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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us here at Wonderopolis! Celebrate with friends and family members by checking out the following activities:

• Many people say Merry Christmas, but what other holiday sayings and customs are special to your family? There are many different holidays celebrated at this time of year. Sit down with friends and family members, make some hot cocoa, and talk about the holiday traditions and sayings that make the holidays a special time for your family. Enjoy sharing old memories and look forward to creating new ones!
• Do you like to have fun with language? Sit down with a friend or family member and come up with some other variations on popular sayings. Feel free to be as creative and funny as you want to be. You can even try out some of your new sayings on unsuspecting friends. Know someone with a birthday coming up soon? What will they think when you wish them a Merry Birthday? Have fun playing with language in new and interesting ways!
• Up for a challenge? Learn how to say Merry Christmas in different foreign languages! Do you want to greet someone this Christmas in Afrikaans? Do it! Or how about Vietnamese, Swedish, Portuguese, or Thai? Just jump online and check out the list of Merry Christmas in dozens of different languages. Pick a few, learn the saying, and share them with friends and family members. If you know someone who speaks one of these foreign languages, ask them for help with proper pronunciation! You can do the same for other holidays, such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.

christmas gift There is also a widespread European tradition of giving gifts to the poor on St Stephen’s Day, 26 December. In the UK this is called Boxing Day, possibly after the alms box placed in the parish church to collect donations for the poor, or the box of gifts given to servants by their employers each year.

Indeed, the tradition of giving gifts to servants on the 26 December appears to go back a long way. The accounts of Battle Abbey from the 13th and early 16th-century record spending each year on Christmas presents for the monastery’s servants. Mid-15th century accounts for Fountains Abbey also record expenditure of Christmas gifts for servants.

In the 1850s Queen Victoria writes in her diary of walking to the kennels at Windsor Castle with the children to give Christmas Boxes to the ‘little McDonalds’. The servants at Audley End in Es******* in the 1860s had Boxing Day off and were given a dinner of beef, mutton and the usual Christmas fare in the servants’ hall along with their families.

In the mid-20th century Sylvia Grant-Dalton of Brodsworth Hall, South Yorkshire continued the tradition of seasonal philanthropy, throwing regular Christmas parties for children from the local Brodsworth School, where they each got a present from the Christmas tree and shared a delicious
spread of party food.

How are hand-blown Christmas ornaments made?

christmas eve During the Reformation in 16th- and 17th-century Europe, many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or Christkindl, and the date of giving gifts changed from 6 December to Christmas Eve.^[32] It is the night when Santa Claus makes his rounds delivering gifts to good children. Many trace the custom of giving gifts to the Magi who brought gifts for the Christ child in the manger.

In Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, where Saint Nicholas (sv. Mikuláš/szent Mikulás) gives gifts on 6 December, the Christmas gift-giver is the Child Jesus (Ježíšek in Czech, Jézuska in Hungarian, Ježiško in Slovak and Isusek in Croatian).^[33]

In Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland, presents are traditionally exchanged on the evening of 24 December. Children are commonly told that presents were brought either by the Christkind (German for Christ child),^[34] or by the Weihnachtsmann. Both leave the gifts, but are in most families not seen doing so. In Germany, the gifts are also brought on 6 December by "the Nikolaus" with his helper Knecht Ruprecht.

In Estonia Jõuluvana, Finland Joulupukki, Denmark Julemanden, Norway Julenissen and Sweden Jultomten, personally meets children and gives presents in the evening of Christmas Eve.^[35][36]

In Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, the Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Quebec (French Canada), Romania, Uruguay, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland, Christmas presents are opened mostly on the evening of the 24th – following German tradition, this is also the practice among the British Royal Family since it was introduced by Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort^[37][38] – while in Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Malta, English Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, this occurs mostly on the morning of Christmas Day.

In other Latin American countries, people stay awake until midnight, when they open the presents.

In Spain, gifts are traditionally opened on the morning of 6 January, Epiphany day ("Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos"),^[39] though in some other countries, like Mexico, Argentina and Uruguay, people receive presents both around Christmas and on the morning of Epiphany day.

In Belgium and the Netherlands Saint Nicholas or Sinterklaas and his companion Zwarte Piet deliver presents to children and adults alike on the evening of 5 December, the eve of his nameday.^[40] On 24 December they go to church or watch the late-night Mass on TV, or have a meal.

xmas It’s December. Imagine you’re sitting down to write a few quick greeting cards before dashing out the door to do some last-minute holiday shopping. You scribble “Merry Xmas!” in the cards and hop to. Unfortunately, some people might find this rude or even anti-religious.

According to Dictionary.com, this shortened version of the word Christmas is often considered offensive, usually by Christians who believe the mention of Jesus Christ is being scrubbed out of the holiday. These individuals feel the holiday has already become too secular and that calling it Xmas instead of writing out or saying the full word Christmas is just another attempt to remove Christ from this special day.
The truth is Xmas isn’t a secular, disrespectful way to say Christmas. In fact, the X itself stands for Christ and has been used as a way to shorten the word Christmas since at least the year 1021.

The X in Xmas actually stands for the Greek letter X or chi. Chi is the first letter in the word Christ when written in Greek: Χριστός. So, the truth is Christ really hasn’t been removed from the term when it is shortened to Xmas. Instead, this is simply a form of reverent shorthand.

Still don’t believe? Consider the fact that a scribe from the 11^th century is regarded as the first person to have written the abbreviation, at the time being XPmas (the P standing for rho, the second letter in the word Christ when written in Greek). The scribe was probably trying to conserve parchment, which was expensive, and over time, XPmas was simply shortened to Xmas.

Before that, Constantine the Great, who was Emperor of Rome during the early 4^th century, created a military banner using XP to symbolize belief in and connection to Christ. Even now, you might still see the XP symbol in churches or carved onto religious statues. Furthermore, the word Christmas itself is also an abbreviation for the term Christ’s mass. Kind of takes the steam out of the whole irreverent argument, huh?

christmas In most European countries, gifts are exchanged on Christmas Eve, December 24, in keeping with the notion that the baby Jesus was born on the night of the 24th. The morning of December 25, however, has become the time for the exchange of gifts in North America. In 17th- and 18th-century Europe the modest exchange of gifts took place in the early hours of the 25th when the family returned home from the Christmas mass. When the evening of the 24th became the time for the exchange of gifts, the Christmas mass was set into the late afternoon of that day. In North America the centrality of the morning of the 25th of December as the time for the family to open presents has led, with the exception of Catholic and some Lutheran and Episcopal churches, to the virtual end of holding church services on that day, a striking illustration of the way societal customs influence liturgical practices.

Given the importance of Christmas as one of the major Christian feast days, most European countries observe, under Christian influence, December 26 as a second Christmas holiday. This practice recalls the ancient Christian liturgical notion that the celebration of Christmas, as well as that of Easter and of Pentecost, should last the entire week. The weeklong observance, however, was successively reduced to Christmas day and a single additional holiday on December 26.

Contemporary customs in Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy

Eastern Orthodox churches honour Christmas on December 25. However, for those that continue to use the Julian calendar for their liturgical observances, this date corresponds to January 7 on the Gregorian calendar. The churches of the Oriental Orthodox communion celebrate Christmas variously. For example, in Armenia, the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion, the church uses its own calendar; the Armenian Apostolic Church honours January 6 as Christmas. In Ethiopia, where Christianity has had a home ever since the 4th century, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church celebrates Christmas on January 7. Most of the churches of the Syriac Orthodox Patriar********e of Antioch and All the East celebrate Christmas on December 25; at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, however, the Syriac Orthodox celebrate Christmas on January 6 with the Armenian Apostolic Church. Congregations of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria follow the date of December 25 on the Julian calendar, which corresponds to Khiak 29 on the ancient Coptic calendar.

این اولین مطالب آزمایشی وبلاگ من می باشد و به زودی حذف خواهد شد.
امروز ارتباط و تبادل اطلاعات نقش بسیار مهمی در رشد و فرهنگ مردم یک کشور و جامعه را دارد و وبلاگ یکی از راه های سریع انتقال اطلاعات و ارتباط مردم یک جامعه با هم می باشد .
شما به راحتی می توانید مطالب مورد علاقه , کارهای روزمره , علم و فرهنگ را در وبلاگ خود انتشار دهید و با سایر دوستان خود به گفتگو و تبادل نظر بپردازید .

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وبلاگ یا وب‌نوشت که به آن تارنوشت، تارنگار یا بلاگ و به زبان انگلیسی(Blog) هم می‌گویند، وبلاگ حاوی اطلاعاتی مانند: گزارش روزانه، اخبار، یادداشت‌های شخصی و یا مقالات علمی مورد نظر طراح آن است. وبلاگ ترکیبی از دو کلمۀ «web» و «log» به معنای ثبت وقایع روزانه است .مطالب وبلاگ بر مبنای زمانی که ثبت شده گروهبندی و به ترتیب از تازه‌ترین رخداد به قدیم ارائه می‌گردد. نویسندهٔ ویلاگ، وب‌نویس یا تارنویس نامیده می‌شود و ممکن است بیش از یک نفر باشد، وب‌نویس به گزارش مداوم رویدادها، خاطرات، و یا عقاید یک شخص یا یک سازمان می‌پردازد. واحد مطالب در وبلاگ،پست است، معمولاً در انتهای هر مطلب، برچسب تاریخ و زمان، نام نویسنده و پیوند ثابت به آن یادداشت ثبت می‌شود. فاصلهٔ زمانی بین مطالب وبلاگ لزوماً یکسان نیست و زمان نوشته ‌شدن هر مطلب به خواست نویسندهٔ وبلاگ بستگی دارد. مطالب نوشته شده در یک وبلاگ همانند محتویات یک وب‌گاه معمولی در دسترس کاربران قرار می‌گیرد. در بیشتر موارد وبلاگ ها دارای روشی برای دسترسی به بایگانی یادداشت‌ها هستند (مثلاً دسترسی به بایگانی بر حسب تاریخ یا موضوع). بعضی از وبلاگ ها امکان جستجو برای یک واژه یا عبارت خاص را در میان مطالب به کاربر می‌دهند.