Gordon Pape - Family Quizmas: Christmas Bedtime Stories and Trivia Fun

PENGUIN CANADA

Family Quizmas

GORDON PAPE is the author of many acclaimed books, including bestselling investment guides, novels, and non-fiction humor. He is the father of three and grandfather of eight, and has spent many Christmases playing Quizmas with friends and family.

DEBORAH KERBEL, Gordons daughter, is a seasoned Quizmas player and mother of a young son and daughter. She is the author of Kendras Chronicles.

The authors live in the Toronto area.

PENGUIN CANADA

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First published 2006

(WEB) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright Gordon Pape Enterprises, 2006

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To Xenya, Abby, Jonah, and Dahlia:
May all your Christmas memories be joyous

T he stories of Christmas are among the most beautiful in the rich heritage that has been passed down to us over the millennia. We have all heard them many times over the years, and yet they are always new and exciting.

We wrote this book to introduce the wonder of Christmas to the youngest of children, to help them better understand the enchantment, the mystery, and the true meaning of this most special day.

As parents, we know from experience that many of the great Christmas stories are difficult for very young children to understand, and some, such as the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, are simply not suitable for small children. So we set out to retell the greatest of these stories in a way that will fascinate and enthrall even the youngest girl or boy. Seven traditional stories are included in this book, one for each night of the week leading up to Christmas Eve.

We begin each story with a Quizmas question, so the child is immediately involved in the tale to come. At the end, we have added two more questions your child can have fun answering before drifting off to sleep. If he or she wants moreand we know some youngsters love answering questions like thisweve added another seventy, ten for each story, at the end of the book.

Heres a little background to the stories and how we decided on the best ways to retell them.

THE NATIVITY STORY. Only two of the Gospels tell the story of the Nativity: St. Matthew and St. Luke. Our version draws heavily on St. Luke, which describes most of the events we have come to associate with the story of Jesus birth. We have added some description and characters to the biblical story, so as to make it more interesting to young children. For example, the innkeepers wife is not mentioned in the scriptures, although scholars agree that Mary almost certainly would have had at least one woman in attendance at the birth, as was customary at that time. But apart from these minor changes, the story we tell is the same as it appears in St. Luke.

THE THREE KINGS. Here we found ourselves dealing with a different situation. The story of the Three Kings appears only in St. Matthew and is very sketchy. Many people are surprised to learn that St. Matthew does not even tell us how many kings there weresome scholars say there could have been as many as twelve. In fact, it is not even clear that kings is the correct way to describe them. The word magi, as used in the original Greek (the language in which the Gospels were written), can be interpreted as wise men, as it is in the King James Version of the Bible. The Three Kings have also been described over the centuries as magicians or wizards.

There is no mention in St. Matthew of their names or where they came from. Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar, the names most widely accepted today, come from accounts written years later, and there was no unanimity even then that they were correct. It is widely agreed, however, that the Three Kings came from different places and met only when they reached Jerusalem. In Psalm 72, verse ten, we read that the kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. From that verse, latter-day scholars and artists concluded that Ethiopia, Arabia, and Tarsus, on the south coast of what is now Turkey, were the homelands of the Three Kings.

St. Matthew also offers clues that suggest the Three Kings did not visit the Christ Child at the stable in Bethlehem, as traditionally depicted, but in fact arrived about two years after his birth. In chapter two of this Gospel, we are told that King Herod sent the Wise Men to Bethlehem, following the star. But verse nine refers to Jesus as the young child (King James Version). Further on, in verse eleven, Matthew writes, And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother. These words suggest that the Holy Family was living in a permanent residence, not a stable. We are then told that an outraged Herod ordered the killing of all the children under age two in Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof. Some have interpreted these passages as indicating that Joseph and Mary lived in Bethlehem following the birth of Jesus and remained there for two years, until an angel told them to flee to Egypt after the visit of the Three Kings.