I have been wondering how we came up with the term "Merry" as the adjective we most commonly use for Christmas??!! I know........kind of a lame thing to wonder about...........but , Hey!! It's my crazy brain. So, as lame as I am, I looked it up in my 1828 Noah Webster, huge, hard-back dictionary...........not on an I-Phone, etc.
"MERRY, a {Sax, mirige, myrig; Ar. to be joyful.
1. Gay and noisy; jovial' exhilarated to laughter.
Man is the merriest species of the creation.
2. Causing laughter or mirth; as a merry jest.
3. Brisk; as a merry gale. {This is the primary sense of the word.}
4. Pleasant; agreeable; delightful.
Chaucer....To make merry, to be jovial; to indulge in hilarity; to feast with mirth. Judges IX."
Well, that is something to ponder!! I don't think I have ever thought about that as my "greeting exhortation" to strangers or friends when I say to them "Merry Christmas"!! (which, by the way, I still choose to say to everyone........politically correct or not!) And now all the more since I have a fuller meaning.
Who but Christ Jesus the LORD, can bring that kind of delight to one's soul? And yet, even many who have been transferred, by His grace, from the kingdom of darkness to His marvelous Light, do not allow themselves this kind of indulging in hilarity and feasting with mirth over the birth of the Christ-Child!! Why is that?
As I take down the many nativity scenes in our home today, I will choose to continue my MERRY CHRISTmas!!
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