Seasons Greetings

Fact - Santa Claus didn’t come down the chimney, ride flying reindeer, have magical powers, or say ho ho ho or dole out coal …. He was a catholic priest who inherited a small fortune from his parents he gave the fortune away to poor children by putting A gold coin in there shoes (which were left by the front door each night) the ledged comes from the fact that he gave the money anonymously and when he died other good standing people in the community would once a year on the anniversary of Their saviour place coins in poor children’s shoes and say it was the work of saint Nicholas which was translated in to other languages including Dutch where his name became Sinterklaas which then got translated in to the English Santa Claus his feast day is the 5th of December and his relics were translated on may 9th he is the patron saint of sailors merchants pawnbrokers archer children students in Greece Belgium Romania Bulgaria Georgia Russia the republic of Macedonia Slovakia Serbia and Montenegro saint of Barranquilla Bari Amsterdam Beit Jala Siggiewi Liverpool and New York he died December 6th 364 AD in Myra, Lycia

And calling him Santa is the incorrect salutation because the rough translation of Santa is saint so when saying “come on kids lets go visit Santa” your actually saying “ come on kids lets go visit saint”
Also saint Nicholas never judged people as naught or nice he practiced the Christian belief of charity to all (as long as your Christian)

Chanukah on the other hand which is 166 years older than Jesus contains what my people believe to be an actual miracle
The word on the street (and among academic scholars ) is that in 200 BCE Israel was an autonomous kingdom with in the Syrian empire
In 175 BCE Antiochus (anti-ock-us) IV (4) Epiphanes (epifan-ees) ascended to the throne of the Syrian empire he looted the temple in Jerusalem and the Jews were massacred and Judaism was almost outlawed
Then in 167 BCE Antiochus ordered that alters of Zeus be made in all the temples through out Judea (Israel) along with busts of himself and that Hellenistic practices take place in the temples (sacrificing goats pigs and sheep to Greek gods)
It was at this time that a rabbi named Mattathias and his five sons Jochanan Simeon Eleazar Jonathan and Judah led a rebellion
By 166 BCE Mattathias had died and his son Judah took his place as leader of the rebellion he was known as Judah Maccabee (Judah the hammer)
In 165 BCE the Jews had won and the temple was liberated and rededicated Chanukah or Hunnaka was instituted by Judah to celebrate this only then did a “miracle” occur
When the temple was rededicated they had to relight the eternal lamp (a symbol of gods eternal presence) which had burnt out during the rebellion
They only had enough oil for the lamp for one day then when lit the lamp burnt for eight days while they made more oil

If you ask me this is one of the more believable miracles that has happened notice how it’s believable there is no defying the laws of physics (walking on water) reanimation of the dead (Lazarus) or shooting laser beams from the eyes (I’m joking)

Before you blindly follow something this festive season why not stop a moment and think about whats really going on