Seasons Greeting AND/OR Merry Christmas EVERYBODY !

some-g · Site Admin Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 174

Hi folks, I just want to take this chance to thank you for making these forums a mentally invigorating place to explore. It's a 24/7 Mental Exercise Gym and i have gotten many workouts.

So, I want to give you all something special to let you know just how much i appreciate being able to explore these forums... but since i can't do that you'll have to settle for these fabulous facts, coming straight from my heart to yours (by way of my fingers).

All the best in 2007.

The words, "gift" and "present"

Gift-giving as part of a winter festival dates back at least to the
ancient Romans. During the celebration of Saturnalia, a harvest
festival, Romans exchanged strenae (boughs to which cakes or sweets
were attached), wax candles (cerei) and sigillaria, which were doll-
like clay figures. The Roman new year festivities -- moved from
March to January in 153 B.C.E. -- were also marked with gift giving
including, eventually, the offering of gifts to the emperor.

But we owe the tradition of Christmas gifts as we know it today to
Victorian England. The Victorians exchanged gifts with their family
and friends and made charitable giving part of their Christmas
custom by delivering dinners or gift boxes to the poor on Christmas
Day, or pledging money to help those in need. Americans quickly
adapted similar practices

* * *

The Prehistoric Germanic "giftiz" was derived from "geb-". (English
also gets "give" from "geb-.") In Old English "giftiz" became "gift"
and meant "bride-price", the payment a man made for a wife. This
usage died out some time after the Norman invasion. "Mitgift" in
modern German, however, still means "dowry."

Around 1100 Middle English picked up "gift" from Old Norse "gift" or
"gipt." in modern German, Danish, and Swedish, "gift" is a
euphemistic term for "poison." The same is true of modern Dutch with
"gif."

The noun "present," meaning "something offered, a gift," entered
English from the Old French "presenter" (to bring into the presence
of) around 1225. The French (in this sense) is derived from the Late
Latin "inpraesent" meaning "face to face."

[thanks to melanie for these words]

Riddleman · Site Admin Joined: 18 May 2005 Posts: 594

hello everyone, i dont really have an amazing fact, but i thought id just stop by in here and wish everyone a merry christmas (which is today) or a happy chaunuka (i cant spell it please dont physicly harm me) if you are jewish, and a riddley new year, oh and some-g, pretty cool about the present and gift thing!