Merry Christmas – 2020

This is a tradition on the blog:

Recorder artist Victoria Rigel played two recorders at once in this 2008 performance of O Come, O Come Emmanuel. I accompanied her on the guitar. She adds the second recorder at the beginning of the second verse.

Another tradition is to feature music by Audible Waters. I usually do it on Christmas Eve but I was unusually busy this year.

Several years ago, they put together a collection of Christmas carols which I enjoy. Here is one: Angels We Have Heard on High.

Thanks for reading through the year and however you celebrate I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and holiday season.

15 thoughts on “Merry Christmas – 2020”

  1. Beautiful, Dr. Throckmorton! Thank you! A merry Christmas to you and yours, and to all those who frequent this spot. May the new year be better to us all.

  2. Christmas blessings on you, Warren.
    Like DrDJ (and others), I value the “sandbox”; catharsis has its place! And I have to confess that I do sometimes derive a rather perverse enjoyment from seeing certain people (exercise their right to) squeak, squawk and foam at the mouth when confronted with facts and common sense … Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

  3. Thank you, Professor, for this lovely start to my day!

    A Merry Christmas to you and everyone who, like me, haunts these pages!

    I must disagree respectfully with Mr. Jesperson – I don’t think the coming year will be worse than the last. Not if everyone remembers who we are and who we can be again.

    Last night It’s a Wonderful Life came on. I can’t remember when I last watched it from the beginning. Literally decades ago. And as I watched, all I could think of was how we have lost our way in America. This is not who we are. This is not what we are about. We have lost not only civility, but kindness and decency and, above all, tolerance.

    We are so much better than this. I hope in the coming year we welcome back the “better angels of our nature”.

  4. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to come for one and all. This year reminds me of the haunting Merle Haggard song, “If We Make It Through December”…at present I think we’ll make it.

  5. Thank you for the lovely music. May you have a blessed and peaceful Christmas, and a healthy and happier New Year.

  6. Thanks so much Professor for all that you have done over the years. I just finished a new song for my collection yesterday. It is in the playlist, Fum, Fum, Fum or you can hear it here: https://youtu.be/x6ByRNn8Seg

    Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all enjoy this next week. I am certain that next year is going to be worse than this last one for the world. Take a break before all that happens next year.

    1. I’m a little more hopeful than you about 2021. I believe that this very challenging year has caused many to consider what is really important in life, and that is something valuable for the future …

      1. I am very hopeful about the future, which runs the opposite of how things go in the world. Optimism is something very different. But each Christian must follow the Spirit of God wherever that leads.

        1. I understand your point. “The world” in the spiritual sense is counter to “the Spirit”. But the world is, along with everything else, God’s labour of love; while they are not OF it, Christians are, during their earthly lives, IN it (and are part of the created order). We are not called to be like rats leaving a sinking ship; rather we should, with God’s help, try to do what we can to stop the ship from sinking.

          1. That is what I am trying to do. To me it is obvious that the whole world’s ship is sinking because we have ceased to be the salt and light we are supposed to. Hence the need for blogs that report on the reality of a Christian Industrial Complex that supports liars and scammers like KP Yohannan instead of what is right. There is also the reality of the foolish donors like I once was giving Mammon to very evil narcissists destroying the harvest fields they claim to work in. This is part of the reason why God shut down all of the churches world-wide in March. Christians need to repent and until we do to a degree that satisfies God this season of judgment will not end. This is not revolutionary at all. All you have to do is read the O.T. and how God worked with his original people to see what his ways are for He does not change. I have hope because God loves us enough to discipline us. If he does not discipline us then we are not his children. A “hope” that wants God to stop the discipline short of this goal is just a wish for God to abandon us to our own delusions and sin. That is not something I want to see happen.

            The short of this is that their is a dust storm coming next year and it will be very confusing. Christians will need to be led by the Spirit in order to navigate through the hazards and minefields. If we are deaf and blind then we will not be able to stop your sinking ship from going down. We cannot call pagans to repent while we are being just like our celebrity hypocrites who refuse to do so. There is a purpose through this and it is not about us returning to the comfort we once knew without learning the lesson of how to follow a Spirit that will keep our collective ship from sinking. The ship is sinking because we Christians are the ones who damaged it in the first place. Hence, again the need for actual repentance.

            “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chron 7:14 Do notice the if that begins the verse. There are many times in history when the people refused to humble themselves and that always led to circumstances far worse than the ones we are facing. So what will we do this time?

          2. God loves us all no matter what, but I absolutely accept your implied point that we cannot know that love and experience its effects in our lives (individual and communal) unless we are at least prepared to embrace truthfulness and humility (and therefore own up to our faults and failings). I certainly agree that there is something peculiarly horrible about what you have pithily termed the “Christian Industrial Complex”, and we should be very grateful to people like Warren for his untiring efforts to oppose it and all its works.

    2. I’m a little more hopeful than you about 2021. I believe that this very challenging year has caused many to consider what is really important in life, and that is something valuable for the future …

  7. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours, Warren. Thanks for the music.

    And thanks for keeping us informed, and for providing this little sandbox for us to play in!
    Be well.

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