“1m Calendar Set Christinas
Date on Dee. 25

ie. know that our calen-
dar :

ig 2 relatively

"ar to fastitution, But do

we tealize that in earliest
times tmas wos cele-
brated on January 137 It is

stil] so celebrated by the
Armenian

—and it was only in 1762,
with the final change to the
‘Gregorian calendar, that
the rearra! ement of. dates

Bove Cc
ber 2
' _ Some. church people | in

: land were very: in
nat when this change took

tne Day: on

lace — yeelung that som

-how they had been robbed" _
of 11 days and the corre- .-

sponding wa es. Some of

noting whether or not the

tree called the Glastonbury .. .
Thorn (supposedly planted —

by Joseph of Arimathea)
would flower on the new
date or the old, Sometimes

the free bloomed ononeday
- and sometilm
- e¥, however, depending on.
the weather — so that sup- ©
porters of both dates man- ©
aged to keep up the quarrel .
_ for some time. .

es on the oth-

we vl be closed.

‘500
Dec, 2th nts Febru

d out if the -
ney date were correct by . .

(Above) Tue ADORATION OF
' THE Maci — French tap-
estry of the late 15th Cen- -
tury, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Lillian...
Stokes Gillespie Collection. ©

' PROOF OF PUDDING?
In “European. countries,
finding an almond in the hol-
iday pudding means marriage-.
"next, year. co -

Arrival of the Magi ;

In the West, however, the
Particular commemoration
assigned to Epiphany. was
the visit of the Magi,.Dur
ing the Middle Ages, the
Epiphany festival was wide-
ly observed by the perform-
ance of miracle playsin‘the .
churches about the Three
Kin 's or Magi. Particularly

mgland, the day was
hatked by dramatic pro-
ductions, though not neces-
sarily religious ones. and
this custom survived into
the Elizabethan period,
Shakespeare took.the popu-
lar name of Twelfth Night
for his play. of that : title,
which was written to be
performed on that date.

Since Epiphany concludes
the Yuletide festivities, and:
its date colncides : with
many ancient pagan cus- ©
toms, it was often celebrat-
ed with strange ceremonies .
in which those customs min-
gled with Christian. rites.
Some of these old ceremo-
nies still exist in parts of
Europe, where fixed rituals
may have -origins, -often
with an overlay of magic,
that are lost: in the past,

Ree GET BUSY a
‘Christmas Eve,’ bees
hum n holiday carols and melo- ;

«dies, says legend..-

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