A recent article in our eclectic series published on the Patch focused on a column by best-selling author, commentator, and historian Hanne Nabintu Herland. Her column is entitled: “Saint Nicholas, the original and true Santa Claus.” That article about an obvious Christmas topic was provided by the WND News Center to MHProNews and is in Part I of this report. That noted, according to Chabad.org: “Chanukah (Hanukkah) 2024 starts at nightfall on December 25, 2024 and ends with nightfall on January 2, 2025.” It is not common for Hanukkah and Christmas to overlap as they happen to in 2024. According to Gemini and the Bergen Record: “The last time Hanukkah began on Christmas Day was in 2005…Before 2005, the first night of Hanukkah and Christmas Day fell on the same day in 1959 and 1921. The next time this will happen is in 2035, and then again in 2054.”
Chabad.org also states:
Chanukah is an eight-day celebration of the miraculous victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks and the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem.
…
Hanukkah (Chanukah) is the Jewish eight-day, wintertime “festival of lights,” celebrated with a nightly menorah lighting, special prayers and fried foods.
The Hebrew word Chanukah means “dedication,” and is thus named because it celebrates the rededication of the Holy Temple...
Left-leaning Wikipedia describes Christmas as follows.
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world.
Britannica says this about Christmas.
Christmas, Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus. The English term Christmas (“mass on Christ’s day”) is of fairly recent origin. …
Since the early 20th century, Christmas has also been a secular family holiday, observed by Christians and non-Christians alike, devoid of Christian elements, and marked by an increasingly elaborate exchange of gifts. In this secular Christmas celebration, a mythical figure named Santa Claus plays the pivotal role.
So, it is fairly recent that Christmas has been ‘secularized. Christianity.com frames Christmas in this fashion. Note that Jesus birth was foretold centuries before his coming, which several biblical scholars say there are over 200 references to Jesus found in the “Old Testament,” a.k.a. the Hebrew Scriptures.
Christmas is a time of spiritual reflection on the important foundations of the Christian faith. It’s also a celebration. It’s when Christians celebrate God’s love for the world through the birth of the Christ child: Jesus. The Bible tells of his birth hundreds of years before, fulfilling prophecies. …
Meaning of the Word ‘Christmas’
The term originates from the Old English Cristes mæsse, or “Christ’s Mass,” first recorded in historical documents around 1038. …
In Christian tradition, “Mass” refers to the celebration of the Eucharist—an essential and sacred observance commemorating the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. By coming together for “Christ’s Mass,” early believers celebrated His entrance into the world, setting the stage for a transformative message of hope and salvation.
With those claims, facts, and insights noted, obviously, anyone can have an opinion on anything. But an informed look can have particular value. With that in mind, some background on Herland before sharing her column in Part I is useful.
According to her bio-in-brief, per WND.com, is the following. “Hanne Nabintu Herland is a historian of comparative religions, bestselling author and founder of The Herland Report. Providing independent analysis on current events, philosophy and religion, the Herland Report also features a YouTube channel with interviews with leading intellectuals from across the political spectrum. Her books include “The Culture War. How the West Lost its Greatness” (2017), “New Left Tyranny. The Authoritarian Destruction of Our Way of Life” (2020), “Trump. The Battle for America” (2020) and her latest, “The Billionaire World. How Marxism serves the Elite” (2023), an analysis of how the elites use Marxist repression to achieve their goals. To learn more about her, visit www.theherlandreport.com and follow her on social media: YouTube, Facebook. Read more of Hanne Nabintu Herland’s articles here.” According to left-leaning Bing’s AI powered Copilot, she is Christian, but no specific branch of Christianity is stated.
Longtime and detail-minded readers may recall reports that MHProNews and/or our MHLivingNews sister site have published that featured some secular insights from historian and author Herland. Herland does the research and writes well.
“Hanne Stine Nabintu Herland (born 1966 in Kivu, Congo) is a Norwegian author and debater,” says GoodReads. That makes her a Gen Xer. Per the Calculator is this breakdown. Note that some call the “silent generation” the “greatest generation” due to the efforts of U.S. military members at winning World War II.
- G.I. Generation (1900-1924)
- Silent Generation (1925-1945)
- Baby Boom Generation (1946-1965)
- Generation X (1966-1979)
- Generation Y (1980-1994)
- Generation Z (1995- )
With that understanding, here is her article on “jolly” Saint Nick and its obvious ties to Christian history and the birth of Jesus Christ which is celebrated on rapidly approaching Christmas day. Some additional thoughts will follow in Part II, along with this Sunday weekly MHVille headlines in review.
Part I
REASON FOR THE SEASON
Saint Nicholas, the original and true Santa Claus
‘He helped prisoners, consoled those who were tortured, provided solutions for a variety of problems’
By Hanne Nabintu Herland | December 18, 2024
Read Hanne’s The Herland Report.
The Christmas celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ has been a religious tradition for more than 2,000 years. Yet, over the past decades the Christian holiday has been reinvented by Western secular forces to serve consumerism, indulgence and materialism alone. The deep, philosophical meaning of Christmas and God’s love for humankind is gone from our atheist mainstream culture, and we are shifting into nihilism, vanity and lovelessness.
Santa Claus has become this fat, humorous troll from the North Pole who puts gifts into children’s stockings, riding his sleigh on reindeer in the air like a witch, while occult figures such as gnomes and elves aid him in the pursuit of serving the interests of the retail market. It is all Walt Disney. The story of the true Santa is totally lost.
Church history explains well who the original Santa Claus was, namely an early Christian bishop in modern-day Turkey, Saint Nicholas (A.D. 270-343). He was a wealthy man and one of the greatest church fathers in Christian history, an example in humility, generosity, love for the suffering, fearlessly facing evil. He used his money to help the destitute, the poor, the orphaned, and courageously spoke up against political leaders when he found injustice and wrongdoing. Saint Nicholas’ work was marked by a desire not to achieve praise for his good deeds. He kept giving in secret, so that only God would see it. The aim was to mimic Christ in doing good to others and helping solve their problems. “The giver of every good and perfect gift has called upon us to mimic His giving,” he said.
One of the well-known stories about him is that of a formerly rich man who had lost everything and now was so poor that he was in the process of sending his young daughters into prostitution. Saint Nicholas heard about this and in secrecy threw stockings filled with gold coins into their house. The man was enabled to avoid the pitfalls of poverty and restore the honor of his daughters. Stories of how Nicholas helped prisoners, consoled those who were tortured, provided solutions for a variety of problems that his contemporaries faced – this all sums up the work of St. Nicholas as recorded in the early centuries after Christ.
The gentle Saint Nicholas is also described as an ardent warrior, zealously confronting political as well as religious leaders when he felt the truth was in jeopardy. His willingness to suffer in prison, lose his social status, be depraved of worldly honor in order to stand up for truth, made him exemplary. Saint Nicholas became the archbishop of Myra in Lycia, known for his love for the population. Under the excruciating persecutions against Christians under the reign of Emperor Diocletian (284-305), Nicholas was in prison for refusing to give up his faith in Christ. Then, when Emperor Constantine the Great (272-337) took power, Saint Nicholas was brought out from prison and returned to his esteemed work as archbishop. He later participated in the First Ecumenical Council in A.D. 325 and the very institutionalization of Christianity that would cause the Roman Empire to last another thousand years in Eastern Constantinople.
With the advent of Protestantism, Christians in Europe lost much of the knowledge about the early church fathers who lived in the centuries after Christ. Their stories were forgotten.
The modern twist to Santa Claus is only about 120 years old, and serves as a testament to how profoundly atheism has changed our culture. It is gnomes and occult trolls we focus on now, not the birth of Jesus Christ in a manger: The son of God, born in humility, destined to give those who submit to him existential peace and eternal life, born to enlighten our darkened hearts with love for one another.
“In the 19th century, decisive works cemented the modern reshaping of Saint Nicholas,” writes the author of “Kingdom of Vikings,” Simon Vincent, including “‘A Visit by Saint Nicholas’ by Clement C. Moore in 1823, and a widely distributed illustration of St. Claus by Thomas Nast in 1863. In England, ‘Father Christmas’ was trending as a literary personification of the festive Christmas spirit – most famously exemplified in Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol.’ References to the gift-giving Saint Nicholas were abbreviated to ‘St. Claus,’ from the Dutch Sinterklaas.”
In the 1930s, the Coca-Cola Company used Santa Claus to promote their brand, Walt Disney films emerged, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra sang about it, and the secular creation of Santa Claus was complete to the joy of financial capital markets. And just like that, the true Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, was lost.
—
Part II
After a serious and at times tumultuous year, it is healthy to take a breath and consider some interesting items that are significant but aren’t temporal ‘life and death.’ For additional information and commentary by this writer for MHProNews, who is also a near-daily featured writer on the home page for this Patch, see the Herland related article linked below in the Patch portion of our week in review.
Don’t miss today’s postscript. And in the week ahead, expect a closer look at developments with one of the largest producers of manufactured housing in the U.S. There will also be insights into a trade organization that they and several larger manufactured home community operators are connected with.
With no further adieu, here are the headlines for the week that was from 12.15 to 12.22.2024, as are shown below.
What’s New on MHLivingNews
Notice: MHLivingNews and MHProNews are proud of our pre-election coverage, reporting and analysis on the issues that moved and mattered to voters. Two recent pre-election 2024 examples are shown below. Notice that we did a better job of election forecasting than several multi-billion-dollar media enterprises did.
What’s New from Washington, D.C. from MHARR
Select Items from Tim Connor, CSP, Words of Wisdom series on MHProNews
What’s New and Recent on the Masthead
What’s New on our Smorgasbord of Topics in our Electic and ongoing series of featured articles by L. A. “Tony” Kovach on the mainstream Patch
What’s New on the Daily Business News on MHProNews
Saturday 12.21.2024
Friday 12.20.2024
Thursday 12.19.2024
Wednesday 12.18.2024
Tuesday 12.17.2024
Monday 12.16.2024
Sunday 12.15.2024
Postscript
Our Thursday report includes the point how “DOGE” was an important part of the effort to kill the pork-ladden continuing resoluton (CR) proposal that was poised to pass before President Elect Donald J. Trump (R), Elon Musk, Senator and VP Elect J.D. Vance (OH-R) Vivek Ramaswamy, and untold numbers of MAGA supporters bombarded Congress with messages that ‘killed’ the proposed bill. While Trump and Musk is globally known, and J.D. Vance is increasingly well known, what about Ramaswamy? To provide some insights into his personality, style and thought process, the video that features him is posted below and is useful.
It should be recalled that for much of human history, governments were not loved or reverred. Governments routinely ruled over their own people, regardless of what form of government it happened to be. As is shown in the latest article on MHLivingNews, Donald H. Layton, a former CEO for Freddie Mac, laid out his research and thoughts on manufactured homes in an article entitled on the NYU Furman Center website: “Manufactured Housing Is a Good Source of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing – Except When It’s Not: Key Facts and Figures, and Some Unusual Economics (Part 1).” In it Layton said the following.
As background, it is worth remembering that housing has long been highly politicized, which is not surprising when government plays such a major role in it,10 including providing large overt and covert subsidies. Unfortunately, MH is no exception to this politicization, as in my view the published materials and research I have read – dozens of articles from housing policy organizations, academic and industry sources, popular printed and online media, and even YouTube videos – often reveal a strong advocacy approach, i.e. arguing in support of just one side of an issue, in this case to push for pro-MH government subsidies, regulations, or administrative actions.
Despite their claims, as is all too common with MHI, there is no evidence at this time that they have publicly addressed Layton’s thesis.
Layton has a point in that quoted section, sort of, in as much as government does play a role in much of society. “MH is no exception to this politicization,” said Layton. Fair enough.
But Layton also overlooked what America is supposed to be about, as opposed to how it is has been functioning for some decades. The founding fathers distrusted government, and believed it needed to be carefully restrained. People were supposed to be free to pursue their own interests, religion, study, and whatever they wished, so long as they didn’t violate the rights of others in that pursuit. Some quotes from the founders will illustrate. People didn’t risk the dangerous trip from Europe and the Old World to come to America and the New World only to switch rulers.
So, when Ramaswamy is making an argument about the need to rein in runaway governmental bureaucracy, Vivek is making an argument pointing towards quintessentially traditional American thinking.
During the first Trump run in the 2015-2016 election cycle, the theme of ‘draining the swamp’ became popular. Left-leaning Wikipedia says this on that phrase.
Drain the swamp is a phrase which has frequently been used by politicians since the 1980s and in the U.S. often refers to reducing the influence of special interests and lobbyists. The phrase can allude to the physical draining of swamps which is conducted to keep mosquito populations low in order to combat malaria,[1] prevalent during the time in Washington, D.C., on supposed swampy grounds.[2]
The image below can be expanded to a larger size in many devices to reveal its detailed and satirical look by cartoonist Ben Garrison, or click here and open that in a new window and click to a larger size. Note that Garrison tags both GOP linked ‘deep staters’ as well as Democratic linked personalities.
Put differently, while Layton isn’t wrong in appealing to the history of governmental involvement in business, for whatever reason(s), he overlooks the kind of history and thinking that Ramaswamy, Jefferson, Washington, and scores of the founding fathers believed were important. Ramaswamy has a point when he says that this is a do or die struggle right now to rein in a federal government that has become so bloated that it is a threat to its own citizens and their well-being.
As an obvious editorial observation, MHARR is arguably engaged in a struggle against the ‘special interests’ that MHI and its insiders represents. It is routinely good to recall that a prominent albeit notorious MHI member, Frank Rolfe has tagged both MHI and “special interests” by saying that there is no desire to solve the affordable housing crisis.
Layton’s “Part I” thesis ignored those points and more. But see for yourself at this link here.
Speaking of see for yourself. There is an affordable housing crisis. MHI leaders have been saying for much of the 21st century that they are working towards industry growth. They are working to overcome zoning barriers. A lack of competitive financing options. Issues that Layton raised, without mentioning MHI, were raised in our reports on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday and in the context of research and reporting by others besides Layton or MHI. It isn’t just the government that is swampy and corrupt. There is an evidence-based argument to be made that MHI is too.
Which is why the Christmas holiday, with its focus on an innocent and beautiful child that came to redeem us all can be refreshing. The Maccabees, Hanukkah reminds us, celebrates a miraculous victory over the Greeks. The Greeks in those days were a superpower, that’s what made the success of the Maccabees a miracle. The founding fathers of America took on the superpower of their day, the British Empire, its king and corporate backers. Faith moved the Maccabees. Faith moved the founding fathers. Faith can move us today to tap into the power of God and overcome the challenges that we face day by day in an all too swampy industry and national government.
Let’s gather round that Nativity scene and picture the wonder experienced by those shepherds who heard centuries of stories about the coming of a Messiah. Let us renew our strength. Then, let us mount with eagles’ wings to prepare for the battles yet to come in 2025.
Isaiah 40:31 New International Version
31 but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Matthew 1:23: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel” (which being interpreted is, “God with us”), says Proverbs 31 Ministries. That verse from Matthew harkens back to Isaiah 7:14. In the New International Version (NIV) it reads as follows.
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you[a] a sign: The virgin[b] will conceive and give birth to a son, and[c] will call him Immanuel.[d]
But a virgin couldn’t conceive a child in the 1st century Roman Empire days, right? Well, that’s what makes it a miracle. The entire universe came into existence at the mere thought of the Creator-God. Hundreds of prophecies in the Hebrew or Old Testament Scriptures point to the coming of Jesus Christ. That is what is celebrated on Christmas.
So, while our family and yours likely have a Christmas tree, and presents waiting to be given or opened, let’s not forget the reason for the season. And between Christmas and New Years look for more “Industry News, Tips, and Views Pros Can Use” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © Let’s tap into every good human and Divine power to make 2025 a year to remember.
Again, our thanks to free email subscribers and all readers like you, as well as our tipsters/sources, sponsors and God for making and keeping us the runaway number one source for authentic “News through the lens of manufactured homes and factory-built housing” © where “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (Affordable housing, manufactured homes, reports, fact-checks, analysis, and commentary. Third-party images or content are provided under fair use guidelines for media.) See Related Reports, further below. Text/image boxes often are hot-linked to other reports that can be access by clicking on them.)
By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
Related References:
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