David Kyle Johnson > Quotes

“Pope Gregory I (in 601) laid the church’s strategy out quite plainly. As he wrote to Mellitus, his missionary in England, “[Do] not…stop such ancient pagan festivities…adapt them to the rites of the Church, only changing the reason of them from a heathen to a Christian impulse.”
― David Kyle Johnson, The Myths That Stole Christmas: Seven Misconceptions That hijacked the Holiday

“Some songs from the era prove this, like a couple of little-known verses of Yankee Doodle: Two and two may go to Bed, Two and Two together; And if there is not room enough, Lie one a top o’to’ther Christmas is a coming Boys, We’ll go to Mother Chase’s And there we’ll get a sugar dram [i.e., rum] Sweetened with Melasses [molasses]. Heigh Ho for our Cape Cod, Heigh ho Nantasket, Do not let the Boston wags Feel your Oyster Basket.9 Yes, “Oyster Basket” means exactly what you think it means.”
― David Kyle Johnson, The Myths That Stole Christmas: Seven Misconceptions That hijacked the Holiday

“Imagination involves pretending, and to pretend that something exists, one has to believe that thing doesn't exist.”
― David Kyle Johnson