Night Before Christmas” was originally titled “A Visit From Saint Nicholas.” This poem was written by Clement Moore for his children and some guests, one of whom anonymously sent the poem to a New York newspaper for publication.
4. The poinsettia, traditionally an American Christmas flower, originally grew in Mexico; where it was known as the “Flower of the Holy Night”. It was first brought to America by Joel Poinsett in 1829.
5. The popular Christmas song “Jingle Bells” was composed in 1857 by James Pierpont, and was originally called “One-Horse Open Sleigh.”
6. The Puritans forbade the singing of Christmas carols.
7. The real St. Nicholas lived in Turkey, where he was bishop of the town of Myra, in the early 4th century. It was the Dutch who first made him into a Christmas gift-giver, and Dutch settlers brought him to America where his name eventually became the familiar Santa Claus.
8. The Super Ball® was born in 1965, and it became America’s most popular plaything that year. By Christmas time, only six months after it was introduced by Wham-O, 7 million balls had been sold at 98 cents apiece. Norman Stingley, a California chemist, invented the bouncing gray ball. In his spare time, he had compressed a synthetic rubber material under 3,500 pounds of pressure per square inch, and eventually created the remarkable ball. It had a resiliency of 92 percent, about three times that of a tennis ball, and could bounce for long periods. It was reported that presidential aide McGeorge Bundy had five dozen Super Balls® shipped to the White House for the amusement of staffers.
9. The table for Christmas Eve dinner in the Ukraine is set with two tablecloths: one for the ancestors of the family, the other for the living members. In pagan times, ancestors were believed to be benevolent spirits who, when shown respect, brought good fortune.
10. The tradition of Christmas lights dates back to when Christians were persecuted for saying Mass. A simple candle in the window meant that Mass would be celebrated there that night.
11. The traditional flaming Christmas pudding dates back to 1670 in England, and was derived from an earlier form of stiffened plum porridge.
12. The world’s first singing commercial aired on the radio on Christmas Eve, 1926 for Wheaties cereal. The four male singers, eventually known as the Wheaties Quartet, sang the jingle. The Wheaties Quartet, comprised of an undertaker, a bailiff, a printer, and a businessman, performed the song for the next six years, at $6 per singer per week. The commercials were a resounding success.
13. Theodore Roosevelt, a staunch conservationist, banned Christmas trees in his home, even when he lived in the White House. His children, however, smuggled them into their bedrooms.
14. There are twelve courses in the Ukrainian Christmas Eve supper. According to the Christian tradition, each course is dedicated to one of Christ’s apostles.
15. When Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island, died on December 4, 1894, he willed his November 13 birthday to a friend who disliked her own Christmas birthday.

From: http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/xmastrivia.html

Merry Christmas!!

To everyone is important to me and who I consider close and dear:
Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a very happy new year!

2008 – What a year! It was full of ups and downs and teeming with things totally unforeseen. Last year at this time I was in my 10th month of my teaching contract. I remember how awestruck I was to see the veil of Christmas present pulled over the land of Korea that had up until that point not had many things that reminded of home. The halls were decked, the Santa’s were out, and the department stores were magical smorgasbords of toys, tinsel and commerce.

Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all fake snow and sunshine – it was the point at which I came closest to dropping everything and coming home – as it turns out December can be a very lonely and depressing month. But these feelings soon disappeared as I saw my students becoming more and more elated as the fateful day came closer. It is funny to watch the culture changing though. Traditionally Christmas is a couple’s holiday in Korea with very little significance, but as of late it has become more and more similar to the western version.

We had our celebrations at school, which included a very traditional plate of hamburgers and pizza. I love cultural awareness! And a last minute twist of fate had me trying to slim my way into a Santa Outfit that I think previously belonged to someone with the waist line of a broomstick – yes my pants actually ripped in the middle of my trek from class to class.

So anyway, I finished out my contract in Chilgok, and headed down to Busan for a spell – even got to spend some time in the Korean country side, drinking in the visual representation of a country that went from ‘developing to developed’ in just over a generation. A true clash of the new and the old complete with swank resort homes coupled with earthen farm huts.

On then one day it was all over. I said my goodbyes and climbed onto a bus toward Gimpo airport. I was exhausted but ready to go – and as it turns out – I had overstayed my visa by a couple of days anyway. This resulted in a comedic – very Pythonesque in nature – bureaucratic assembly line that ended with me getting a funky stamp and being pushed through to wait for my flight.

As I was landing I was sure to keep my eyes peeled to try and spot the dragon-like structure that was the Beijing Airport. Sadly it was overcast and way to smoggy to make out any significant shape. This would be pretty the state of things during my entire stay in China (with a few exceptions). Beijing was a hodgepodge of old city colliding with massive overhaul to get ready for the Olympics. I am pretty sure I inhaled enough toxic fumes to take a good decade off my life.

After making some friends and having a few memorable experiences we were off to Xian on a train that wasn’t all that bad. The city of Xian is an ancient one, and is considered the beginning (or end) of the Silk Road. There is even a beautiful Muslim district where one can buy almost anything. The food in Xian is amazing.

Shanghai and the trip to it both proved to be very seedy and epically memorable. To start with, Danny got ill. And then there were an ungodly number of street solicitations which spoiled most of the walking tours. Oh and the food was horrible – granted with Danny’s aforementioned food poisoning we didn’t sample too many items. Despite all this, it was probably the most modern; and the most picturesque city in China. All and all we were ready to depart. After a one night layover in Shenzen we were off to Thailand. And what a balmy experience that was.

If you have never been, I highly recommend it. It is sinful, beautiful, unbelievable and delectable all at once. The landscape is unreal – I don’t think Hollywood could even come close to reproducing it. The people are friendly but they all have a mysterious edge which does sometimes lead to you questioning motives. Long story short, what happens in Thailand – definitely stays in Thailand!
Coming home was a bit bittersweet. I had every intention of jumping back on a plane and finding a teaching job again. This has been in the back of my mind pretty much the entire time I’ve been here. However a mess of social obligation, beautiful women, and an attempt to establish a “real career” have led to me sticking around.

Stephen and I both joined an Irish Rowing Team. He was slightly more dedicated than I, making it to at least one regatta. But it did feel good to be part of something.

I have since returned to working at Nordstrom Café and for the Radio Station. Both of which are fun and I am using to help refine my P.R. skills. I’ve also launched a food blog, and a website – TheDharmaBum.Com – which is a never ending work in progress. I’ve even been working on some short stories that I hope to be sending off to publishers by the spring.

As for the rest of the cast and crew, well my brother Stephen will be graduating in the spring and is flirting with some pretty promising career options. My Dad has begun his ‘retirement career’ as a coffee roaster. And my mom has finally finished her long and stressful tenure on the Parish Council.

Well I think that gets everyone up-to-date. And as always thank you for reading this and thank you for another year of friendship and support. I hope you’ll check out my video version of this letter. And I hope to hear from everyone soon! Fill me in!

Much love,
Matthew Pierce Clark

Cutting the Fat

Here I am once again awake at nearly three am, as is the custom/habit/compulsion so intricately tied to my very existence. Great strides have been made over the recent months on refining myself as an individual. As the very famous and somewhat overused William Blake quote goes “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” In my younger days, I took this to mean that I had to embrace life, chasing down every vice and adventure and owning it with a tenacity that few possess. And for a while I did this marvelously. I possessed a certain A-D-D mentality that allowed me to study, work, write, fuck, party, and generally run on half the amount of food and sleep that most doctors feel is vital to basic sustenance.

Sadly when you spread yourself that thin, you don’t notice the minutiae chipping away at your soul. I grew more and more tired, more despondent, and this just drove me to test my limits further. I was building a legend for God’s sake. I didn’t have time for the bullshit around me. I was the PR agent for my own entity, this fictitious character that I had conjured up through a myriad of amazing yet totally coincidental feats.

Simply put, I fancied myself a genius, living larger than life, untouchable by the world around. And perhaps I am not so far off base, although I find my confidence to be increasingly fleeting.

Which brings me to my title. Cutting the fat, not eliminating it entirely, just restructuring ones metaphysical diet. I am a firm believer that substitutes rarely worth a second glance, and usually tend to be just as detrimental to ones health given enough time. For examples, see fake butter, fake sugar, abstinence and overzealous religious beliefs (especially religious beliefs that stem out of childhood abuse, prison stints or rehab).

I am a firm believer in will power, or mind over matter if you will. And yes I do find some solace in that god awful term “moderation.” Small steps such as balancing your checking account, paying off a credit card, and completing some inane task you have put off for months really do a lot to help improve your mood. The trick is keeping it manageable.

For instance if you were to start “eating right” cutting out fats, sugars, alcohol and the like entirely, started regimenting every aspect of your life, it’ll almost inevitably consume you. And perhaps you might live a little longer, but you really need to seriously consider the quality of those extended years.

So that said, my advise for this upcoming new year, and its inevitable deluge of impossible resolutions is to simply cut the fat. Keep it simple, and try to enjoy yourself while taking steps to some bigger goal. And if you can do this flawlessly, please email me and tell me how!

March 2010 – Planning for the Walk of a Lifetime

So lately I’ve felt this driving compulsion to reinvent. I had this vision to go out in search of God or whatever is out there, to refine and discover my inner spirituality and faith.

As I grow older, I feel my inner cynicism taking hold, and it’s not that life seems bleak or hopeless, it just seems to lack the luster of youth. Granted this is probably just the sum total of my experiences leading me to believe that we are just carbon composite beings that are the product of millions of years of selective mutations resulting in a mechanical hodgepodge of organic cells.

The monotony of wake, work, eat, drink and screw – or the pursuit of there of seem to be the only meaning in my world and the existence is getting to be a lonely one. I don’t know what is out there, but I feel I have to give it a chance or else resign myself to an ever increasing shelled off existence.

Thus was born this latest dream. I have resolved to return to another stint in Korea – probably around February. I will spend the year getting my body into a relative good shape, cutting back on all my many unhealthy habits. I plan on participating in regular temple stays and exploring various tea shops. I also want to really work on refining my Korean and working on maybe picking up a bit of Spanish. (Yes I realize that these don’t apply to finding God – but I felt like sharing anyway).

For the 2010 New Years I am currently working on a Tokyo trip. I really want to spend a night in the Park Hyatt Hotel (the one featured in Lost in Translation) and drown myself in Suntory for the effect of cheesiness. I want to visit some temples in Japan as well to get a proper contrast of the differing Buddhist, Taoist and Shinto Philosophies and how they apply in the modern world.

During this year I also plan on attending some of the many Catholic Churches in Korea. I’ve already been to the monastery/abbey in Chilgok that is rife with historic martyrdom.

After this stint in Korea – during which I plan on trying to save most of what I make – I want to travel to France to begin part two of my epic journey. I will be participating int he many centuries old Carmino de Santiago – or the Way of St. James – a 600 mile walk from France to the coast of Spain. I am looking for time to reflect and soak up life. Hopefully I will be ending my journey around the time they do the running of the bulls – I’ve always wanted to do that.

From Spain I plan on heading to Chile to catch the solar eclipse in July. Well that’s my plan for now. I feel better having written it down. Keep checking back for updates as I refine the whole journey!

Thanksgiving Rant

I just wanted to write about how refreshing it was during the holidays to
see politics set aside and to just be Americans celebrating long,
prosperous and fortunate history. How nice it was to see how far
we’ve come and how we’ve learned from and corrected
our past mistakes.

After 8 years of turmoil and uncertainty with a government
who has watched the peoples faith slip away bit by bit from all three branches.
We have enjoyed one of the hallmarks of America’s greatness,
another peaceful transition of power. With a race valiantly fought by
both sides with men who both wish to enact a vision of change. And
change being what our liberal nation was founded on (yes we are an
always have been a liberal nation in the classic sense of the word -
please pick up a history book before you try to label this post as a
democraticly leaning ideological rant – and refresh yourself on the
fact that we established this great republican in the face of seemingly
insurmountable odds, against a tyrannical king).

Granted this holiday does have a religious tone to it, and many have
incorporated it into their doctrines of faith. The holiday itself was
proclaimed as a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln as a day that would
help hold the union together. And I’d be doing a great
disservice
to Sarah Hale who devoted her life to convincing the nation that these
were ideals that were paramount to our existence as a shining city upon
a hill.

So give thanks and praise. And remember what you have! For one day,
just try to put the fear mongering aside, turn off the tv pundits, and
just be grateful. If you feel like it send me some
thanksgiving <a
href=”mailto:webmaster@thedharmabum.com”>love.

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Sarah Palin is Not Secretly a Genius

And other obvious truths that shouldn’t need proving.

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