Christmas City

[Aion]

Same here, in Germany there's Nikolaus on December 6th. Children have to polish their shoes and put them in front of the door, and on the next morning Nikolaus has left a small present in it. Incidentally Nikolaus looks exactly like Santa Claus (Weihnachtsmann, i.e. 'Christmas man' in German) and of course they have the same origin, but they are considered two different persons. Confusing
Traditionally, the presents on Christmas are brought by the Christ Child, but today he has been almost completely replaced by Santa Claus.

In Finland Santa Claus is called Joulupukki which litteraly means Christmas Goat Got something to do with old pagan traditions.

 

[Quinzy]

in japan AFAIK it's "annual gift man" and he lives on the moon

 

[mrtn]

In Swedish he's called "Tomten" which means "the Gnome"; he's a bastardised farm gnome, basically.
We also have Christmas Goats, but they are real goats, often made of straw. There's a famous giant straw goat in the town of Gävle that's "traditionally" burned down by an arsonist.

 

[Rambuchan]

@ Aion: This is very cute and a heartwarming inclusion on the boards. Thanks!

(I don't think it will be used in the Mughals upgrade though )

 

[Plotinus]

"Santa Claus" is an American corruption of the Dutch name for "St Nicholas". One theory for how he transferred his operations from 6 December to 25 December in America is that the Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam got their St Nicholas Day presents at Christmas (it took that long for them to be sent from home). So presents became associated with Christmas.

Of course, in Britain we always used to have Father Christmas, who is akin to the Father Frost and other wintry avatars of pagan origin on the continent. But he seems to have been almost entirely displaced by the American "Santa Claus" now, which annoys me. However, it is slightly ironic that, while in some quarters in America "Christmas" is being de-Christianised and replaced by "holidays", they are imposing a mythical figure of Christian origin elsewhere in the world and pushing out the pagan one...

I didn't know that Greeks identified him with Basil of Caesarea, which is interesting. He was indeed a major figure, though I wouldn't call him a lunatic. Perhaps the association with present-giving comes from his charity work - he built a huge hospital-hostel complex outside the city, which is what enterprising bishops did in the fourth century.

 

[Rambuchan]

Yes that's some good info there Plotinus.

If folk are interested in who is responsible for the popularisation of the image of Santa Claus, when and how, then check out this post I made in the Political Cartoons thread.

 

[Quinzy]

and here was me thinking that coke invented the modern santa, or was that just the red suit... (cos the original wore green, AFAIK)

 

[Rambuchan]

Don't know about that Quinzy. I would recommend that you don't give Coca-Cola (or their critics) too much credit. It's quite a myth that they were so heavily involved afaik.

 

[Quinzy]

i suppose. coke haven't done much for me, excent pollute me with their sweet, sweet, red nectar of the gods... sorry, i phased out for a sec.
well, i've always been told that they gave him the trademark suit, but i could have been informed wrong..

 

[Rambuchan]

And to think you got the facts from a guy you met on a modding forum board!!

We come up with all of this stuff in the Colosseum sub-forums btw. Check them out for more. I won't carry on taking this thread OT.

 

[Aion]

Oh, I like it how this thread drifted OT. I usually try to avoid the Off Topic section, because I don't really enjoy discussing creationism with American high school students :shakehead Well, maybe I'm just biased

 

[Plotinus]

Ha, you're not the only one, Aion.

I don't mind a bit of OT-ness now and then in threads such as this - it's always much more civilised than in the OT forum.

By the way, I understand that Coke's ads did go some way towards standardising the view of Claus as wearing red, but they by no means invented the idea that he wore red - he was just depicted with more variation beforehand.

I don't know how Santa Claus came to wear the relatively short jacket and trousers, rather than the long robe that I associate with Father Christmas, but maybe that is one of the differences between the two rather than a development in one of them.

 

[Quinzy]

heh, look at my "location". im IRISH. not a yank. tut tut tut....

 

[Aion]

BTW Plot, interested in participating in my history quiz?

 

[Aion]

@Quinzy: Well, then you don't fit the cliché. Are you a creationist, at least?

 

[Plotinus]

Thanks, Aion - in fact I've been keeping an eye on it, but I rarely post because I just don't know the answers! I'm always especially bad at picture-related ones. Although I do recognise the Merlion when I see it - as someone said, half-lion, half-fish, and all plug-ugly.

 

[Abaddon]

lookin good

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes, st Basil- typically ignoring the rest of the discussion to continue on what interests ME- is the name we use here for st. claus too. All the folk songs are writen about him, and as i have read they are ussually direct translations and twists of popular western carols, done in the mid 19th century. So st. Basil is comming fom Caesaria, holding a piece of paper and a pen, so as to write down those who should get presents. I am pretty sure that the pen and paper symbolised learning, since at the time a large percentage of the greek population wasn't very educated, and families typically could afford to educate only one child, with the other ones destined to help in manual labour.
There are very bleak short stories in modern greek literature about that period, and about st Basil too, but infortunately i dont think that they have been translated in other languages.
Although st. Basil was ascetic and in his christian world (he is one of the 3 'hierarchs', founding fathers of the very early chistian church) still the known figure of the red-dressed, fat santa clause is named "agios basileios" (st basil) here

There used to be another tradition, about an evil imp, with the scary name "kalikantzaros", but unfortunately it has faded away now. I barely managed to hear something about it when i was a child, and am almost sure that its tales will not be heard again in big cities, although i suspect that here and there, in some small village in western macedonia, perhaps some small children have still felt frightened by the presence of the kalikantzaros, lurking near the fireplace- or was that just the capricious flame, eating through the old wood?

 

[Snorken]

Looks very good! The book about Santa and Korvatunturi used to be one of my favourites, very nice pictures.

 

[Aion]

Looks very good! The book about Santa and Korvatunturi used to be one of my favourites, very nice pictures.

You caught me Indeed that book (for those who don't know what we're talking about, a childrens' book by the Finnish picture book painter Mauri Kunnas) was my source of inspiration. Though I always though it was forbidden in Sweden (deterioration of national values or so)