Watkins Glen High School - Senecan Oracle Yearbook (Watkins Glen, NY)

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THE PEPPER POT 3 The whole Christmas week is filled with delightful surprises, more parties, more sleigh rides, more gifts, more dancing—happiness and Christmas—. Tn our happiness now in anticipation and in our happiness when we return again to school to tell of our escapades let us not in our eagerness forget the real meaning of Christmas. It was not primarily a day to exchange gifts and have lovely times. These things have come about in preceding years and although no one is willing to dispense with these things, let us hesitate and think quietly by ourselves just why we have Christmas. Christmas is a time to do something for someone else. In our own happiness we are apt to be unknowingly selfish. In our animated conversations about what we shall do at Christmas and the presents that we know we shall receive, and the different members of the family who are going to return home; stop also and think of the effect our words will have upon our listener. Perhaps he will not be as happy; perhaps his family will have a very quiet Christmas due to sickness or recent death; and he knows that he will not receive remarkable presents and his brother and sisters cannot come home; perhaps he will not attend the numerous social affairs that we anticipate. Just stop and think why we have Christmas. The Pepper Pot staff wishes to extend to the facul-tv and the members of Watkins Glen High School a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! —Jane Archer, ’28. Christmas Hymns and Carols It lias been said that Christmas carols put to flight all thoughts of hate, anger, suspicion, fear, jealously, and meaness and leave in their stead the gladness of a newer and higher life.

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2 THE PEPPER POT Christmas Christmas! magic word. Lovely gifts, congenial friends, white snow, green pine and hemlock trees, ringing, joyful bells, plump, brown, roast turkey, Santa Claus, parties, sleigh rides, oceans of nuts, candy and pop corn; more parties, more gifts, more company, more fun; mistletoe, dancing lights on Christmas trees, sparkling tinsel, blue, red and green balls, cheerful candles, more snow, wreaths, music, laughter, illuminated houses, new friends, crackling fire in brick fireplaces—all these happy things rise before one’s eyes when Christmas is mentioned. One sees again all the members of his family from grandfather down to the baby. Mary brings home two college friends and Charles brings three fraternity brothers. The married members of the family arrive with all their children. Bachelor uncles and maiden aunts come from all parts of the country. There are twelve for Christmas dinner. The gifts exchanged afterwards are many and lovely. Even the cat, Lucretia, has a catnip mouse provided by the thoughtful family. The floor is strewn with boxes, cards, bright colored ribbons and tissue paper. Every member of the family has his gifts around him. Everyone is speechless with delight. This silent state does not last for a long interval, however. In the evening the younger people attend one of the local parties. As the girls come hurrying down the stairs, their faces alight with anticipation, their pretty colored evening gowns, their ridiculous little, high heeled slippers clicking on the bare floor, the older members smile reminiscently and caution them to be home at a reasonable hour. When Mary calls back, her voice coming over the crisp white snow, “We’ll be home for breakfast,” the family smile again and return to the cheery fireplace.

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4 THE PEPPER POT Those of us who have stood before a caudle and sung: carols on Christmas eve know it is one of the most thrill-ingly beautiful of all our Christmas experiences. Yet its origin is almost lost in obscurity. However, in looking-back over the centuries, we find that long after Christmas was recognized as a Christian festival of great importance there was a great hearted and lovable man named St. Francis who lived in Assissi, Italy. Realizing with dismay that the idea of Christ was becoming too much of a mere theological abstraction he sought some means of presenting in a real way the human side of our Lord’s life. This he did by placing in the church at Grecia, near Assissi, a manger, an ox and all the trappings of a stable. It was a reproduction, as far as he and his brethren knew, to bring to the people the realistic side of the Christmas story. It served well its purpose and to this event we owe not only the origin of the Christmas carols but also the mystery plays. Strange as it may seem many of the most beautiful carols are unknown to the majority of people nowadays. How many of us know the beautiful old French carol, “Cantique de Noel,” or “Good King Wencesles,” “God Rest You Merry Gentlemen,” or “The First Noel.” Perhaps the only Christmas hymn which originated in America is “0 Little Town of Bethlehem,” the poem being written by Phillip Brooks in 1868. It was set to music by Lewis Redner of Philadelphia. The hymn “Joy To the World,” was written by I)r. Isaac Watts, and the tune “Antioch” is an adaptation from Handel’s oratoria “Messiah.” Most of the carol tunes, however, were of folk order, being popular melodies of the times adapted to carol words. In this lovely old mediavel custom, which has been revived in America, millions of people have, in a measure