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writing foreign correspondents

av jawq81, 7 december 2008

Meddelanden: 19

Språk: English

ceigered (Visa profilen) 17 december 2008 14:26:02

And yes for those wondering, the thought "why does Father Christmas live in the North Pole?" goes through just about every Australian child's mind. Spare my siblings, they never really believed in it all to begin with...

*well, I guess they'll be missing out on the presence of presents lango.gif *

mnlg (Visa profilen) 17 december 2008 14:32:24

ceigered:Actually when I was a little kid I believed Father Christmas visited just Australia, and La Befana (I used to think of her though as the Italian Christmas witch) visited Europe
Uhhh, la befana, what a nice surprise ridulo.gif

For those unfamiliar with this Italian custom, Wikipedia has some answers.

There has been at one time a christmas cartoon animation produced in Italy, which featured the Befana. Strangely enough, it was bought by an US distributor and dubbed in English; I read somewhere that the Befana had been rechristened as Santa's Aunt, not to hurt the sensibility of the US children, who might be thraumatised to know that there is *yet* another imagined entity on par with Santa Claus and capable of bringing gifts. I found that a bit funny, considering that tons and tons of Christmas customs and traditions spread from the US to pretty much the whole western world, and (at least here in Italy) they do not get altered nor censored, but there doesn't seem to be any psychological repercussion on little Italian kids... well, perhaps they are long-term, and we'll see in a few years okulumo.gif

erinja (Visa profilen) 17 december 2008 17:13:10

I always found it funny that Halloween stuff from the US is recycled and used as "Befana" stuff in Italy, at Christmas time. I don't know how many toy Befanas I've seen in Italian stores, with black cats and jack-o'-lanterns on their capes rideto.gif Probably it's all made in the same Chinese factory, anyway.

Rogir (Visa profilen) 17 december 2008 18:35:07

Talking about recycling, guess where the idea of Santa Claus came from?

Rogir (Visa profilen) 18 december 2008 00:15:22

Exactly! And they got the idea from the Dutch immigrants who brought their Sinterklaas tradition over to the U.S. This again shows how unoriginal multicultural American traditions are.

ceigered (Visa profilen) 18 december 2008 03:39:30

Apparently, Father Christmas and Santa Clause (Or Sinterklaas) were combined into the same interchangeable character for ease of marketing. O_O

I think the same thing is kinda happening in Russia and other slavic nations with Ded Moroz being merged with Santa. Maybe this is all just a big American conspiracy to take over the world through Christmas!

And by the above logic I now declare the official home of the Grinch to be in America ridulo.gif

(actually if we look even deeper, Santa Clause is a Dutch tradition so maybe its a Dutch conspiracy, and if we deconstruct even further, the Dutch are a Germanic people, therefore I now place all blame on the Germans which indirectly blames just about all of us Anglo-Saxons. Although continuing on this path logic would eventually place the blame on God. But that wouldn't make sense considering Christmas is celebrating his son's birthday, it would be illogical for him to be the grinch)

Rogir (Visa profilen) 19 december 2008 15:54:25

I think it's an old Germanic tradition, like a lot of Christian holidays.

RiotNrrd (Visa profilen) 20 december 2008 01:26:32

ceigered:And by the above logic I now declare the official home of the Grinch to be in America ridulo.gif
Yep. Just outside Whoville, on Mt. Crumpit. I've never visited, but I've seen the travelogue a number of times.

ceigered (Visa profilen) 20 december 2008 02:22:53

RiotNrrd:
ceigered:And by the above logic I now declare the official home of the Grinch to be in America ridulo.gif
Yep. Just outside Whoville, on Mt. Crumpit. I've never visited, but I've seen the travelogue a number of times.
Whoville? Seriously? Thats my hometown! The world is a small place indeed.

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