November 2022 – Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School Library

The Holiday Season

It goes by many different names. The Holidays. The Festive Season. Yuletide. Winter Holidays. The Christmas Season. Advent. The Holiday Season. While there is no official start or end, in North America it is generally considered to run from American Thanksgiving, through December, and into the New Year.

Traditionally this season of the year was dominated by observances based on the Winter Solstice. Many cultures around the northern hemisphere developed celebrations that emphasize the contrast of the cold and darkness of winter with the promise of new light and life in the coming year.

These themes are central to the holy days and festivals of many faiths today.

In North America and Europe during the Christian Era, the season focused on holy days and the rituals around the Nativity of Christ. Often the traditional winter solstice festivals of the Celts, Saxons, Vikings and others were taken over by these Christmas celebrations.

For some, the season is secular in nature, without religious emphasis. The Holiday Season is a time for celebrating with family and friends, giving gifts, reflecting on the past year and looking forward to the new.

For many the Holiday Season can be about all of the above, as we combine a variety of traditions and new practices from the delightful mix of cultures and peoples from around the world.

There many different and wonderful Holidays and Holy Days in the coming weeks. Christmas tends to dominate, but it is imporant to learn about other observances and festivals, such as Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Rohatsu and many more.

Join us in the School Library as we celebrate this “most wonderful time of the year.” Look for displays and other opportunities for learning about this season of “Holidays and Holy Days.”

Enjoy all that you and your family have brought to this holiday season. Perhaps in learning about other traditions and practices, you might find something new for you to enjoy at this time of year.

Advent

The Holiday Season in the western world has traditionally been synonymous with Advent, literally the period of expectation of an important arrival. For Christians the season of Advent is about the anticipation of Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Christ. In the Christian Church, on each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, candles are lit as symbols of Advent.

In 2022 the four Sundays of Advent are November 27, December 4, December 11 and December 18.

The Holidays Begin

Happy American Thanksgiving to our southern neighbours and all the transplanted Americans who are in Canada getting a second Thanksgiving for the year.

US President Harry Truman welcomes a delegation of prominent Canadians for American Thanksgiving.

American Thanksgiving marks the unofficial start to the “Holiday Season.” Check back with us a the School Library as we begin our annual look at “Holidays & Holy Days” as 2022 comes to a close over the coming week.

This week at the School Library

International Games Month @ Your Library takes top billing this week as the School Library hosts over 25 different classes for a celebration of games! Board games, tabletop games, card games, party games and all sorts of games will be happening Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

On Wednesday the School Library also hosts the district DELF exam for French language students. As such we will be closed to all drop-in students for the entire day on Wednesday.

Try the Sporcle

Try our the sporcle game version of our “Favourite Games” post.

What are your favourite games?

November is International Games Month @ Your Library. Join with us as we celebrate the fun of board games, card games, tabletop games, party games and all kinds of live, in-person games.

Here are some of our favourites. More than a few are classics but there are also some more recent titles– maybe some that you haven’t heard of, but might like to try!

Chess
Catan
Monopoly
Hearts
King of Tokyo
Scrabble
Colt Express
Password
Cribbage
Biblios
Trivial Pursuit
Backgammon
Exploding Kittens
Carcassonne
Things
Ticket to Ride

What are your favourite games? Let us know in the comments below.

Champions of Peace

Can you identify these individuals who championed peace, non-violence, civil disobedience, reconciliation, conscientious objection, and other alternatives to war and violence?

Give it a try. Then check the answer key to see how you did. Comment below.

Answer Key

You can also try the SPORCLE version: click here

November is Peace Month. Come down to your School Library to find out more.

Books about Games

Come down to your School Library to check out these titles to learn more about games.

November is International Games Month @ Your Library.

Songs of Peace: Zombie

Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence caused such silence
Who are we mistaken?
Written by Dolores O’Riordan
Performed by The Cranberries

One of the great songs of the 1990’s, “Zombie” by the Cranberries is also one of the great anti-war songs of all time. Dolores O’Riordan wrote the song in response to another atrocity of sectarian violence spilling out of Northern Ireland. In this case two young boys were killed, and over 50 people injured, after an IRA bomb exploded in Warrington, in the northwest of England. O’Riordan was sickened by the bombing, and like most people in Ireland, she had had enough of seeing violence carried out in the name of the Irish. “The IRA are not me. I’m not the IRA,” she said. “The Cranberries are not the IRA. My family are not. When it says in the song, ‘It’s not me, it’s not my family,’ that’s what I’m saying.” (source)

Find out more:

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day is November 11. Today at LTSS we will observe Remembrance Day Assemblies.

Armistice Day was established to honour the fallen of the First World War, which formally ended at “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” Later, the name of the day was changed to Remembrance Day. Canadians served and died in another World War, as well as other wars and peacekeeping missions around the globe. Remembrance Day is a national holiday to honour the memory of those Canadians who have fallen in war.

On Remembrance Day we pay our respect to those that have paid the terrible costs of war. Remembrance Day is not meant to celebrate war or glorify war. War has brought untold suffering and pain to the world. Those who has experienced war, especially those that have lost loved ones in war, know that war is not something to celebrate.

It is also important to remember that Remembrance Day is not one of the those holidays that is just a chance for rest and recreation. Please take some time to reflect on what Remembrance Day is all about. On November 11th at 11:00 AM, plan to take some time to honour those that have died and those that have served. Whether you attend a ceremony in person, or check out the television coverage of the ceremony in Ottawa or other parts of Canada, take some time for Remembrance.

Guru Nanak Dev Ji Gurpurab

The founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak, was born in 1469 in the north-west of India, (what is now Pakistan.) He would go on to become the first of the Ten Gurus of Sikhism. In 2022 the celebration of the birth of Guru Nanak is November 8. The day is also referred to as Guru Nanak’s Prakash Utsav and Guru Nanak Jayanti.

Most Canadians of Indian heritage who live in Canada are Sikhs, including many students at Lord Tweedsmuir, and communities throughout Surrey and Greater Vancouver. If you are not Sikh, learn more about Guru Nanak, Sikhism, and the Sikh community. What a great way to better understand your friends, neighbours and fellow Canadians.

Find out more:

Sikh Wiki

Sikh Museum

Canadian Sikh Heritage

Sikh Net

BBC

The Guibord Center