Random Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years/Year End Thoughts (2025)

[kphoger]

There are too many people at the gym, now that they've all made their new year's resolutions.  How much time until the machines are free to use again?

[Scott5114]

Has anyone else noticed the Christmas season this year lasted longer than it normally did? By which I mean, all Christmas-themed stuff didn't hard stop at midnight December 26. My gym is still running commercials over the PA with Santa in them, for instance.

[Rothman]

Has anyone else noticed the Christmas season this year lasted longer than it normally did? By which I mean, all Christmas-themed stuff didn't hard stop at midnight December 26. My gym is still running commercials over the PA with Santa in them, for instance.

Not really.  Local clock tower took a little time to switch over chimes from Christmas tunes, but that was it.

[1995hoo]

Has anyone else noticed the Christmas season this year lasted longer than it normally did? By which I mean, all Christmas-themed stuff didn't hard stop at midnight December 26. My gym is still running commercials over the PA with Santa in them, for instance.

No, except insofar as Advent was a little longer than in some years because Christmas was late in the week (Thursday).

[ZLoth]

As of Tuesday morning, my next door neighbors still have their outdoor Christmas decorations up.

[Max Rockatansky]

My wife insists on the Christmas decor staying up to January 6th.  She's Catholic and guess the significance is the Epiphany.  Basically it is the day (or night of the 5th) where you get the Rosca bread if you are part of a Mexican family.  One piece of the bread has a baby Jesus figure in it.

[1995hoo]

My wife insists on the Christmas decor staying up to January 6th.  She's Catholic and guess the significance is the Epiphany.  Basically it is the day (or night of the 5th) where you get the Rosca bread if you are part of a Mexican family.  One piece of the bread has a baby Jesus figure in it.

We keep our Christmas decorations up, and lit, through and including January 6. We don't light anything after that, but they typically remain up until the weekend after January 6 because that's usually when we have time to take everything down. We don't have any major outdoor decorations, though, other than lights on the azalea bushes (compare to our next-door neighbors from New Mexico, who have a cactus and a guy in a sombrero, both covered in Christmas lights; they took theirs down on January 1).

I've read that some people keep their Christmas decorations up until February 2 because that date represents the conclusion of the "infancy narrative" in the Gospels (well, other than the story about the finding of Jesus in the temple when he was 12, but I personally don't view that as "infancy"). February 2 is 40 days after Christmas and is the Feast of the Presentation in the Temple; some Brits and others in the Anglican tradition call it "Candlemas." I can't say I've ever seen anyone leaving Christmas decorations up that long, aside from some people who leave their lights in place year-round.

Our HOA rules say that outdoor decorations for "December holidays" are to be taken down by January 15 and that "seasonal" decorations for other holidays may be up for 14 days after the holiday. I always have the urge to get some outdoor Christmas decorations and leave them up until January 21 and, if they say anything, to respond that Orthodox Christmas is January 7, so their own rules allow for keeping them up until then. But I've never bothered, primarily because I want to take down the indoor Christmas tree and re-gain the space in the living room, and if we take that down, it sorts of takes away any credibility I'd have as to any outdoor stuff.

[formulanone]

Usually everything gets packed away on the first Saturday or Sunday of the new year. We leave the tiny lights up on the interior windows all year long, just unplug them from the wall outlets and put away the timers...but if we need to become a vape store at any given moment, we're prepared.

[kphoger]

We keep our Christmas decorations up, and lit, through and including January 6. We don't light anything after that, but they typically remain up until the weekend after January 6 because that's usually when we have time to take everything down.

That's exactly what we do, except that we take the decorations down on January 7 rather than the week-end.  If the 7th is a workday, then Carrie and the boys just take the ornaments and lights off the tree during the day, then we do the rest after I get home.

[Scott5114]

One piece of the bread has a baby Jesus figure in it.

Same idea as a king cake?

[kphoger]

One piece of the bread has a baby Jesus figure in it.

Same idea as a king cake?

That is a king cake, isn't it?

[formulanone]

One piece of the bread has a baby Jesus figure in it.

Same idea as a king cake?

That is a king cake, isn't it?

Reminder to self to order that king cake in the next week or so, just to take the edge off all the holiday sweets I've had in the last four weeks.

If that's too many calories, sugar, starch, the King Cake flavored Community Coffee really hits the spot.

[Max Rockatansky]

One piece of the bread has a baby Jesus figure in it.

Same idea as a king cake?

That is a king cake, isn't it?

Rosca is bread, the idea is the same though. 

[kphoger]

Rosca is bread, the idea is the same though. 

OK.  I knew it has sugar in it, but I wasn't sure just how sweet it is.

[Max Rockatansky]

Rosca is bread, the idea is the same though. 

OK.  I knew it has sugar in it, but I wasn't sure just how sweet it is.

My wife says getting the sugar content just right is the most difficult part.  She cooks it every year and almost always has a throwaway batch before getting it right.

[kphoger]

The Greek word κατάλυμα occurs only three times in the Bible.  Two occurrences are in parallel passages in Luke and Mark:  the narrative of the preparation for Jesus' last Passover meal with the twelve disciples.

Luke 22:10-12 — He said to them, "Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house which he enters, and tell the householder, 'The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room (κατάλυμα), where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?' And he will show you a large upper room furnished; there make ready."

Mark 14:13-15 — And he sent two of his disciples, and said to them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him,  and wherever he enters, say to the householder, 'The Teacher says, Where is my guest room (κατάλυμα), where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?' And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us."

Luke and Mark obviously shared the same source material, or else one borrowed from the other.  But they both used the word κατάλυμα to refer to the guest quarters of a residential house.  In that region in that time period, it was common to have an upper story above the main house, which could be rented out for travelers or used for invited guests who were visiting.  This is clearly the meaning of the word as Luke used it in the Passover narrative;  it's even specifically identified as "a large upper room".

Moreover, Luke used a different word in a passage that described a proper inn:  the parable of the good Samaritan:

Luke 10:33-35 — But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn (πανδοχεῖον), and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.'

This is the only use of the word πανδοχεῖον in the Bible.  In that region in that time period, public lodging houses could be found along main trade routes and pilgrimage routes, for travelers and their animals (caravans) to shelter along the road.  Conditions varied widely, and many were of ill repute.  Such places existed out along the highways, not in towns.  Notably, Bethlehem was not on a major road.

People of both the lower and middle classes kept their livestock inside the house at night, both to prevent someone stealing the animal and to provide additional heat.  A typical house would have the animal(s) down on the ground level, with the family's living and sleeping area up above on what we might call a mezzanine.  Either built into the inside of an exterior wall or built into the half-wall of the mezzanine was a box for hay:  what we call a manger.  Each night before bed, they'd bring the animal inside and, each night after waking, they'd lead it out again.  This is why, when a synagogue president harassed Jesus about healing on the Sabbath, Jesus was able to safely respond to his accusers:  "Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger, and lead it away to water it? [Luke 13:15]"—and nobody could even think of answering, "No."  Everyone knew that everyone did this simple chore first thing in the morning, even the synagogue president, and even on the Sabbath.  Anyone trying to claim they didn't do so would be an obvious liar.

And so we come to the Christmas part of this word study:  the third use of the word κατάλυμα in the Bible, the Nativity narrative in Luke.

Luke 2:7 — And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn (καταλύματι).

Luke used the word that he later used for a residential guest room—not the word that he later used for a public lodging house.  As he told the story, he described the baby as being laid in a bed of hay on the ground floor of a typical house, and, presumably because his audience would wonder why that was the case, he explained that the guest quarters were already occupied by other visitors (probably also in town for the census).

So, in all likelihood, nearly every depiction you've seen of the Nativity story has been historically inaccurate.  There was no inn.  There was no stable.  It was just a normal house.

But translating that word as "inn" in the Nativity narrative goes way back in the history of the Bible.  For example, William Tyndale's translation, upon which the King James Version relied heavily, rendered it in 1534 as "no roume for them within in the ynne."  Around the same time, the Coverdale Bible rendered it as "els no rowme in the ynne."  But if we go back even further, a century and a half, to Wycliffe's Bible of 1382, then we find it rendered as "no place to hym in no chaumbir."  Wycliffe translated the word as "chamber" rather than "inn"—the same as he translated it in the other Luke passage.  Unfortunately, the drama of pregnant Mary being turned away by a hostile hostel owner took root in people's imaginations, and few Bible translators have dared break away from that tradition ever since.

[GaryV]

So, in all likelihood, nearly every depiction you've seen of the Nativity story has been historically inaccurate.  There was no inn.  There was no stable.  It was just a normal house.

And there were no wiseman/magi/kings. They got there later. Because else Herod wouldn't have needed to kill all males under the age of 2.

It is also my belief that the "star" wasn't the wondrously bright shiny thing that could be seen night and day, as commonly portrayed. When the wisemen got to Jerusalem and asked where the king was, Herod and his retinue didn't know what they were talking about. They hadn't seen the "star". It was most likely some planetary conjunction that only those from the east interpreted astrologically. Or perhaps some nova, a new star but not a supernova, that those who studied the skies recognized as not always having been there.

[kphoger]

It is also my belief that the "star" wasn't the wondrously bright shiny thing that could be seen night and day, as commonly portrayed. When the wisemen got to Jerusalem and asked where the king was, Herod and his retinue didn't know what they were talking about. They hadn't seen the "star". It was most likely some planetary conjunction that only those from the east interpreted astrologically. Or perhaps some nova, a new star but not a supernova, that those who studied the skies recognized as not always having been there.

That's a rabbit trail I've gone down in the past.  Let's not go there on the forum. 

[kurumi]

Luke and Mark obviously shared the same source material, or else one borrowed from the other

This is a fun historical rabbit hole for anyone inclined. It's widely agreed that Mark was first, and both Matthew and Luke borrow from Mark. (John is its own book, not part of the Synoptic Gospels.) Under debate is the idea of another author, named Q, that Matthew and Luke also borrow from, based on the "Double Tradition" pie slices in the chart below.

[kphoger]

Aaaaaaaand, now we're in the weeds.

[Rothman]

Eh, the whole "It wasn't an inn" thing has certainly made the rounds on the Internet this past holiday season.  kphoger's text is quite similar to a pastor's sermon that was passed around through Christian circles online.

Wonder how the interpretation will change next year.

[kphoger]

Eh, the whole "It wasn't an inn" thing has certainly made the rounds on the Internet this past holiday season.  kphoger's text is quite similar to a pastor's sermon that was passed around through Christian circles online.

Wonder how the interpretation will change next year.

meh.  Whatever.  I've been studying it for a few years now.  It's not like I just stumbled upon something last month.

[formulanone]

Aaaaaaaand, now we're in the weeds.

Bruh, you brought up Catalunya or some such.

[Rothman]

Eh, the whole "It wasn't an inn" thing has certainly made the rounds on the Internet this past holiday season.  kphoger's text is quite similar to a pastor's sermon that was passed around through Christian circles online.

Wonder how the interpretation will change next year.

meh.  Whatever.  I've been studying it for a few years now.  It's not like I just stumbled upon something last month.

And yet, the mistranslation hit the news over just this past year.  For example, a Lutheran sermon sent to me by a relative right around Christmastime:

Merry Christmas friends!
Grace and peace to you on this Christmas eve.

A few weeks ago
My partner, Ben, and I were at the Olympia Farmers market
We were sipping cups of peppermint hot chocolate from Batdorf Coffee
Lynch Creek farms had their selection of wreaths that made the whole place smell like evergreens
There were free samples of pickled veggies, fruity jellies, and nice holiday mead
A band was playing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,
while it seemed all of Olympia was out shopping,
shoulder to shoulder
on this sunny afternoon between rainstorms

I stood in the middle of it,
Looking around and thinking
This is it
This is that Hallmark movie feeling
This is the twinkly sweet Christmas magic
This is one of those moments that makes you think
There truly is no place like home

It's funny, because this Christmas story we just heard
The one about Mary and Joseph and angels and shepherds
Is a very different story
It doesn't fit the wonder of the season
Yet, we've all heard it so many times
and sung the songs so many times
That it's easy to overlay the nostalgia and the magic on top of something so familiar

But this story is actually quite dark
It's really intense
And that's what makes it so powerful

Now I know you all came here tonight hoping for cutting edge biblical scholarship
Well I will not disappoint
This year there's been buzz amongst the bible scholars
Which believe it or not, bible scholars do not get a lot of buzz in their life
If you choose bible scholar as a profession,
you are not likely to experience joy very often

Scholars have been buzzing this year over a mistranslation in Luke 2
For many centuries this story has been interpreted that there was no room at the inn
The big news this year is that the word "Inn" may be a mistranslation
When we say "inn" we often picture a first century hotel
Perhaps we cast an innkeeper in our nativity pageants
Or we may even make jokes that if only Joseph had made reservations

But what scholars discovered
is that the Greek word for this kind of inn—the hotel kind—is  Pandochieon
and that word doesn't appear in any of the ancient manuscripts of Luke

You didn't know Pastor Zach was going to go all Dan Brown on the christmas story did you?

The word we find here in Luke 2 is Kataluma
There was no room in the kataluma
And Kataluma means "guest room"
This word appears many times in the gospels
and in all other instances it gets translated as guest room
For example, Jesus eats his last super with his disciples in the Kataluma... the guest room

This is also supported by archaeology
Dig sites across first world Palestine have revealed
that the average family dwelling had a foyer on it,
where animals were kept,
and then a back living area behind that,
with a seperate room attached to the living area for entertaining guests
This was the kataluma

So, the Luke 2 text really says, that Jesus was born in the foyer, the entry way
Because there was no room for him in the family guest room
In other words, Jesus was born in the "garage" because Joseph's family did not have room for them in the house

Now if this is a better translation
I imagine there may be lots of reasons for this
Perhaps Joseph was one of 12 kids and there was just no room when everyone came home at the same time
Maybe a rowdy game of spin the draddle had broken out just seconds before Mary went into labor
Who knows?

But I have a different theory
I wonder if they weren't welcome in the house
Maybe it was the stigma of coming home with a pregnant fiancé
Maybe no one wanted to explain that situation to the kids already asleep on the floor.
Maybe Joseph had been gone too long, and people weren't quite sure who he was anymore.
Maybe Mary talked too much, or too little...the family just didn't click with the new girlfriend
Maybe family stories had hardened— old arguments, old resentments,
the kind no one remembers starting but everyone remembers keeping.
Maybe there was someone missing—and the emotion hanging in the air just felt like too much.
Maybe saying "there was no room" was the kindest way to say,
This is complicated—and we don't know what to do with each other.

Has anyone here ever had your family say, or made you feel
like there's no room for you?
In my tenure as a Pastor,
Lots of families have stories about who is welcome and who isn't
There are a lot of awkward tensions that hang in the air when everyone comes home
And if we are honest
No one can wound us quite like family can
In more ways than one
There's no place like home

And I can't help but notice an interesting parallel
This story starts with a census... a question of who belongs in society and who doesn't
And this new scholarship implies that even in the family home, this question of belonging shows up again
Is that part of what this story is all about?
How do we make room for God in this world?
How do we make room for love in our society... in our families... in this world?

But the good news of Christmas is that God does not wait for there to be room
God did not come into a world that was kind and accepting and good
...God came into a dystopian world that was drawing lines between citizens and outsiders
God was not born into a family where everyone got along
...God was born into a lineage of dysfunction and estrangement

And in this story's third act
An army of angels appears to announce that Jesus has been born
That he is the Messiah—which means he is the king who has come
to unite all of God's people.

But the angels don't announce this bold news to other kings
They don't announce it in the courts
They don't even announce it in the temple or to the priests
They announce it to shepherds

The first people who are told Jesus has come are Shepherds
unhoused folx
They too are outsiders
There was no room for shepherds in society
There wasn't even a family guest room that would have them
And these are the people who first to hear the news of what God is doing
They are the first to recognize Jesus for who he is

Do you see the pattern?
This story does not fit the Hallmark movie tropes
Over and over again, this story lifts up people who do not belong
Who is a citizen and who is not
Whose family welcomes them and whose doesn't
Who has a house and who has society left houseless
And every single time... God shows up among those who are outcast

So
if this Christmas you feel like your story isn't all it should be
If you feel like there is no place you belong
If your life feels a little too dark or little too intense
Then good news
God is with you
God has walked in those shoes

So much so, that this God who was born a baby will never fit in
Jesus' whole life will be spent as an outsider
And the world will eventually get rid of him
But that's not the end of the story
(You'll have to come back for Holy Week if you want to hear that part)

This is Christmas!
This is the good news of Christmas
That the promise that God is with us has always been true
and will always be true
Even in the darkest, most intense, and dystopian parts of our lives
Even when society or our families let us down,
Even when home doesn't feel like home
God will never abandon us
God will go with us every day and everywhere we go
Through sadness and loss
Through conflicts and reunions
Through joy and birth and life and death
God will be God
and God will be with you!

But the good news of Christmas doesn't stop there.
This is the "but wait—there's more" part of the sermon.

I want to tell you a small ordinary story—because that's often how we understand God best.
I saw a video on TikTok this week
about a man who had spent much of his life believing he didn't belong.
He was gay.
He'd been estranged from his family for over 30 years.
And on one particular Christmas Eve,
he was carrying more hopelessness than he knew what to do with.

That night, he went for a walk.
And when he heard music coming from a church,
he stepped inside—just planning to listen for a moment.

The congregation was singing Silent Night by candlelight.
And before he could fade back out the door,
a woman approached him and said,
"Hey—what's your name?"
She handed him a candle.
She lit it.
And they sang together.
After the service, she took him around the room,
introducing him to people and saying,
"This is my friend."
And again and again he heard the same words:
"We're so glad you are here."

Years later, he still tells that story every Christmas Eve—and now on TikTok.
He remembers the candle.
He remembers the kindness.
And he remembers those words:
We are so glad you are here.

If you are someone who is hurting tonight,
If you are in a season where home doesn't feel like home
Or you don't feel like you belong,
if you are carrying grief, loneliness, or doubt—
please hear this clearly:
We are so glad you are here.

Now, not everyone who is hurting finds such a moment of joy in their hopelessness.
And if we are honest, the church hasn't always been a place of welcome for everyone.
But Jesus did not come to save the Church.
Jesus came to dwell among people.
And our calling—as people who follow Jesus—is to live in a way that makes room.

There are people in our pews, our streets, and our city
who have heard their whole lives,
there's no room for you.
And we are given a sacred task:
to proclaim our baptismal promise,
Rejoice. You belong. We are so glad that you are here.

Because this is what we believe as Lutherans:
God loves you as you are.

When the angels sing, "Peace among those whom God favors,"
they mean you.
You are God's beloved.
And when we know that—
when we trust that God has already chosen us—
we are freed from fear.
Free to love.
Free to notice.
Free to let Christ be born again and again and again
in all the ways we show up for one another.

Friends, we are so blessed to live in this city of Olympia.
And we as Gloria Dei have a special opportunity to love this city well!

So, this Christmas season, and in the year ahead,
may we make room for one another
may we notice the Christ in each other—
in neighborly smiles, in helping hands, in moments of togetherness.
May we notice the tears of grief, and those that feel like they don't belong.
May we welcome strangers with open doors and open hearts.
May we take the risk to get to know new people, new faces, new stories, and new songs.
And may we build the kind of community that makes people say,
This is the kingdom of God.
This is home.
And there's no place like home.

Amen?
Amen!

[kphoger]

... But what scholars discovered ...

Baloney.  As I've already shown, it goes at least all the way back to the very first complete English translation of the Bible, back in the 14th Century.  They didn't just discover it.  Apparently it just became popular to talk about.  One of the articles I was reading about it a year ago was first printed in 1979.  "Discovered", my foot.

But now you got me thinking, so I decided to find the oldest known translation of Luke into English at all:  the Wessex Gospels, which were a translation from Old Latin into a West Anglo-Saxon (Old English) dialect of Northumbria, from approximately AD 990.  I checked the AD 1175 edition and, in that version, it says, "for þan þe hyo næfden rum on cumene huse."  In modern English, that would be something like "guest house", which could refer either to a public inn or to private accommodations.  The Latin word that it's a translation of is diversorium, which similarly can refer to either a public inn or to private accommodations.  So, pre-Wycliffe translations do appear to leave room for interpretation or misunderstanding.