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Christkind, Santa, Дед Мороз | ||
Tags: Traditions | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 22 15 December 2009 at 4:53am | IP Logged | ||
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One message has been removed from this thread (not by me), one member declares her dislike for the commercial type of Christmas, but uses the expression "Older and better traditions", and another member promptly sees this as a case of "USA hatred". Seriously, how can a discussion about Santa degenerate into this? Some like him, some dont.
But to avoid even worse mudslinging I now close this thread. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 22 16 December 2009 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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OK, maybe tempers have cooled down, and Christmas is come nearer each day. We need a place to write about that subject, so let's try an experiment. I closed the thread, but now I have reopened it. Let's see whether anybody has more to say (in a civil and courteous and non-confrontational way) about Santa Clas and 'tomter' and Christmas traditions.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Juan M. Senior Member Colombia Joined 5899 days ago 460 posts - 597 votes | Message 11 of 22 16 December 2009 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here in Colombia we have El Niño Dios, or "Baby God". Children are supposed to write him a letter with their wishes for Christmas presents, and El Niño Dios flies all over the city and delivers them on the night of December 24, but only to those kids who have been good throughout the year! Presents are supposed to be opened exactly at midnight.
Santa Claus is of course known and visible, but is overall not too popular here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6122 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 12 of 22 16 December 2009 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree. The problem is that if you tell your child that Santa doesn't exist then your child will tell the other children and the other parents get angry at you. Thus, we perpetuated the Santa myth with my daughter. The payback though was that when we eventually told her that Santa was not real she responded "Is Jesus real?" As a Christian, I have a huge problem with most "Christian" holidays and traditions in that they are syncretistic, i.e., the traditions all come from pagan sources such as Yule, Saturnalia, Ishtar, etc. and they are blended with Christianity. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 13 of 22 16 December 2009 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Santa Claus both is and is not an invention of Coca Cola. In Scandinavia, there have always been tomtar, they look like people but are much smaller and not always visible to humans. They live around farms and can talk to animals. They wear grey wollen clothes and have long beards. If you are kind to them, give the porridge at Christmas etc, they will make your life easier.
Then there is Saint Nicholas of Myra, also called the Wonderworker. He was born in Asia Minor in the third century, like many other famous saints. He came from a very rich family, and on several occasions used his wealth to help the poor. For example, he secretly left a bar of gold with a family, the day before they were to marry of their daughter to some rich man. Finding the Saint's gold, they didn't need to effectively sell their daugther. (He repeated this with the other daughters.) These two, perhaps along with Julbocken mentioned by Cordelia, were then combined in the Nordic minds, and especially in the images of Jenny Nyström. Coca Cola commissioned a series of ads from the Swedish-American (that's the PC term) Haddon Sundblom, who drew inspiration from Nyström. These came to influence the American, and hence global, idea of Santa Claus so much as to lead some people to believe that Coca-Cola invented him. They didn't, they just popularised a specific graphical profile (and even that was not their invention). At least this is what I think happened. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fry Newbie United States Joined 5466 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 14 of 22 16 December 2009 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Personally, I think it's pretty cool that a good percentage of the Christian world celebrates the birth of its desert god by plunking a tree down in the living room.
I'm sure the ancient Saxons would appreciate the irony. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6122 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 15 of 22 17 December 2009 at 12:13am | IP Logged | ||
You are absolutely correct. The tree is an ancient Pagan ritual that even pre-dates the ancient Saxons. Check out this passage written in 600 BC: For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. Jeremiah 10:3-4 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 16 of 22 17 December 2009 at 9:54am | IP Logged | ||
Well, for one thing it is not the birth of Christ that is celebrated with Christmas trees, it's really a Yule ritual that stayed on. Most people that buy Christmas trees are not Christian, and many of them come from countries that have never even been Christian, so you are off the mark here. Seeing that trees are seen as symbols of life in many cultures, I don't think it is much of an irony anyway. I think it is more ironic that the atheists of today can't get away from counting their years from the birth of Christ. Or get rid of Christian superstitions like treating each other humanely. Edited by Gusutafu on 17 December 2009 at 9:56am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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