Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'christmas'

December 21, 2016

Calvin Coolidge on the spiritual power of Christmas

In his many addresses to the nation, President Calvin Coolidge made a point of routinely redirecting the country’s attention to the “things of the spirit.” In his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, he encouraged the country to reorient its vision of abundance, progressing not only in material prosperity, but also “in moral and spiritual things.” Continue Reading...
December 19, 2016

Explainer: Christmas 2016 by the Numbers

As the most widely observed cultural holiday in the world, Christmas produces many things—joy, happiness, gratitude, reverence. And numbers. Lots of peculiar, often large, numbers. Here are a few to contemplate this season: $50.82 – Average amount U.S. Continue Reading...
December 12, 2016

The cost of Twelve Days of Christmas: $34,363.49

If you’ve been stuck at the mall listening to a song about ten Lords a-Leaping and eight Maids a-Milking you can blame the Jesuits. Rumor has it they invented the Twelve Days of Christmas song as a catechism in code for persecuted Catholics in 16th-century England. Continue Reading...
December 06, 2016

An economist’s Christmas: Is gift-giving wasteful?

During a season such as Christmas, where hyper-consumerism and hyper-generosity converge in strange and mysterious ways, it’s a question worth asking: How much of our gift-giving is inefficient and wasteful? For some, it’s a buzz-kill question worthy of Ebenezer Scrooge. Continue Reading...
December 23, 2015

5 Facts About Christmas

Christmas is the most widely observed cultural holiday in the world. Here are five factsyou should know about the annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus: 1. No one knows what day or month Jesus was born (though some scholars speculate that it was in September). Continue Reading...
December 11, 2015

The Joyful Seriousness of Christmas

As Christians living in a secular age, there’s a temptation to use Christmas as a wedge to wage epic new battles to restore Christendom. But despite the flurry of hackneyed “War on Christmas” tropes, there is, alas, something rather amiss. Continue Reading...
December 29, 2014

Nothing New ‘Underneath that Burning Sun’

Friedrich Hayek once called intellectuals “professional secondhand dealers in ideas.” And the Preacher proclaimed, “There is nothing new under the sun.” So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising when ideas, memes, and other cultural phenomena pop up again and again. Continue Reading...