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Date Posted: 12:22:00 12/15/07 Sat GMT-5
Author: Lori
Author Host/IP: S0106001a70540c2c.cg.shawcable.net / 68.145.251.17
Subject: Re: My entry - you had no trouble following my 'act' at all.
In reply to: DianeG 's message, "Re: My entry - you had no trouble following my 'act' at all." on 06:52:45 12/15/07 Sat GMT-5

Thank you, Diane, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Maybe I should expand on it, send it somewhere else. But later. BTW, here's a bit of a Wikipedia article on the use of "Xmas":

The word "Christ" and its compounds, including "Christmas", have been abbreviated for at least the past 1,000 years, long before the modern "Xmas" was commonly used. "Christ" was often written as "XP" or "Xt"; there are references in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as far back as 1021 AD. This X and P arose as the uppercase forms of the Greek letters ÷ and ñ), used in ancient abbreviations for ×ñéóôïò (Greek for "Christ"), and are still widely seen in many Eastern Orthodox icons depicting Jesus Christ. The labarum, an amalgamation of the two Greek letters rendered as ☧, is a symbol often used to represent Christ in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian Churches.

Have a merry one :)

Lori

>Good stuff, Lori! You could even expand on it and send
>it somewhere. I love this part, "the arts are our way
>of expressing the sacred inside ourselves" because
>it's exactly how I see the arts, too.
>
>Cheers! Have a happy "Xmas"
>
>Diane
>
>Well, Diane is a hard act to follow, but here goes:
>>
>>Xmas, Me and the Piano
>>
>>
>> I like to play piano, but I’m not very good at it.
>>It’s pretty much the first thing to be dropped from
>>the to-do list at busy times, along with my strength
>>training program. But during the holiday season
>>especially I try to make time to play. Because more
>>than anything else, more than shopping or sending Xmas
>>cards or baking or wrapping gifts, music puts me in
>>the holiday frame of mind.
>> I practice 20 – 30 minutes, Monday through Friday,
>>for most of the school year, more sporadically through
>>the summer. Although I’d wanted to play piano as a
>>child, my family didn’t get one until I was sixteen. I
>>took lessons for a year (with an extremely chatty
>>teacher who spent most of my lesson talking!) but by
>>then I was already playing guitar in a punk band and
>>didn’t really have the time or the inclination for
>>lessons (or the teacher). I did continue to play on my
>>own on and off until I left home when I was
>>twenty-three, but then didn’t play again until my mom
>>gave us the old piano almost nine years ago. Usually I
>>try to play before I write, to get my right brain
>>going. Every year, a few weeks before Xmas, I pick out
>>three songs to practice for the season and I really
>>enjoy them. This year, it’s “Have Yourself a Merry
>>Little Christmas”, “O Holy Night” and “It Came Upon
>>the Midnight Clear”.
>> Playing these songs at Xmas time connects me to
>>childhood, to a time when life seemed simpler. When I
>>went to church and just believed what they were
>>saying, before it even crossed my mind to do
>>otherwise. I was brought up a Catholic, though I
>>haven’t been inside a church in close to twenty years.
>>It’s been a long time since any organized religion has
>>made any sense to me. But I think the arts are our way
>>of expressing the sacred inside ourselves, and it
>>seems to me that music is a very direct expression of
>>this. I also think people who live in northern climes
>>have needed, for many thousands of years, to take time
>>in the dark of the year to reflect on beauty, love,
>>the meaning of life, and one way we do this is through
>>the arts.
>> Or at least this is what I tell myself as I plonk my
>>way through these songs. Slowly, slowly, year by year,
>>I get better at them. But it’s not really important to
>>me whether I could perform them for a room full of
>>people or not (and I couldn’t). I just enjoy playing
>>them, and there’s no pressure, unlike so much else
>>about the season. You have to like that.

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