Comments on: Belgium unveils its anti-Christian austerity Christmas Tree

By: Yampster

Yampster — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:28:34 +0000

How come there was one in the stable when Jesus was born then?

By: Emma

Emma — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:51:35 +0000

Christmas trees are throwbacks to Yule (a Nordic/Germanic pagan winter solstice festival). I see no reason why people should get all cross about Christianity being taken out of it. Christianity originally wasn’t even part of it.

By: Yampster

Yampster — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:35:14 +0000

Bootiful!

By: p.s.

p.s. — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 11:49:49 +0000

…makes for a nice change to the old Norfolk Christmas tradition of stuffing the turkey.

By: Yampster

Yampster — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:32:08 +0000

Das Weinachtenswurst has long been a part of our family Christmas. My wife’s family fled Switzerland during the ‘Great Neutrality’ and finally settled in the UK. They set up home in Norfolk where the tradition of the father of the house passing a Christmas sausage to his daughters still lives to this day.

By: p.s.

p.s. — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 09:35:35 +0000

It’s time the EU came up with a new symbol for Christmas that can be recognised & enjoyed by all. …something simple like a large German sausage perhaps…?

By: Anita van Heers Thomason

Anita van Heers Thomason — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 20:28:49 +0000

We immigrated to the United States when I was a child. When visiting family in the 1950s and 1960s and even later, both in Brussels and in West Flanders, a Christmas tree was considered strictly a German tradition, and pagan at that. No one in my Belgian family would have considered having a Christmas tree. Christmas at the time was considered strictly a religious holiday. A celebration sometimes took place on the 24th, but the celebration was much more likely to take place, and gifts exchanged, at the New Year. My father, who was born in 1896, told me that for the children there was St. Nicolas Day on December 6, and the children received a gift. For him, the gift was a single orange, which at that time in Belgium was considered exotic.

By: Vimes

Vimes — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 18:33:11 +0000

That’s odd – when I was there last night, watching the sound and light show, it was accompanied by traditional Christmas carols. Still, why let the facts get in the way of righteous, indignant shit-stirring?

By: Tom Jones

Tom Jones — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 04:29:35 +0000

Next year you’ll get a star-and-crescent. Then the real fun begins.