catapult magazine

catapult magazine
Tradition 2

vol. 10, num. 23 :: 2011.12.23 — 2012.01.05

While traditions can occur at any time of year, Christmas is a season that focuses this theme.  What particularly meaningful rituals do you observe with family and friends each year, during Christmas or otherwise?  And what about the particularly meaningless ones you perhaps wish would end?

 

Feature

Guerrilla gifting

Learning to believe again, via the story of St. Nicholas.

The myth of Santa: Fiction or lie?

A parent's perspective on the man from the North Pole.

Editorial

It was a horse

Or was it a mule?  Perspectives on tradition.

Articles

Paper sack

Remembering the Christmas Eve celebrations of childhood.

“Oh, is that for me?”

Remembering terrible gift choices and why thoughtfulness matters.

He gave us himself

A few words on a family tradition to help contextualize giving and receiving gifts.

Giving well

Lessons in gift-giving from the greatest Gift of all.

An unmarked path

A reflection on a father-son tradition.

Reviews

Colliding with Melancholia

Lars von Trier’s newest film takes on the meaning of ritual at the end of the world.

The hopes and fears of all the years

Reflecting on the films Melancholia and Another Earth as Christmas approaches.

Gallery

In case you missed it the first time

Christmas interruptus

A meditation on observing (and not observing) holiday traditions.

Feasting and fruitcake

Memories and values emerge from a consideration of dessert as a child.

Weaving the web

Sunday is not a day for school

Will Braun writes about what his kids will not be learning in Sunday School.

 

Putting the Herod back in Christmas

Joy Carol Wallis critiques the sentimentalization of Christmas.

 

Have yourself a guilty little Christmas

The editor of catapult speaks to the appropriate extravagance of gift-giving.

 
 

daily asterisk

Even in a country you know by heart
its hard to go the same way twice
the life of the going changes.
The chances change and make a new way.
Any tree or stone or bird
can be the bud of a new direction. The
natural correction is to make intent
of accident. To get back before dark
is the art of going.

Wendell Berry
“Traveling at Home” from Traveling at Home

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