Christmas edition

1 fest-In Christmas & New Year Edition

Warm Rotaract Greetings!!!
It gives me pleasure and proud to be the chairman of fest-In.
You all know that fest-In is an exclusive magazine of RC of
zenith and it talks about festivals and culture of our nation.
We successfully launched six editions and now came up with
7th edition, Christmas & New Year edition. It is the correct
time to thank my fest-In team and Zenith family members
because without their support fest-In wouldn’t be possible.

Dear Readers, you’re the backbone of the fest-In. We need
yours support and your valuable suggestions always. I hope you
all will enjoy this edition as you did for previous editions of
fest-In.

I wish you very happy Christmas & New Year. The day may fill
with joy, happiness and blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ…..

Regards,

Rtr.Premalatha.V
‘fest-In’ chairman & Jt-secretary,
R C Of Zenith

‘ To Reach the Unreachable’


CHRISTMAS DAY
Christian Community celebrates Jesus Christ‘s birthday as Christmas Day.
Bethlehem is the town where Jesus Christ is said to have been born on
December 25. It‘s a celebration of humanity and mankind. Though Christmas is
a primary festival of the Christian calendar but still it has a special significance in
everyone‘s life. It is celebrated as a universal festival throughout the nation.

Date:
The first evidence of the Church attempting to put a date on the day of Christ‘s
birth comes from 200 AD, when theologians in Alexandria decided it was 20th of
May. In 380s, the Church in Rome was attempting to unite the various regions in
using December 25th as the universal feast day, and eventually that is the day
that stuck.

As so often was the case in the early Church, the influence of the pagan feasts
of Rome is seen, because December 25 was the festival for the birth of the sun.



St Cyprian makes mention of this: ―O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on
that day on which that Sun was born . . . Christ should be born.‖

Saint Francis:
Saint Francis is the famed saint who had an apparent miraculous control over
animals, and who travelled to the Middle East to convert the Muslims – offering
to be thrown into the fire. And we have all seen nativity sets little firurines which
represent the people present at the birth of Jesus. He is the person who
invented the nativity set in the 13th century!

Gifts:
Christmas drinks, cards and many other Christmas traditions are not modern of
capitalism. Actually it comes to us via the Ancient Romans who exchanged all of
those things on New Year‘s Day.

This was initially shunned by the Church make vetulas, little deer or iotticos or
set tables at night or exchange on New Year gifts or supply superfluous drinks
but, old habits die hard and it eventually transferred to Christmas.



Christmas tree:
We heard the tale of how Martin Luther, the famous protestant rebel gave the
world the Christmas tree but, it‘s not true. The first association of tree with
Christmas comes from Saint Boniface in the 7th century AD, when he chopped
down a tree sacred to Thor to prove the local villagers that the Norse gods were
not legitimate. By the 15th century people were cutting down trees and putting
them in their homes to decorate with sugared fruit and candy and candles.

By the time Luther came around, it was a long established tradition.

X-Mas:
That one small word causes anger amongst many people; Christians consider it
to be disrespectful to replace Christ‘s name with an x – even going so far as to
that it is a ploy by anti-Christians to de-Christianity Christmas. However, Xmas is
almost as old as the feast it refers to – the ‗x‘ is actually the Greek letter chi



which is the first letter of Christ‘s name in Greek. Xmas is every bit as religious
as Christmas.

Santa Claus:
Santa Claus is actually based on the early Church Bishop Saint Nicholas. He
was born during the third century, in the village of Patara in Turkey, and was
known for secretly giving gifts of money to poor.

The modern image of him as a jolly man in red most likely comes from the 1823
poem ―A visit from St Nicholas‖ also known as ―The Night before Christmas‖.

Candy Cane:
In the late 1800s, a candy maker in Indiana wanted to express the meaning of
Christmas through a symbol made of candy. He came up with the idea of
bending one of his white candy sticks into the shape of a Candy Cane. He



incorporated several symbols of Christ‘s love and sacrifice through the Candy
Cane. First, he used a plain white peppermint stick.

The color white symbolizes the purity and sinless nature of Jesus. Next, he
added three small stripes to symbolize the pain inflicted upon Jesus before his
death on the cross. There are three of them to represent the Holy Trinity. He
added a bold stripe to represent the blood Jesus shed for mankind. When
looked at with crook on top, it looks like a shepherd‘s staff because Jesus is the
shepherd of man. If you turn it upside down, it becomes the letter J symbolizing
the first letter in Jesus‘ name. The candy maker made these candy canes for
Christmas, so everyone would remember what Christmas is all about.



NEW YEAR
The celebration of the new year on January 1st is a relatively new phenomenon.
The earliest recording of a new year celebration is believed to have been in
Mesopotamia, c. 2000 B.C. and was celebrated around the time of the vernal
equinox, in mid-March.

A variety of other dates tied to the seasons were also used by various ancient
cultures. The Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians began their new year with
the fall equinox, and the Greeks celebrated it on the winter solstice.

Early Roman Calendar: March 1st Rings in the New Year

The early Roman calendar designated March 1 as the new year. The calendar
had just ten months, beginning with March. That the new year once began with
the month of March is still reflected in some of the names of the months.
September through December, our ninth through twelfth months, were originally
positioned as the seventh through tenth months (septem is Latin for "seven,"
octo is "eight," novem is "nine," and decem is "ten."

January Joins the Calendar



The first time the new year was celebrated on January 1st was in Rome in 153
B.C. (In fact, the month of January did not even exist until around 700 B.C.,
when the second king of Rome, Numa Pontilius, added the months of January
and February.)

The new year was moved from March to January because that was the
beginning of the civil year, the month that the two newly elected Roman
consuls—the highest officials in the Roman republic—began their one-year
tenure. But this new year date was not always strictly and widely observed, and
the new year was still sometimes celebrated on March 1.

Julian Calendar: January 1st Officially Instituted as the New Year

In 46 B.C. Julius Caesar introduced a new, solar-based calendar that was a vast
improvement on the ancient Roman calendar, which was a lunar system that
had become wildly inaccurate over the years. The Julian calendar decreed that
the new year would occur with January 1, and within the Roman world, January
1 became the consistently observed start of the new year.

Middle Ages: January 1st Abolished

In medieval Europe, however, the celebrations accompanying the new year
were considered pagan and unchristian like, and in 567 the Council of Tours
abolished January 1 as the beginning of the year. At various times and in
various places throughout medieval Christian Europe, the new year was



celebrated on Dec. 25, the birth of Jesus; March 1; March 25, the Feast of the
Annunciation; and Easter.

Gregorian Calendar: January 1st Restored

In 1582, the Gregorian calendar reform restored January 1 as new year's day.
Although most Catholic countries adopted the Gregorian calendar almost
immediately, it was only gradually adopted among Protestant countries. The
British, for example, did not adopt the reformed calendar until 1752. Until then,
the British Empire —and their American colonies— still celebrated the new year
in March

Kitchen zone
Black Forest Cake



Ingredients
½ cup (110 g) butter, softened

1+¼ cup (275 g) sugar

2 eggs

1+¼ cup (140 g) all-purpose flour

½ cup (50 g) unsweetened cocoa powder, natural

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup (1.8 dl) buttermilk

Ingredients for filling
¼ cup Kirschwasser (Kirsch/cherry brandy), optional

2 cans (14 oz or 400 g) cherry pie filling or pitted cherries

3 cups (7.2 dl) heavy whipping cream, chilled

¼ cup confectioners' sugar

Milk chocolate curls or shavings, for garnish

Maraschino cherries or sweet cherries, for garnish, optional

Method
1. Preheat oven to 350 deg F (Gas mark 4 or 180 deg C).

2. Line a 9 inch (23 cm) cake pan with greaseproof or other non-stick paper.

3. With an electric mixer, beat the softened butter with sugar until white and fluffy.

4. Add one egg at a time, mix well between each egg.



5. Add sifted flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla extract and
buttermilk, and mix until the batter is smooth.

6. Transfer to a cake pan and bake at 350 degrees just until set in the middle,
approximately 45-60 minutes. A wooden pick inserted in center should come out
with just a few moist crumbs on it. Do not over-bake!

7. When cake is cool, use a long serrated knife to cut the cake horizontally into 3
equal layers. It is easier to cut if kept in a refrigerator for a few hours before
cutting.

Filling
1. Drain cherry pie filling in a colander to remove most of the thickened juices.

2. Beat the whipping cream with confectioners' sugar until it thickens.

3. Using a vegetable peeler, shave chocolate; refrigerate until the cake is
assembled.

Assembling
1. Sprinkle each layer of the cake with Kirschwasser.

2. Place one cake layer on a serving plate.

3. Spread about one fifth of the whipped cream on the layer, and strew half of the
cherries on top of the whipped cream.

4. Add the second cake layer.

5. Spread one fifth of the whipped cream on the second layer and the remaining
cherries on top.

6. Add the third cake layer.

7. Spread one fifth of the whipped cream on top and one fifth on the sides. Gently
press chocolate curls on the sides and/or on top of the cake.



Butter Cookies

Ingredients:
 1 cup butter
 1 cup sugar
 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
 2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted or stirred before measuring
 dash salt
 1 teaspoon baking powder
 blanched almond halves

Preparation:

 Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla.
 Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder.
 Stir dry ingredients into butter mixture; mixing until well blended.
 Shape dough into small balls.
 Place on ungreased cookie sheets; press an almond half into the top of each ball.
 Bake butter cookies at 300° for 20 minutes, or until just lightly browned.
 Makes 5 to 6 dozen butter cookies.



Idhu Namma Area

Just find out the difference!!!!!!!!!!!!

By

Past President. Rtr. Yuvabala,

RC Of Zenith.



Zenith family wishes you happy christmas & New Year!!!

Editors:
Rtr.Premalatha
Rtr.Saravanan


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