This year 2oo9....

Well..., this year is the year where i going to college....really like it though... but ..,sometimes looking back at this few year.... suddenly i remember when the day that my dad leave me and my twins without saying a words... but that was long ago...and now i'm a grown-up girl.... but eventough it was hard... i think it should be okey without people named DAD.... and life is better without him... hehehehe....

Christmas from all over the world....

Christmas is not only celebrated in American and European countries but is a popular festival in other parts of the country too. Read about the interesting Christmas celebrations in Iran, Yugoslavia, Egypt and Wales in this section that is heavily influenced by the regional and cultural influences of the country. Costa Ricans make the huge models of the stable, where the Christ was born, and they are often made as big as the room where they are kept so that the Christ can be as comfortable as possible in His Manger. Micronesians are mostly Protestant Christians and celebrate this day as the church family day, when all of them attend most parts of the day attending the local church services that include a message from every minister, lay preacher, and missionary in the area, singing carols and hymns and receiving gifts where strangely each recipient applauds himself while going to receive the gift. The most common church gifts here are two bars of soap.

Santa claus is coming to town....

Christmas is the joyfull day that calm our heart...The tradition of Christmas carols hails back as far as the thirteenth century, although carols were originally communal songs sung during celebrations like harvest tide as well as Christmas. It was only later that carols began to be sung in church, and to be specifically associated with Christmas.

Carols suffered a decline in popularity after the Reformation in the countries where Protestant churches gained prominence (although well-known Reformers like Martin Luther authored carols and encouraged their use in worship), but survived in rural communities until the revival of interest in carols in the 19th century.[citation needed]

The first appearance in print of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", "The First Noel", "I Saw Three Ships" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" was in Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern (1833) by William B. Sandys. Composers like Arthur Sullivan helped to repopularize the carol, and it is this period that gave rise to such favorites as "Good King Wenceslas" and "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear", a New England carol written by Edmund H. Sears and Richard S. Willis.

Today carols are regularly sung at Christian religious services . Some compositions have words which are clearly not of a religious theme, but are often still referred to as "carols". For example, the sixteenth century song "A Bone, God Wot!" appears to be a wassailing song (which is sung during drinking or while requesting ale), but is described in the British Museum's Cottonian Collection as a Christmas carol.

It is often difficult to draw a distinction between a Christmas carol and a Christmas song. To be sung by a church choir or sung in the street by amateurs, a song would have to have a fairly rapid, regular beat, which would therefore exclude a meandering crooning song such as "White Christmas". A country music song such as "Blue Christmas" might qualify, but in this case it would have to be adopted by many choirs, over many years to be truly "vernacular", and so far it has failed to gain wide acceptance. The Concise Oxford Dictionary is more generous, as it defines a carol as a "religious song...associated with Christmas".

Music
Traditionally, carols have often been based on medieval chord patterns, and it is this that gives them their uniquely characteristic musical sound. Some carols like "Personent hodie", "Good King Wenceslas", and "The Holly and the Ivy" can be traced directly back to the Middle Ages, and are among the oldest musical compositions still regularly sung.

Though many Christmas carols were written prior to the 20th century, several modern compositions have been written in more recent times. Many of the carols written by Alfred Burt are sung regularly in both sacred and secular settings, and are among the better-known modern Christmas carols.