I have really enjoyed writing out these hymns and really reading the words.  So often we only learn the first verse, but, when you continue to read the entire song it is amazing the thought, love and spirit that has been poured into them.  I hope you enjoy reading them.

Silent night! Holy night! All is calm, all is bright-Round yon virgin mother and Child, Holy Infant, so tender and mild-  Sleep in Heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night! Holy Night! Shepherds quake at the sight; Glories stream from heaven a far, Heavenly hosts sing alleluia-Christ the Savior is born!  Christ the Savior is born!

Silent night! Holy night!  Son of God, love’s pure light-Radiant beams from Thy holy face-With the dawn of redeeming grace-Jesus, Lord at Thy birth, Jesus Lord at thy birth.

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• September 24, 1789: Elias Boudinot from New Jersey proposed that the House and Senate request that George Washington set a day of thanksgiving for “the many signal favors of Almighty God.”  he also said he “could not think of letting the session pass over without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining, with one voice, in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings he had poured down upon them.”
• There were other claims to the First Thanksgiving celebrated in the New World.  A small French Huguenot settlement, near where present day Jacksonville, Floridais, is recorded as singing a psalm of Thanksgiving to God, beeching Him that it would please Him to continue his accustomed goodness.  This was on June 30, 1564 and their leader was Rene de LaudonniPre.
• In 1610, during the “starving time”, the colonists at Jamestown called for a time of Thanksgiving.  There original number was 409 and they were reduced to 60 during the hard winter.  The colonists prayed for help and a ship from England arrived with food and supplies.
• June 29, 1676 was shown to have been the first official Thanksgiving Day.  It was celebrated in Charles-town, Massachusetts.
• There was no “nation” at this time but the celebrations was religious and specifically Christian in origin. A community of God-fearing Puritans created Thanksgiving and set it aside to thank the Lord for His many blessings.  The day they chose, coming after the harvest at a time of year when farm work was light.  This fit into the rhythm of their rural life.
• Abraham Lincoln, on October 3, 1863 declared the last Thursday of November to be a nationwide celebration of thanksgiving:  “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.  But we have forgotten God.  We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.  Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, to proud to pray to the God that made us. O human counsel hath devised, not hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.  They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy…I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday in November next as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent father who dwelleth in heaven.”
• Starting with Lincoln, Presidents set the last Thursday in November aside for a national day of Thanksgiving.  Later it was changed to the third Thursday in November “to give more shopping time between Thanksgiving and Christmas” by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Wikipedia:  (270-December 6, 346)  Saint was a Lycian saint and Bishop of Myra in Lycia of Anatolia which is modern day Antalya province, Turkey.  There were many miracles attributed to his intercessions that he was also called Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker.  He would secretly give gifts such as coins in shoes.   Saint Nicholas is historically remembered and respected among Catholic and Orthodox Christians.

This information if from ChristianHistory.net.

According to this article there is not to much known about Saint Nicholas even though he is one of the most popular saints in the Greek and Latin churches.  He probably was a bishop of Myra sometime in the 300′s.

It is thought that he was born to a wealthy family in Patara, Lycia.  After his parents died he inherited quite a bit of money.  It was thought that he did not keep any of it.

He also spent some time in prison.  He was released during the time when Constantine was emperor.  Other biographers say that Nicholas attacked the heresy of Arius, who denied the divinity of Christ.

There are lots of web sites and stories to read and discover about “Santa Claus.”  It has been fun for me over the years to read them and share them with my kids.  I think it makes history come alive to add these stories during the seasons that brought them to life.  I would encourage you to dig and explore these wonderful stories in history that have shaped our today.  Then bring it all back around to the true “reason for the season-”  The Birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

1707-1788–English clergyman, poet and hymn writer

“Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

At all the times you can

To all the people you can!”

“Best of all is, God is with us.”

“You have nothing to do but to save souls; therefore spend and be spent in this work.”

“The longer I live, the larger allowances I make for human infirmities.  I wxact more from myself and less from others.”

“Christ the Lord is risen to-day,” –Sons of men and angels say.–Ranise your joys and triumphs high;–Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply.  (Easter)a

“Hark the herald angels sing,–Glory to the new-born king.”–Peace on earth, and mercy mild,–God and sinners reconciled.!  (Christmas)

Lo! on narrow neck of land,–’Twixt two unbounded seas, I stand.–Secure, insensible  (Life)

A charge to keep I have,–A god to glorify:–A never-dying sould to save,–And fit it for the sky.  (soul)