![\"Chanukiah](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/12\/Jerusalem_Hannukah_021210.jpg\")
<\/a>(Wikimedia Commons photo by Oren Rozen)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
This year\u2019s Jewish festival of Hanukkah begins tomorrow evening, Sunday<\/em> evening, 14 December 2025, and continues through Monday, 22 December 2025. \u00a0I\u2019m hoping to find our menorah and set it up between now and tomorrow night. \u00a0Seriously. \u00a0(I like Passover, too, and have led several seders. \u00a0They\u2019re great teaching tools.) \u00a0How much do you know about the holiday? \u00a0It\u2019s actually rather interesting:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a bit of Christmas-related news from the Babylon Bee<\/em>:\u00a0\u201cPlanned Parenthood Honors King Herod With Lifetime Achievement Award\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n I confess to not being a really enthusiastic fan of all<\/em> of these movies \u2014 nor, really, even of most<\/em> of them \u2014 but you might get some good ideas here: \u00a0\u201c10 best Christmas movies to stream this holiday season:\u00a0Looking for the perfect holiday movie night lineup? Explore iconic Christmas films available to stream now\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Following a dinner on the top floor of the Relief Society Building, my wife and I crossed the street to the Conference Center for the 2025 Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir<\/em> concert. \u00a0Along with the Tabernacle Choir<\/a>, the Orchestra at Temple Square<\/a> and the Bells at Temple Square<\/a> also performed. \u00a0The guest artists for the program \u2014 which ran Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and which will be partially reprised for the choir\u2019s weekly Sunday morning broadcast \u2014 were Stephanie J. Block<\/a> and her husband, Sebastian Arcelus<\/a>, along with two Argentine Latter-day Saint artists, the bandone\u00f3nist Juli\u00e1n Mansilla<\/a> and the violinist Leandro Curaba<\/a> (who, although it wasn\u2019t mentioned in his biography on the program, is currently serving as an area authority Seventy for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).<\/p>\n The program was a varied one. \u00a0It concluded, of course, as it always does, with a reading from Luke 2 \u2014 can there really, seriously, be any legitimate doubt that Latter-day Saints are Christians? \u00a0I mean, really?<\/em> \u2014 and then with Mack Wilberg\u2019s spectacular arrangement, for choir and orchestra and soloists and Bells at Temple Square and Gabriel\u2019s Trumpets, of the French carol \u201cAngels from the Realms of Glory.\u201d<\/p>\n Inspired by that, as today\u2019s bit of Christmas music I give you a link to a previous performance of \u201cAngels from the Realms of Glory\u201d at the Tabernacle Choir\u2019s Christmas concert. \u00a0This one, recorded in December 2005, features the illustrious American operatic soprano Ren\u00e9e Fleming<\/a> and the Tabernacle Choir, under the baton of Craig Jessop: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZAGrD_gOdgI<\/a><\/p>\n Along the way, though, this year\u2019s program also sampled music from Latin America and detoured into a bit of Spanish. \u00a0(Sebastian Arcelus is partly of Uruguayan descent, and speaks the language fluently.) \u00a0I quite liked a piece by Astor Piazzolla (and arranged by Juli\u00e1n Mansilla) entitled \u201cAdios, Nonino\u201d (\u201cFarewell, Grandfather\u201d). \u00a0It was written at the death of his grandfather, and isn\u2019t a particularly Christmas-related piece. \u00a0But I liked it very much. \u00a0There were also traditional carols and spirituals, as well as Beethoven and Irving Berlin, and Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Mendelssohn, and Handel, and a very well received organ solo by Richard Elliott<\/a>, who is always an audience favorite. \u00a0And a story about the astronauts of Apollo 8 reading Genesis 1:1-10 to the world from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1968.<\/p>\n Especially in connection with the latter, but also throughout, the visual display for the program was, in some ways, I think, the most ambitious that I\u2019ve ever seen for one of these programs. \u00a0Enormous panoramas of the cosmos and of Earth from space and of alpine mountain scenes were projected not merely onto the area immediately surrounding the stage and adjacent to the organ pipes but onto the adjacent walls, covering perhaps a hundred or more degrees of the surrounding Conference Center. \u00a0Pretty spectacular.<\/p>\n The Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square put on a remarkable program each year. \u00a0I\u2019m glad that the programs are recorded and made available for subsequent years.<\/p>\n Now, though, being the notorious gourmand that I am, a self-confessed serial eater, a repeat offender, I\u2019m obliged to write about FOOD<\/strong>: \u00a0On the way home from Salt Lake City this morning, we seized the opportunity to stop by Siegfried\u2019s Delicatessen<\/a>, where we took out some Bratwurst and Sauerkraut and Rotkohl \u2014 we should have also picked up some Wienerschnitzel and Kartoffelsalat but, for some reason, didn\u2019t \u2014 and brought it home. \u00a0It\u2019s another traditional part of my rather Germanic Christmas celebration. \u00a0And we dropped by Banbury Cross Donuts<\/a> and picked up several boxes of their wares \u2014 among the best donuts I<\/em> know, anyway \u2014 as gifts for some of our neighbors. \u00a0I went out this evening to distribute them with a Third-Generation Unit, who sang an unabashed solo of \u201cWe Wish You a Merry Christmas\u201d at each door until the last one, when the 3GU was suddenly overcome by unaccountable shyness.<\/p>\n Finally, the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122 typically yields an especially bounteous harvest at this season of the year, and 2025 is proving to be no exception:<\/p>\n Deseret News<\/em>: \u201cWashington Post<\/em> columnist highlights Latter-day Saint responses to political hatred:\u00a0Dana Milbank suggested the Church of Jesus Christ \u2018may have an answer for our toxic politics\u2019\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n In case you\u2019re able to access it, here\u2019s a link to the original article in The Washington Post<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cWhy Mormonism<\/a> may have an answer for our toxic politics. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox draws on teachings from his Mormon faith<\/a> to \u201cdisagree better.\u201d\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n This is relevant:\u00a0Interfaith America: \u00a0\u201cTwo Governors \u2014 a Mormon Republican and a Jewish Democrat \u2014 Team Up to Stop Political Violence\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 And here is a thirty-minute video of the two governors\u2019 conversation with Dana Bash, of CNN: \u00a0\u201cPolitical violence traumatized their states. A Republican and a Democratic governor come together with a plea: Tone it down\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 This year\u2019s Jewish festival of Hanukkah begins tomorrow evening, Sunday evening, 14 December 2025, and continues through Monday, 22 December 2025. \u00a0I\u2019m hoping to find our menorah and set it up between now and tomorrow night. \u00a0Seriously. \u00a0(I like Passover, too, and have led several seders. \u00a0They\u2019re great teaching tools.) \u00a0How much do you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":26892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39464,39467,20668,39458,39461,15609],"class_list":["post-114035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-julian-mansilla","tag-leandro-curaba","tag-renee-fleming","tag-sebastian-arcelus","tag-stephanie-block","tag-tabernacle-choir"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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