SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan man designs and builds a church out of Legos and displays it his own house of worship each year as part of a Christmas season tradition.
John Kraemermakes one church per year out of Legos and puts it up at Christ the Good Shepherd in Saginaw,The Saginaw Newsreported (http://bit.ly/22kwxAX). This year’s creation, built from about 15,000 Lego bricks, is on display throughout the holiday season.
Kraemer said he builds for a number of reasons, including a connection to his faith. He calls theLego churches a “snapshot of parish life.”
“I’ve always had a very deep passion for my Catholic faith,” Kraemer said. “For me, it’s really the core of who I am.”
And he’s noticed how others enjoy seeing his work.
“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate that, No. 1, people enjoy this,” Kraemer said.
In the 1990s, Kraemer started coming up with designs for Lego church buildings. His first display was aMount Sinai Lutheran Churchin Montrose. In 2003, he put one up at his own church, which then was known as St.Helen Catholic Church, and has done so since then.
Kraemer has a mild case of cerebral palsy that somewhat limits his mobility and has faced other health issues in recent years. He said the process of planning and building a Lego church each year is therapeutic.
“It allows me to overcome some of my own challenges. It allows me to do something I really love,” he said.
Did Santa bring your children Lego sets for Christmas? You might want to consider not letting them open them. Not only will you save yourself from invariably stepping on them, but you could save for your kid’s college education.
According to an analysis by theUK Telegraph, the building-block toys are a better investment than gold or the stock market.
The FTSE 100 (an index of 100 companies on the London Stock Exchange — similar to the S&P 500 on the New York Stock Exchange) has increased in value an average of 4.1 percent since February 2000, according to the Telegraph analysis. By comparison, Lego sets kept in perfect condition have increased in value 12 percent each year during the same period. If you invested in gold, you received a 9.6 percent annual increase in value, according to the Telegraph.
The secondary market for Lego sets, especially ones that are no longer in production, is the reason why Legos are better than gold. For instance, the value of the Cafe Corner Lego set, which originally sold for $139.99 in 2007, can fetch as much as $1,600 on sites such asBrickPicker.com, as long as the box is unopened. But where’s the fun in that?
From Weasley sweaters to Invisibility cloaks. From the Great Hall and its 12 towering Christmas trees to the cozy kitchens of Number 12 Grimmauld Place and the Burrow. There are many reasons and ways that make Christmas truly magical throughout the Harry Potter series.
Harry spent most of his Christmases at Hogwarts–playing wizards chess with Ron (and getting destroyed, literally) or dancing the night away with two left-feet at the Yule Ball during his fourth year, at the Twiwizard Tournament.
Christmas is also a time to gather with loved ones: friends and family. Harry became an adoptive son to the Weasleys, and he got his first real Christmas gifts from Mrs. Weasley (a yearly Christmas sweater–one with his first initial, one with a Hungarian Horntail on it, one with with a Gryffindor lion). Sirius made a grand entrance into his grandson’s life, by anonymously gifting Harry his Firebolt in his third year. Sirius was later abel to host Christmas in Harry’s 5th year, with all of Harry’s family: Lupin, Tonks, the Weasleys, and Hermione.
Pottermore is also celebrating Christmas, and its importance in real life and the Wizarding World. They have put together a beautiful hi-res hi-def Pottermore “Moments” 2016 calendar, available for Muggles and No-Maj alike to downloadhere.
Christmas is a time for love and joy, a grand celebration with friends and family. Even with our/your Dursley-like relatives (though, we hope none of you are gifted a tooth pick or a single tissue). From all of us to all of you, we wish you and yours very happy, merry, and safe Christmas!
Over the weekend, even as most of us were celebrating the fact that a new Star Wars movie did not in any way suck, some portions of the internet got sucked into a pointless, silly debate. Is Rey, the film’s hero, a “Mary Sue”? The answer is no. Next question?
“Mary Sue” is one of those terms that had a useful meaning in fan culture at one point, long ago, and has now become both vague and toxic. Originally, a “Mary Sue” was an author surrogate, inserted into fan-fiction. The “fan fiction” thing is important, because part of the fantasy of the “Mary Sue” was the fan-fic author getting to live at Hogwarts or travel on board the U.S.S. Enterprise. And this thinly veiled copy of the story’s author is incredibly good at everything, to the point where all the established characters marvel at her (usually it’s “her”) wonderfulness.
The “Mary Sue” is a very specific wish-fulfillment fantasy, in other words. It’s about getting to hang out with Harry, Ron and Hermione, and having them admire you. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of fantasy—we’ve all had it, when we get especially invested in a particular universe—but the term acquired a pejorative meaning because people felt it made for bad stories. Fair enough.
Over time, the term “Mary Sue” has broadened until it means “any female character who is unrealistically talented or skilled.” Which is insane for a couple of reasons: It makes this “trope” so vague as to be meaningless, and this is also purely a way at tearing down female characters who are good at stuff.
So without getting into heavy spoilers, Rey has one element of the “Mary Sue” character locked down: She’s a newly added character in an existing universe. But she’s among a bunch of new characters in the first chapter of a new story, so it’s not like she was introduced halfway through Return of the Jedi and suddenly started out-Lukeing Luke.
Meanwhile, is Rey unrealistically competent? She’s good at fixing machines, having spent her entire life as a scavenger taking apart the crashes spaceships on Jakku. She’s a good pilot, and maybe figures out how to fly an unfamiliar spaceship rather quickly. And she’s strong in the Force, learning to use Force powers incredibly fast. Just as most of The Force Awakens is pretty explicitly patterned on A New Hope, Rey is basically this movie’s answer to Luke Skywalker. Luke touches a lightsaber for the first time about 45 minutes into A New Hope, and is using the Force pretty brilliantly by the end of the movie.
But still, Rey’s prowess in this film is pretty incredible, considering that she doesn’t have Obi-Wan to train her. There are lots of hints that she had some training when she was a child, but in any case, this seems to be one of those “just go with it” things.
(I’d also argue that—SPOILER ALERT!—Kylo Ren teaches Rey a lot about using the Force. Every time she gets better at using it in this film, it’s right after Kylo Ren has tried to use it against her. She sees what he’s doing, and copies it. I thought it was fairly explicit that Kylo Ren is Rey’s “teacher” in this movie.)
But in any case, this is a convention of these sorts of movies. Kingsman also has a protagonist who is useless at the start of the movie and is an invincible badass by the end of the film. Most superheroes have a freakishly steep learning curve, even if they don’t have any powers. (Especially if they don’t have any powers.) If you are worried about realism, go watch My Dinner With Andre.
The thing about Rey, and characters like her, is that she subverts the actual awful trope that is ruining everything: the female character who is badass until the final act of the movie. Most films, with a character like Rey, would have her be ridiculously competent and brilliant until the final 20 or 30 minutes of the film, at which point she suddenly becomes useless and Finn has to solve everything. This is a trope that I have seen in approximately seven billion movies: the super-awesome woman who becomes suddenly less awesome as the male hero takes control of his power.
So yes, Rey is a tad unrealistic. Not unlike everything else in this universe with a magic space elf and fantasy mind powers and spaceships that can jump across the galaxy at the push of a button. What she isn’t, is more unrealistic than most of the other characters.
What the “Mary Sue” thing shows—other than that people will find any craptastic excuse to tear down female characters—is that memes have a decay rate. After a while, they wear out and you gotta find new ones. Fan culture is good at putting its finger on that one thing that’s bugging us at this one specific moment, but then absolutely terrible at generalizing and extrapolating, until you reach the heat death of criticism: total loss of information. This is a failure mode of fan culture, and it’s something to watch out for.
The 12 Days of Christmas start on Christmas Day and last until the evening of the 5th January – also known as Twelfth Night. The 12 Days have been celebrated in Europe since before the middle ages and were a time of celebration.
The 12 Days each traditionally celebrate a feast day for a saint and/or have different celebrations:
Day 2 (26th December also known asBoxing Day): St Stephen’s Day. He was the first Christian martyr (someone who dies for their faith). It’s also the day when the Christmas Carol ‘Good King Wenceslas‘ takes place.
Day 3 (27th December): St John the Apostle (One of Jesus’s Disciples and friends)
Day 5 (29th December): St Thomas Becket. He was Archbishop of Canterbury in the 12th century and was murdered on 29th December 1170 for challenging the King’s authority over Church.
Day 6 (30th December): St Egwin of Worcester.
Day 7 (31st December): New Years Eve (known as Hogmanay in Scotland). Pope Sylvester I is traditionally celebrated on this day. He was one of the earliest popes (in the 4th Century). In many central and eastern European countries (including Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland and Slovenia) New Years Eve is still sometimes called ‘Silvester’. In the UK, New Years Eve was a traditional day for ‘games’ and sporting competitions. Archery was a very popular sport and during the middle ages it was the law that it had to be practised by all men between ages 17-60 on Sunday after Church! This was so the King had lots of very good archers ready in case he need to go to war!
Day 9 (2nd January): St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen, two important 4th century Christians.
Day 10 (3rd January): Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. This remembers when Jesus was officially ‘named’ in the Jewish Temple. It’s celebrated by different churches on a wide number of different dates!
Day 11 (4th January): St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American saint, who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the past it also celebrated the feast of Saint Simon Stylites (who lives on a small platform on the top of a pillar for 37 years!).
Day 12 (5th January also known asEpiphanyEve): St. John Neumann who was the first Bishop in American. He lived in the 19th century.
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night was a big time of celebration with people holding large parties. During these parties, often the roles in society were reversed with the servants being served by the rich people. This dated back to medieval and Tudor times when Twelfth Night marked the end of ‘winter’ which had started on 31st October with All Hallows Eve (Halloween).
At the start of Twelfth Night the Twelfth Night cake was eaten. This was a rich cake made with eggs and butter, fruit, nuts and spices. The modernItalian Panettoneis the cake we currently have that’s most like the old Twelfth Night cake.
A dried pea or bean was cooked in the cake. Whoever found it was the Lord (or Lady) of Misrule for night. The Lord of Misrule led the celebrations and was dressed like a King (or Queen). This tradition goes back to the Roman celebrations of Saturnalia. In later times, from about the Georgian period onwards, to make the Twelfth Night ‘gentile’, two tokens were put in the cake (one for a man and one for a women) and whoever found them became the the ‘King’ and ‘Queen’ of the Twelfth Night party.
In English Cathedrals during the middle ages there was the custom of the ‘Boy Bishop’ where a boy from the Cathedral or monastery school was elected as a Bishop on 6th December (St Nicholas Day) and had the authority of a Bishop (except to perform Mass) until 28th December. King Henry VIII banned the practise in 1542 although it came back briefly under Mary I in 1552 but Elizabeth I finally stopped it during her reign.
During Twelfth Night it was traditional for different types of pipes to be played, especially bagpipes. Lots of games were played including ones with eggs. These included tossing an egg between two people moving further apart during each throw – drop it and you lose and passing an egg around on spoons. Another popular game was ‘snapdragon’ where you picked raisins or other dried fruit out of a tray of flaming brandy!
The first monday after Christmas feast has finished was known as ‘Plough Monday’ as this was when farming work would all begin again!
In many parts of the UK, people also wentWassailingon Twelfth Night.
Twelfth Night is also known as Epiphany Eve. In many countries it’s traditional to put the figures of the Wise Men/Three Kings into the Nativity Scene on Epiphany Eve ready to celebrateEpiphanyon the 6th January.
It’s also traditional to take your Christmas decorations down following Twelfth Night.
Twelfth Night is also the name of a famous play written by William Shakespeare. It’s thought it was written in 1601/1602 and was first performed atCandlemasin 1602, although it wasn’t published until 1623.
I’ve seen photos and videos of shelter dogs taking their “Freedom Rides” before. It’s that special moment when a dog gets adopted or is rescued and goes on a car ride to begin his/her new life. But I’ve never seen a dog’s “Freedom Walk” before, but when I watched Benny’s I was smiling from ear to ear.
Benny is around 8 months old, and he had already spent a few weeks at Carson Animal Care Center in Gardena, California, before a family decided to adopt him and take him home. When Benny is first let out of his kennel by his new family, he’s not sure what to do. What’s going on? Which way should he go? He’s trepidatious but excited.
Saving Carson Shelter Dogs shared the video on Facebook and writes:
“This special little guy captured the hearts of everyone who stopped by his kennel. He hit the jackpot when this beautiful family chose to take him home. Thanks for all you SHARING, checkout his FREEDOM WALK filled with lots of jumps and tail wagging! Happy life sweet BENNY.”
Benny flips out from the moment they have a leash on him and they’re heading for the front door. The pup can’t wait to be outta there. Of course, he makes a quick pit stop to sniff the grass and take a tinkle, but then he’s back to excitedly heading off to his new life!
Watch Benny’s joyous “Freedom Walk” and share his joy with your friends!
![Wassailing apple trees on Twelfth Night in Maplehurst, West Sussex, UK by Glyn Baker [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ATwelfth_Night_Tradition_-_geograph.org.uk_-_102515.jpg){kind=link}