1st Day of Christmas

Thank you all so much for your 12 Days of Christmas ideas! There were a lot of good ones, and I didn't know which one to pick, but I think I've got it figured out now.

For each day of HNED's 12 Days of Christmas, I'll post about one of my favorite Christmas songs as well as about a new film trailer (because, let's face it, there are a lot of pretty awesome movies coming out soon and many people like to celebrate holidays with movies). I would have posted about my favorite Christmas films, but I haven't seen very many because they tend to be so predictable and cliche. There are definitely a few that I like, but not enough to last twelve days. =)

So, without further ado, let the 12 Days of Christmas begin!


On the 1st Day of Christmas, I love to listen to Silent Night.

I think Silent Night is one of those few songs that I've loved as far back as I can remember. It's such a calm yet extremely poignant song that clearly points to the birth of Jesus, the world's Savior.

(In English...)

(...and in German.)

Silent Night is an Austrian Christmas carol that was written by a priest named Joseph Mohr in 1816 and composed by Franz Xaver Gruber in 1818. It "was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 at the St. Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf bei Salzburg" (thank you, Wikipedia!). The song has been translated into over 140 languages as of today. But probably the most amazing thing that happened with this carol was during World War I.

On the Western Front in the Christmas of 1914, German soldiers began decorating their trench line and singing Christmas carols, including Silent Night. The British and French soldiers on the other side of No-Man's Land heard the Germans singing, and responded by singing their own Christmas carols, and Silent Night was one of the only carols that all three nations jointly knew. The joint singing led some soldiers on both sides to venture out into No-Man's Land and exchange gifts, Christmas greetings, to bury their dead, and even to play football together. This time was known as the Christmas Truce, and in some places along the Western Front it lasted for a whole week.

Isn't it amazing that God used simple Christmas carols to bring two polar opposite sides together, to bring peace to a place where death and disease were constant for years on end? These carols aren't just songs that we sing for one month out of the year. They are praises to God, and He can do wonderful things with them. Sometimes I wish that I could have been standing there in No-Man's Land on that day in 1914, listening to millions of men's voices in three different languages singing praise to their Savior, Jesus Christ, for coming to earth that Christmas Day so long ago. Sometimes when I sing Silent Night, I wish I could hear the carol being sung simultaneously in English, German, and French as the soldiers put their guns down and went out past the barbed wire to meet each other face to face. I wonder what that must have felt like to be there, to hear and see the miracle of peace on that day.

It really was a silent night.


And on the 1st Day of Christmas, Warner Bros. gave to me a Pacific Rim trailer.

I saw this trailer last night at The Hobbit midnight showing, and it was pretty awesome! Not exactly "Christmas-y" in the traditional sense, but some people like to celebrate with sci-fi movies. =)

Pacific Rim has your generic aliens vs. humans plot where the aliens attack us first, but it also mixes elements of Avatar (humans "driving" other organisms, in this case huge robot mechs), Wrath of the Titans (the aliens are huge Titan-esque monsters), and Transformers.

What do you guys think of the trailer?




 - Edessa, signing off