Apple #508: Sundays

I try to do a Daily Apple each Sunday. (Yes, I know this is turning into a weekly blog rather than a daily one, but we'll discuss that another time).  Anyway, so it's a regular Sunday thing here at the Daily Apple.  Which means it's high time I talked about Sundays.

Here's a song for you to listen to as you read.

• My mom says there's an old saying that if it rains on Easter, it will rain for a month of Sundays afterward.

• A month of Sundays would be thirty Sundays.  Which is 7 and a half months.  That's a lot of rainy Sundays.

• That's quite ironic because "Sunday" literally means "day of the Sun."

• The day of the week Sunday is not to be confused with the ice cream treat, the sundae.  

I like hot fudge sundaes best.
(Photo from Girls Online)

• The exact birthplace of the sundae is hotly contested between Two Rivers, Wisconsin, and Ithaca, New York. Both places have rather extensive tales about the first sundae that was served. One place says it was vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup that was intended for making chocolate sodas, the other places says it was vanilla ice cream with cherry syrup and a candied cherry on top.  

• In both cases, though, the ice cream treat was first conceived of and served on a Sunday.

• After a while, as the Sunday treat became more and more popular, some people got up in arms about this frivolous luxury item being called the same thing as the day of religious observance. (This was in the 1880s or thereabouts.)  So various soda fountains took to calling them sundaes instead, and that's the word that stuck.

• About Sunday being the day of religious observance and the day of rest: It was actually on the seventh day that God rested from doing all that creating.  Which, according to our calendars, would be Saturday.  Most of the references to the Sabbath or the day of rest in the New Testament also seem to have occurred on the seventh day. 

• Also, apparently the very early Christian church moved the day of worship from the Jewish Sabbath day (Saturday) to Sunday in order to accommodate the Romans' pagan traditions.  Many Christian church leaders today will agree that the fact that Sunday is celebrated as the day of worship is more due to tradition than Biblical authority.

• So, Sunday as the day of worship is another thing that has stuck.

A Sunday at the Salisbury Presbyterian Church in Midlothian, Virginia
(Photo from the Salisbury Presbyterian Church)

• I for one take the day of rest thing very seriously.  I usually sleep in and often I take at least one nap on Sunday.  Sometimes two.

• I couldn't find any hard data about this, but apparently a lot of people take naps on Sundays. A quick Google search turned up the following remarks from all sorts of blogs:

• "The Four Hour Sunday Nap . . . I adore the 'Sunday nap.'"
• "I only get to nap on Sundays and it is for at least an hour."
• "Sunday Funday . . . couch napping"
• "I just took the most wonderful Sunday nap"
• "Sunday = Nap Day"
• There's also a Facebook group called "If I don't get my Sunday nap, I'm cranky all week"

Dogs will always be willing to take a Sunday nap with you.
(Photo by Carl Rosenvold)


This is Emjae's version of the Sunday nap.
(Photo from James and Cindy)

• One mother says "I REALLY love my Sunday afternoon naps. They rejuvenate me and help me prepare for another long week." But her kids get a little bored while she sleeps.  She posted some pictures of how they entertained themselves one Sunday during nap time:

(Photos from The Nolden Family Blog)

• Speaking of data about Sundays, according to one Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, 80% of us Americans watch a bunch of TV on Sundays, an average of 4 hours.

• Much of the TV we watch is sports.  So it's no mistake that the Superbowl is on a Sunday.  

• We also like to attend some sort of religious service (about 25% of us do, that is), or laze around with friends or family, go for ye olde Sunday drive, or read the Sunday paper.

• Not everybody likes Sundays. There's even a condition called the Sunday neurosis.  This is when a person can't handle the fact that Sunday is unscheduled, without a routine, completely open. People don't know what to do with themselves and kind of wig out.

• There's another kind of Sunday, the sort that Kris Kristofferson sang about. (Johnny Cash actually wrote the song.)

• Someone having a Kris Kristofferson kind of Sunday could probably use a few naps, too.

• Whew, that was kind of a downer, eh?  How about another Sunday song.  The lip syncing in this is terrible, but the fashion is inspired.

• I'd have embedded this one for you, Jason, but it wouldn't let me.

• This one's for you, Carrie.  Some of you may not remember this, but Little House on the Prairie used to be on Sunday nights. 7 pm, if I remember right.  So this counts as a Sunday song.

I hope that wherever you are, you're enjoying your Sunday.

Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary, Sunday
What's Cooking America, Ice Cream Sundae - History and Legends of the Ice Cream Sundae
BibleStudy.org, WHICH day is the Bible Sabbath?
CBS News, What Makes Sundays So Special? February 1, 2009