Mary had the Little Lamb

Mary had the little Lamb, who lived before His birth;
Self-existent Son of God, from Heaven He came to Earth. (Micah 5:2)

Mary had the little Lamb; see Him in yonder stall - 

Virgin-born Son of God, to save man from the Fall. (Isaiah 7:14)

Mary had the little Lamb, obedient Son of God;
Everywhere the Father led, His feet were sure to trod. (John 6:38)

Mary had the little Lamb, crucified on the tree
The rejected Son of God, He died to set men free. (1 Peter 1:18)

Mary had the little Lamb - men placed Him in the grave,
Thinking they were done with Him; to death He was no slave! (Matthew 28:6)

Mary had the little Lamb, ascended now is He;
All work on Earth is ended, our Advocate to be. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Mary had the little Lame - mystery to behold!
From the Lamb of Calvary, a Lion will unfold. (Revelation 5: 5,6)

When the Day Star comes again, of this be very sure:
It won’t be Lamb-like silence, but with the Lion’s roar. (Psalm 2:12; Revelation 19:11-16)

Marv & Marbeth Rosenthal

Copies of this poem may be used without written permission from the authors.

Some Christmas Jokes

What does Santa suffer from if he gets stuck in a chimney?

Claus-trophobia!

What will you suffer from if you eat the decorations?

Tinselitis

What happened to the man who stole an Advent Calendar?

He got 25 days!

What do they sing at a snowman’s birthday party?

Freeze a jolly good fellow!

What is the best Christmas present in the world?

A broken drum, you just can’t beat it

What did Adam say the day before Christmas?

“It’s Christmas, Eve!”

Did you hear about the man and wife in bed on Christmas night? They hear a noise above them and she says "Is that rain, dear?"

Why is it getting harder to buy Advent calendars?

Their days are numbered

How did Scrooge win the football game?

The ghost of Christmas passed!

What do you call a bunch of grand masters showing off in a hotel lobby?

Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer!

Dickens Christmas Carol - interesting words and phrases

1. Bedight - Adorned (and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.)

2. Norfolk Biffins - Red apples ( there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons,)

3. Smoking Bishop - form of mulled wine (we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!)

4. Total abstinence principle - a phrase commonly associated with teetotaling, ie never drinking any alcohol or "spirits" - it's a pun (He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards;)

5. Apoplectic opulence - apoplexy involves becoming unconscious or incapicaitated. Her eit is due to opulence, wealth or luxury (tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence)

6. Retire to Bedlam -  Bedlam was a well known lunatic asylum in London where you would spend yoour final years if you were insane (There's another fellow, my clerk with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas; I'll retire to Bedlam.)

7. Counting house - an office or building in which the accounts and money of a person or company were kept (eg on Christmas Eve - old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house)

8. Comforter -  a woollen scarf (eg Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle)

9. Forfeits - this is a parrlour game where a piece of clothing or some personal belonging is put into a pile on the flooR and can only be redeemed by doing something silly, as decided by a judge. (After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.)

10 The word scrooge originally meant to squeeze.

Seasonal Quiz 03 (Carols)

1. Which Christmas carol includes the line And glory shone around?
A O come all ye faithful
B God rest ye merry gentlemen
C While shepherds watched

2. In which country was the carol Silent night written?
A Austria
B Germany
C Switzerland

3. St Wenceslas is celebrated in the carol Good King Wenceslas (he was actually a duke not a king and should not be confused with King Wenceslas who lived three centuries later). There is an equestrian statue of him in which European city?
A Brno
B Bratislava
C Prague

4. Winchester old, Cranbrook, Martyrdom, Lyngham, Sherburne - these tunes are all commonly used for which carol?
A O come all ye faithful
B While shepherds watched
C God rest ye merry gentlemen

5. Which is the only Christmas carol that actually appears by name in Dickens A Christmas Carol?
A O come all ye faithful
B God rest ye merry gentlemen
C Hark the herald angels

6. Carols from Kings Chapel, Cambridge, is an annual broadcast event. The opening carol is always the same, what is it?
A O come all ye faithful
B Once in royal David's City
C God rest ye merry gentlemen

7. What is the only other carol that always features in carols from Kings? 
A Hark the herald
B O come all ye faithful
C While shepherds watched

8. Which carol originally written in Latin has these words for its second verse - Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, gestant puellae viscera. Deum verum, genitum non factum?
A Good Christian men rejoice
B Veni veni Emmanuel
C O come all ye faithful

9. Infant holy, infant lowly was originally written in what language?
A German
B French
C Polish

10. Child in the manger was originally written in what language?
A Gaelic
B Welsh
C Cornish

11. Entre le bœuf et l'âne gris is a very old French hymn. What does the opening line mean in English?
A Between the ox and the grey donkey
B Between the beef and the later course
C Come in the longed for new year

12. Which Christmas carol includes the words O holy Child of Bethlehem Descend to us, we pray
A Away in a manger
B O little town of Bethlehem
C Once in Royal David's City

Answers CACBBBACCAAB

Musical Christmas Gem 12

To round this series off with a decent total (12 not 11)

12. 2000 miles by The pretenders. I like the Pretenders in general (even though Chrissie Hind can't quite sing in tune) and this track with its jangly guitars. that very attractive arpeggio, the distant voice and the oblique and melancholic Christmas theme has been a fave over the years. It first appeared in 1983. More recently a version was issued by Coldplay. A single it was on their album Learning to crawl.

On Youtube there is a nice version here

Musical Christmas Gem 11

11. Christmas wrapping by the Waitresses. I suppose a song with a pun in it is bound to attract me. The quirkiness and interesting musicianship plus a story also helps I guess. I know it from a compilation album and indeed that is how it first surfaced in 1981 - on a punk compilation. Like most of these songs it was recorded in a hot August.

Musical Christmas Gem 10

10. Happy Xmas (War is over) by John Lennon with Yoko Ono. One of my Christmas rituals is to praise this song and to moan about Paul McCartney's execrable attempt at a Christmas number (Wonderful Christmas time). Actually as songs they are equal. The real difference is in the production and the sentiment. McCartney's features a tinny eighties synthesizer and sleigh bells and is all about having a nice time at Christmas. Lennon, on the other hand, has got Phil Spector in to do a massive production number with mandolins and children and choirs and who knows what else and with the genuine if naive aim of bringing the Vietnam War and indeed all wars to an end. As is apparent already I like a bit of seriousness in my holiday music (cf Greg Lake, The Pogues, also Jackson Browne's The Rebel Jesus on the Chieftains album I mentioned) and this one gives it in bucketfuls. Even Yoko Ono is bearable on this track. Here on wikipedia there is some more info, including the fact that at the beginning of the song the whispered words are not "Happy Christmas, Yoko. Happy Christmas, John" as I'd always assumed (giving it a rather self-indulgent flavour) but "Happy Christmas, Kyoko. Happy Christmas, Julian" ie to their kids.