Simon Law Firm December 2017

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DECEMBER 2017

T he S ecret O rigins of C hristmas T raditions

If you celebrate Christmas, odds are your family observes a number of traditions that commemorate the holiday season. While some of these might be unique to your household, there’s no doubt many of them are part of the holiday’s long cultural history. Part of what makes the holiday season so festive is the sense of collective participation, from shopping and decorating to leaving out traditions have surprising origins that you may never have known. The more you investigate, the more you find that Christmas truly is a global holiday. Stockings Have you ever considered how strange stockings are? We all leave them above the fireplace, often without wondering why Santa is so interested in filling socks with gifts. The touching story of this centuries-old custom reminds us of the spirit of Christmas. According to legend, the tradition began with one poor man, recently widowed, and his three daughters. While the daughters were all beautiful and intelligent, the man had no money for marriage and worried about what would happen to his children after he died. St. Nicholas heard of his plight, and knowing that the family would not accept charity, he devised a way to provide for them. He snuck down their chimney one night and found the girls’ stockings hung by the fireplace to dry. He filled them with gold coins before disappearing into the night. Today, stocking stuffers are a treasured gift category all their own. If you’re dismayed by the prospect of filling massive stockings for

your kids while you play Santa this year, take solace in the fact that at least you won’t need to stuff them with solid gold. Caroling Stockings go back hundreds of years, but that’s nothing compared to the millennia- old tradition of caroling. The earliest roots of seasonal singalongs actually predate Christmas itself. During the winter solstice celebration, pagan cultures belted out winter classics and danced away the longest night of the year. As Christianity grew in popularity, these songs were replaced by the first Christmas-themed hymns. While songs created in honor of the nativity began to appear around the fourth and fifth centuries, Christmas carols didn’t take on their familiar shape until 800 years later, when St. Francis of Assisi began including upbeat hymns in his Christmas services. It didn’t take long for composers from countless countries to begin crafting their own specific carols. Not everyone welcomed the switch from somber to joyful songs. Carols were banned from some churches, which may account for why caroling became a door-to-door activity. Another theory suggests that the tradition of traveling carolers began in feudal societies where peasants would literally sing for their supper. These days, many groups keep the philanthropic spirit of caroling alive by asking for donations to various charitable groups. So if you hear some folks stopping by your neighborhood to offer a rendition

of “Silent Night” or “The 12 Days of Christmas,” consider spreading a little cheer to them. Black Friday While certainly not as beloved and longstanding a custom as stockings or

carols, there’s no denying that Black Friday is a Christmas tradition. You may hate having to stand outside around 4 a.m. (or, as is more common every year, camping out in the cold the night before) in order to secure once-a- year deals, but sometimes the savings are just too good to pass up. Why, you might ask yourself, have retailers made this the norm? Well, unlike the other traditions on this list, we can trace the beginning of the Black Friday shopping phenomenon to a particular time and place: Philadelphia in the 1950s. The term was coined by police officers to describe the influx of suburban shoppers who flocked to the city, where they wreaked havoc and forced officers to work longer hours. It took only a few years for Black Friday to become an unofficial city holiday. in all 50 states. Intrepid retailers figured out a way to turn the negative connotation into a day of sales. During this time, many people believed the holiday was named after retailers going from “red” (loss) to “black” (profit). Now, when you hear that story, you’ll be able to dispel the myth. –Christopher Simon It wasn’t until the ’80s that Black Friday became an integral part of the holiday season

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WARM WISHES THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

As we come to the end of the year and the weather turns cold, it is a good time to reflect on where we are and what has transpired. There are habits we all develop, good and bad. It is a time to be aware of the bad ones and limit themwhere possible. Leave the cellphone outside of the bedroom, limit the amount of snack foods in the house, the usual. Most importantly, though, it is a time to take a moment

and tell the people you care about that you love them. Do something nice for your neighbor. Reach out and remember that, despite all the ugliness in Washington, we are a community and a country of fundamentally good people.

Warmest wishes for a merry Christmas, a happy

Hanukkah, and a happy New Year.

From Simon Law Firm

Santa Claus wasn’t always a husky, omniscient gift-giver who circumnavigates the world once a year, propelled by flying caribou and backed by an army of friendly elves. Though the historical St. Nicholas had many of the same generous tendencies as our contemporary “King in the North,” he lacked a high-tech sleigh that could exceed the speed of light. To be exact, St. Nicholas was a renowned Bishop of Myra — an old Roman town near modern-day Demre, Turkey — way back around A.D. 300. Even before he became the bishop, St. Nicholas was known for his generosity. The most famous tale of his charity involved a poor man who could not afford a proper dowry to marry off his three daughters. In those days, this generally meant the daughters would remain unmarried, making it likely that they’d fall into prostitution. THE ORIGIN OF SANTA CLAUS

Wanting to help, but also wanting to spare the family embarrassment, St. Nicholas traveled to the house at night and threw three purses packed with gold coins through the window. After his death, St. Nicholas became a beloved patron saint, but during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, the respect that many Catholic saints received diminished, and his popularity dwindled across Europe. One area where he remained popular was the Netherlands. There, he lived on as “Sinterklaas,” a mythical figure who went house to house on the eve of St. Nicholas’s nameday, December 5, leaving treats and gifts for children. Sinterklaas traditionally wore red bishop’s clothes and employed elves, and he traveled with horses that could walk across rooftops.

they brought this kindly icon to the new colonies. Over time, notably through Clement Moore’s 1822 poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” and a famous 1930s depiction by Coca-Cola ad illustrator Haddon Sundblom, Santa evolved into the figure we see today.

When the Dutch emigrated in droves to America during the 17th and 18th centuries,

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WORD SEARCH

SHOULD I COVER THE CAMERA ON MY LAPTOP OR TABLET? Do you really need to cover your webcam? Yes, at least I do. A few years ago, I was working on my laptop when my screen suddenly froze and went black. Then, a message popped up, covering the entire screen, and I could not remove it. I tried shutting down the computer and navigating to another screen, but I was completely locked out. The message stated that I had been caught breaking pirating laws by illegally downloading content, that they had seized control of my laptop, and that I would be forced to pay a large fine. The message also included a picture of me. I began to freak out. I used my other laptop to Google what was happening and discovered that this was a common scam called click-jacking. This means that the hackers created a link on an ad with an invisible script, and by clicking on the link, it activated my webcam. Then, there was another invisible script that disabled the light so I was unaware the webcam was turned on. Someone had hacked into my webcam, taken a picture of me without my knowledge or consent, and attempted to blackmail me. After this incident, I completely and permanently disabled the webcam and put tape over the camera. My friends thought I was paranoid, but they have never had a stranger watching them through their laptop. It’s better to be safe than sorry. The convenience of technology comes at a cost, and that cost is sometimes our privacy. People scan the internet with the intent of voyeurism and extortion. The risk is even greater for high-profile targets like Mark Zuckerberg. There’s a photo of him published in the NY Times where he had his own webcam covered with tape because he’d had two social media accounts hacked in the past. Even people who are not CEOs should be concerned with >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

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