Tag Archives: kwanzaa

A Holiday Wish from Lions Pride

22 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in Holidays, Special Events

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winter-sceneThe spirit of Christmas is all around us. With the big holiday only days away, we continue to see it in store windows, on light posts and underneath the tree.

Although we are all excited to celebrate America’s “favorite” holiday, it’s important for us all to remember that Christmas is not the only holiday taking place this time of year. Here at Lions Pride, we thought there was no better time for us to look at several other celebrations happening throughout the month of December:

  • The Feast of Our Lady Guadalupe took place on Monday, December 12. Each year, the festivity honors the belief that Jesus’s mother Mary appeared to a man in Mexico City on two different occasions in 1531.
  • St Lucia’s Day (or St. Lucy’s Day) is one of the biggest Swedish holidays and recognizes the bravery of St. Lucia who was one of the earliest martyrs who was killed because of her religious beliefs in the year 304. The celebration takes place each year on December 13.
  • Hanukkah is the festival of lights that commemorates the Jewish people’s successful rebellion against the Greeks in the Maccabean War. This year, Hanukkah falls on the same day as Christmas. The last time the two holidays occurred on the same date was in 1978.
  • Kwanzaa is the African American weeklong holiday that honors family, community and culture. The celebration honors African heritage with a feast and gift giving, and is observed from December 26 to January 1.
  • Boxing Day also takes place on December 26 and is a holiday celebrated in a few countries connected to England (Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. During the Middle Ages, one day out of the year was designated to open church collection boxes and distributed to the poor. Today, some churches still open these boxes.

Rather than simply spreading Christmas cheer this month, remember to consider all of the other holidays taking place. There are many reasons why they call it the most wonderful time of the year, and we’d like to think diversity is one of the best.

Happy Holidays from Lions Pride!

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Fun Facts You Might Not Know About Christmas

25 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in Holidays, News

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Christmas TreeWe’re wrapping up our blog post series about the holidays of Christmas. The first week, we explored the traditions of Hanukkah, and last week, we looked at the customs of Kwanzaa. Today, we’re going to finish up with the most popular holiday here in Wisconsin, Christmas.

Since you already a great deal about this merry holiday, we thought it might be fun to compile a list of fun facts that you might not know (until now, of course!)

  • You are familiar with Santa’s reindeer. They all have male-sounding names such as Comet, Cupid and Donner. However, male reindeer shed their antler around Christmastime, so the reindeer pulling the sleigh are likely to be female.
  • According to data analyzed by Facebook, two weeks before Christmas is one of the most popular times of the year for couples to break up; however, Christmas Day is the least favorite day to split.
  • Typically Christmas trees grow for 15 years before being sold.
  • One of the main reasons we give and receive presents at Christmas is to remind us of the presents given to Jesus by the wise men.
  • It wasn’t until June 26, 1870 that Christmas was declared an official holiday in the United States.
  • Renowned environmentalist, President Teddy Roosevelt banned Christmas trees from the White House in 1901.
  • The first Christmas postage stamp was issued in the United States in 1961.
  • The first printed reference of the Christmas tree was in Germany in the year 1531.
  • Spiders and spider webs are common Christmas trees decoration in Poland because according to legend, a spider wove a blanket for Baby Jesus.
  • The first artificial Christmas tree was made out of dyed goose feathers in Germany.
  • According to UNICEF, there are approximately 2,106 million children under the age of 18 around the world. If there are an average of 2.5 children per household, Santa will have to make 842 million stops.

There you have it, a list of fun facts about Christmas. We hope you learned something new and can share it with your family at this year’s get-together.

The Lion Pride office will be closed Thursday and Friday of this week. We hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday!

Sources:

http://www.funology.com/facts-about-christmas/

http://warm1069.com/50-festive-facts-you-probably-didnt-know-about-christmas/

http://facts.randomhistory.com/christmas-facts.html

http://www.whychristmas.com/customs/presents.shtml

The Kwanzaa Celebration

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in Holidays, Lions Camp, Special Events

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Kwanzaa PrinciplesLast week, we explored the Jewish holiday, Hanukkah, in an effort to learn more about the different holidays being celebrated during the month of December. Today, we move on to the next holiday called Kwanzaa.

Kwanzaa is quite different from both Christmas and Hanukkah because it doesn’t have a religious background; instead it is a celebration of culture.

California State University professor, Dr. Maulana Karenga, created the holiday is 1966 to encourage the indispensable need to “preserve, protect, continually revitalize and promote African American culture.” (The first part sounds awfully familiar to us.)

Kwanzaa takes place from December 26 to January 1 each year. The names comes from the Swahili phrase, “matunda ya kwanzaa” which means “first fruits.” The first-fruits was a celebration that date back to societies in ancient Egypt and Nubia. Everyone would come together in reverence to commemorate, recommit and celebrate their culture.

The celebration is built on 7 principles:

  • Unity (Umoja) – to strive for and maintain unity in family, community, nation and race.
  • Self-Determination (Kujichagulia) – to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves
  • Collective Work and Responsibility (Ujima) – to build and maintain our community together and to make our brother’s and sister’s problems our problems and to solve them together
  • Cooperative Economics (Ujamaa) – to build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together
  • Purpose (Nia) – to make own collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to traditional greatness
  • Greatness (Kuumba) – to do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it
  • Faith (Imani) – to believe with our heart in our people, our parents, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle

Throughout the week of Kwanzaa, African Americans come together to celebrate with a profound respect for its values, symbols and practices. They dress up in festive clothing, decorate with beautiful art and cloths and feast on fresh fruits and vegetables.

As we were learning more about Kwanzaa, we couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the celebration and our own organization as well as an importance of culture.

The Lions Pride Endowment Fund‘s efforts to preserve, protect, continually revitalize and promote the Lions of Wisconsin’s culture of serving others through Lions Camp and the WLF projects.

Certainly we can all agree that these are special projects that we can be proud of and want to ensure we can continue to provide for future generations.   The Lions Pride Endowment Fund is “Today’s Help, Tomorrow’s Hope” for all those served by Lions Camp and all WLF statewide projects.

This holiday season, we hope that you keep your own culture in mind and be inspired to preserve, protect and provide for others though a donation to Lions Pride.

Happy Holidays from Lions Pride!

Source:

http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/index.shtml