THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME, ALASKA
Telephone Main 125 $1.50 PER MONTH
P.O. Box 610 $16.00 A YEAR
E. P. BOUCHER . Managing Editor
CLINTON GRAY . Production Manager
Entered as second class matter October 14. 1943, at the
post office at Nome. Alaska, under Act of March 3, 1879.
St>b<5cribers not receiving their paper by 5:30 p.m. cal'*
Main 125 for special deMvery. After 6:00 call Black 125.
OPERATION SANTA CLAUS
F)R THE NINETEENTH TIME in as many years,
a dozen troupes of warm hearted, patriotic and un
selfish performers will be carrying Christmas to
American servicemen around the globe under the USO
banner.
Travelling by plane, helicopter and bus, nearly
100 USO performers who will again include the inex
haustible Bob Hope and are faring forth to bring a
touch of home to the hundreds of thousands of soldiers
and sailors for who Christmas might otherwise be a
desperately lonely time.
Because these players cheerfully forsake their
own oozy fireside and families and friends at Christ
mas time; and because outside Americans continue to
send this entertainment to those on the cold war front,
life is a little easier at such places as Lisborne and
Northeast Cape.
To USO’s “Operation Santa Claus” and the self
less players, especially those who will be in Nome on
Tuesday night and will include the community in their
showing, the Nugget extends its gratitude and ap
plause.
Christmas Story According to Luke
For unto you is born this day
a savior which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; you shall find the
babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of
the heavenly host praising God, and saying.
Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace good will toward men.
And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from
them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another,
let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this
thing which is come to pass, which the Lord
has made known unto us.
And they came with haste, and found Mary,
and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger.
And when they had seen it. they made known abroad
the saying which was told them concerning this chUd.
»ll they that heard it wondered at those things
which were told them by the shepherds.
Bat Mary leapt ail these things.
and pondered them in her heart.
Luke: 11-20
Birth of Christ
Made History
Throughout World
By James Loh
l/P) Newsfealure Writer
Plainly the Birth of Christ was
one of the most significant events
in the history of the world.
It brought lordly kings to a low
stable; it caused Herod of Judea
to commit one of the cruelist
atrocities known to man; and it
gave the world a new date of
reckoning—Anno Domini.
Yet no one knows precisely
when it happened.
Christmas was not one of the
earliest Christian festivals, and
before the Fifth Century there
was no general agreement when
to celebrate it.
Various chronologists suggested
May 20, April 19, Nov. 17 and
other dates, but most churches
resolved the problem simply by
including the Birth celebration
in the Baptismal Feast of Jan. 6.
Meantime, the Chief Pagan
Festival of the day was “Natalis
Invicti Solis”—the birthday of the
unconquerable sun. It was cele
brated throughout the Roman
Empire on Dec. 25, during the
winter solstice and the month of
yule.
It was logical in the christian
izing efforts of church leaders to
supplant the Pagan Celebration
with one in honor of the Birth
of Christ— the “Sun of Righteous
ness,” as Malachi had written.
Logical, maybe, but not easy.
The transition began about the
year 354 and took nearly two
centuries. Though all aspects of
Paganism were gone from the
Christian application of the Feast,
Syrians, Aremenians and others
who clung to Jan. 6 accused the
Roman Christians of sun worship;
and when Bishop Juvenal intro
duced the new date in Jerusalem
it caused riots.
As Christianity spread, accept
ance of Dec. 25 as the Lord’s
Birthday gradually came about.
In the years that followed
Christmas gained increasing im
portance in the Christian world.
Traditions sprang up, and the 13th
Century gave birth to a new
type of joyful hymn called the
Christmas Carol.
But the struggle wasn’t over.
Puritans in England held that
no feast of human origin should
outrank the Sabbath and did not
celebrate Christmas. When they
came into power in 1644 Parlia
ment ordained that Christmas
celebrations be banished from the
land, and there were punish
ments for violators.
The Puritans fell from power
in 1660, and Christmas returned
to Merry England; but the zeal
of the Puritan immigrants to
America persisted to the latter
part of the last century.
Christmas celebrations were
forbidden in Puritan colonies, and
Dec. 25 was a common workday
in Boston until 1856. As late as
1870, in fact, classes were held on
Christmas Day in Boston’s public
schools.
But immigrants from other
countries came to America, too,
and brought not only the feast but
most of the Christmas customs
we since have come to regard as
“American.”
Frank Sanders, who lived at the
U. S. Smelting Dredge camp No. 5
in 1945 writes from Saltville, Va.
and sends greetings to his white
and Eskimo friends made while
here.
He states he thinks of them
often and is now a draftsman at
the Olin Mathieson Chemical
Corp., at Saltville, Va.
Hannah Post, whose name is in
San Francisco, better known to her
Nome friends as Hannah Hanson
send greetings here from the Fiji
Islands where she has been on a
tour.
Straub Service Center
Radio and Appliance Repair
Rough Dry Laundry
Sanitary Service
Nome. Alaska
to OuM i’Friends
\
Ci-fRl2TMAS
Nome Liquor Store
Jennie Frailer, Owner
Tom Martin, Mgr,
.- . ■ ■ -in el