Merry Christmas!

The Christmas story, as told in three different ways.

1. “How the Woke Stole Christmas”

From the RT. Just a heads-up. RT was formerly known as Russia Today. It’s a tv network funded by…duh…the Russian government.

Don’t let the Woke steal the Christmas spirit in you.

2. “The Digital Story of the Nativity”

Is this from Google? I don’t know who the original creator was, but Gmail, Google, Foursquare, and Facebook figured prominently in this YT clip.

To me, their slogan, “Times change, the feeling remains the same,” turned out to be portentous. Eleven years after it was first shown, this can now be updated with references to Zoom, AirBnB, Twitter (or Parler, lol), Tiktok, Netflix, and texting instead of emailing.

3. “The Christ Child, A Nativity Story”

From the Mormon Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints (LDS).

Note: as veteran kdrama viewers, we don’t need no subs to understand the dialogue.

You can google it if the links don’t work.

I like the third one best of all because of its truth. Despite its various retelling and interpretation, the story never ever gets old. The Christmas story is still the greatest story ever told.

So what’s my Christmas wish for all of us this year?

I’ll echo my favorite pope, Pope Benedict XVI, who, ten years ago, declared his three wishes for us.

First, he wished that “our gaze, that of our minds and our hearts, rest not only on the horizon of this world, on its material things, but that it in some way, like this tree that tends upward, be directed toward God.”

As you know, this is especially hard for me because all that’s holy in me wouldn’t fill a thimble. Nevertheless, I shall try…

Second, he wished that we “recall that we also need a light to illumine the path of our lives and to give us hope, especially in this time in which we feel so greatly the weight of difficulties, of problems, of suffering, and it seems that we are enshrouded in a veil of darkness. But what light can truly illuminate our hearts and give us a firm and sure hope? It is the Child whom we contemplate on Christmas, in a poor and humble manger, because He is the Lord who draws near to each of us and asks that we receive Him anew in our lives, asks us to want Him, to trust in Him, to feel His presence, that He is accompanying us, sustaining us, and helping us.”

In short, we must not forget that Christ is the reason for Christmas. It’s easy to forget that the Christmas tree is a giving tree, not because of the gaily-wrapped presents under it, but because of what it symbolized.

Third, he wished that each of us contribute something of that light to the spheres in which we live: our families, our jobs, our neighborhoods, towns and cities.”

This, I think, is doable in small increments.

Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones!

24 Comments On “Merry Christmas!”

  1. Wishing everyone a joyous celebration with your loved ones. ❤❤❤

    Stay safe, take care!

  2. Merry Christmas! Here is my own arrangement of traditional Christmas carols from Ireland, Brittany, and Scotland:

  3. GrowingBeautifully (GB)

    Than you @pkml3, @Miracle and @Snow Flower.

    @Snow Flower, Lovely arrangement! It brought peace to my Christmas morning.

    A truly Happy and Peaceful Christmas everyone!! 🤶 🎄 🥳
    🍰 🥧 🌰 🍜 🧋 🍰 🥧 🌰 🍜 🧋 🍰 🥧 🌰 🍜 🧋

  4. This will be short. Blessed Christmas to all. Off to family Christmas lunch. Praying that it will just be a super spread and NOT a super spreader. 😬

  5. GrowingBeautifully (GB)

    A Happy and Holy Christmas @nrllee! May your celebrations (and lunch) bring you fullness of joy and a comfortable fullness in the tum-tum!

    We’re all the good and quiet sort, so we’ll be home for most of the Christmas season. 🙂 Cheers!

  6. Merry Christmas to All!

    Thank you for that beautiful arrangement, @Snow Flower! I love hearing traditional Christmas music from all around the world.

  7. Merry Christmas/Feliz Navidad

    Thank you @snowflower for that beautiful arrangement. It is so relaxing.
    Thank you @pm3 for sharing your wishes.

    It is almost 1 am here. Finished our Christmas Eve dinner and celebration.
    Wishing everyone a happy and safe holiday.

  8. Have a wonderful christmas holiday with your family and your loved ones everyone!!

    Wish you all an amazing and peaceful celebration🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷

  9. GrowingBeautifully (GB)

    Same to you @moonstar512 @Carolina @Table122000!
    🙄 🌈 🎄 🎁 🎈 🎊 🎉 🎁 🙄 🌈 🎄 🎁 🎈 🌈 🙄

  10. @SnowFlower exactly what I needed to calm my frazzled spirit after too much rushing about and the frenzy of the festive season. For some reason my mind went to Narnia when Lucy first walked into that wardrobe.

    Thanks for the well wishes @GB. My favourite time is the return home to quiet. After the busy meet up at my in-laws for lunch (they are a rowdy fun bunch), I love returning home to the quiet. 🙂

  11. From my family to everyone here in BODs, Have a very Merry Christmas! May the Baby Jesus remind us of that light, that hope and that humility to give thanks for his coming to us. I hope and pray for a joyful and safe Christmas. 🎄🎄🎄

    Today I did video calls to my Aunties, Uncles and cousins and it made me extra happy. ☺️Thank God for that technology.

  12. I miss posting here. After HP and HomeCha, I haven’t watched much. There was Be Melodramatic which I enjoyed. Now, I’m watching Goblin thanks to your recomm; though I can’t keep up with the group watch. I’m still on Episode 5.

    Hope you are all doing well. Merry Christmas wonderful BoD people!

  13. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas 🎄 I’m on vacation and haven’t been able to catch up on dramas and BoD. Sending you all warmest wishes🤗🤗

  14. Merry Christmas BoD!!! Happy birthday Jesus. May we all be the light in our little corner of this world.

    Beautiful piece, @Snowflower. Thanks for sharing.

  15. Beautiful piece @snowflower. Showed it to my daughter who wanted to learn piano and got her motivated to be like you one day! 😊

    Merry Christmas @packmule3 and BOD! This year has been a very challenging year and immensely grateful for this little community.
    I hope you all get to spend quality time with those who matter the most, whether online or in person.

    Keep safe!

  16. Merry Christmas and happy holidays, lovely BODers ❤️🍰🍪🥂 This year has flown by in the blink of an eye, can’t even keep track of time anymore with so many COVID waves coming and going, feels like all of this started only yesterday 🙁 May next year bring some sort of stability to our lives, that’s my only prayer and hope. Stay safe, chingus and hope to catch up on more kdramas with you all 🥰

  17. Merry Christmas @Packmule3 and B.O.D’ers!

    I do hope you had a great day yesterday and you enjoyed your day with your family and your loved ones. If in any case you didn’t, I do hope that you will do so shortly.

    Also, a wish for Christmas and New Year: I do hope that you keep your Light in your heart lit in a world that challenge us everyday and we need to stay strong. Don’t be afraid to be yourselves and laugh as you much as you can.

    Be safe Chingus! Smile and think positively. <3

  18. @Packmule3, thank you for this thread, and the three videos you linked. It was fun to see different perspectives on the holiday. It was also a blessing to be reminded what and why we celebrate.

    @Snow_Flower, thank you for sharing your musical talent with us. One of the things that moves me most at Christmas is the music: how it ties me to times and places far distant. Watching you perform your arrangement transported me by your side on the piano bench, from whence we flew for brief visits to Ireland, Brittany, and Scotland.

    I’ve had a quiet holiday season so far. It’s just my hubby and me, as our daughters are grown and out of the house. We’ll be seeing them both shortly after New Year. But decorating my Christmas tree brought special memories of times, people, places, and pets with each ornament I hung.

    As 2021 comes to a close, I am deeply grateful for the community at BoD: our shared love of Asian (mostly Korean) dramas, and the respect we have for one another as we discuss them. Over and over I’ve been amazed by others’ contributions to the conversations.

    As 2022 dawns, I wish for all my BoD friends health and happiness throughout our next trip around the sun!

  19. Hello, I come to wish a little late a Merry Christmas to all users of the blog.
    So rather, I hope you had a happy xmas celebration with your family.
    I don’t watch dramas for a while, so I don’t spend much time on the blog.

    I did see 3 or 4 episodes of Yumi cells though. Although it’s well done, it’s hard to get involved. The drama is not boring per se, but it has a soporific effect. It looks like my favorite writer is on a bit of a vacation on this, or needs time and rest before developing a script worthy of her potential.

  20. GrowingBeautifully (GB)

    My dear @WEnchanteur! How lovely to see you! A warm welcome back. It’s good to know you are well and able to watch a bit of drama from time to time. I hope you will come often to throw your virtual hands into the air over or applaud most happily SJJ Shows (past and future!).

    As you’ve probably read, we planned to rewatch ‘W – Two Worlds’ but it didn’t feel ‘right’ without you. We opted for ‘Goblin’ instead and are rewatching it currently, hoping that you would be back to join us for the ‘W – Two Worlds’ rewatch before too long. We’ve got about 8 more episodes of ‘Goblin’ to go (we resume on 8 January 2022) for our Saturday rewatch party. After that, if you could join us, we will jump into ‘W – Two Worlds’.

    I found Yumi’s Cells an innovative way to examine our thought processes. It made graphic the battle that goes on in our minds and those between mind and heart, and generally struck true. On the whole I felt SJJ did a good job with it. It might not have had the grandiose sweep of ‘Alhambra’ or ‘W’ or ‘Nine : 9 Times Time Travel’ but she went into micro aspects this time with the same depth of attention to her dramaverse logic. There’s a universe of ‘time travel’ both inside and outside us, and I’m pleased SJJ covered both.

    S’il vous plaît visitez à nouveau et restez un moment.

    Please do visit again and stay a while, and let us know how you are. Cheers!

  21. @Wenchanteur – holiday greetings to you!!! You are missed in our threads. Glad to hear you are ok and still able to see some dramas. I did not realize that Yumi’s writer is the same one as W and Alhambra. I still find the perspective fresh and engaging especially with KGE as the actress. Keep us updated if you want to have W as our next rewatch. The leading lady in W is in Happiness, which is another 2021 kdrama I find memorable. It would be good to see her again in W!

    Happy new year dear BoD!!! Love and hugs!!! 💗💗💗

  22. @PM3 and peaches – happy 4th anniversary to BoD site and community!!!
    Cheers 🥂
    Happy to be here!

  23. GrowingBeautifully (GB)

    Hi @Janey! I went to check and yes it looks like it is just about BOD’s 4th anniversary. Happy Anniversary everyone!! 😄 🥳

  24. Hey @WEnchanteur!

    I am glad you came over here for wishes!
    As the Ladies said above, we are all waiting for you to be active, in order to start “W:Two Worlds”. I do hope you are okay!

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