[sonicl]

I don't know, Lucyrulesok, what did Mrs. Christmas say to Father Christmas when the weather was bad?

[jon boy]

dont go out. stay here and we can get high and fool around all night long baby. was it that?

[jon boy]

c'mopn lucy dont leave us like this.

[sonicl]

Yes! Come on Lucy! What's the punchline????

[sonicl]

I don't beleive it. She's logged off without giving us the punchline.

[jon boy]

this has to be a killer joke now. the build up!

[sonicl]

If this is some joke she got off Little and Large I'm not going to be at all happy.



Maybe she's forgotten the punchline?

[lucyrulesok]

sorry the doorbell rang
she said:





*drum roll*




"don't go out in the rein deer" (geddit?)

[jon boy]

nice.

[sonicl]

You're so lucky you came back, and so lucky it wasn't an unfunny punchline. You'll never know how close you came to getting negative rep...


But as it is:

[lucyrulesok]

i'm shocked that you would give me negative rep.

it was COMIC TIMING

[jon boy]

perfect timing.

[Trasher02]

Originally Posted by lucyrulesok

sorry the doorbell rang
she said:





*drum roll*




"don't go out in the rein deer" (geddit?)

Wait I don't get it.

[sun city girl]

Originally Posted by jon boy

how does santa like his pizzas?

he likes them large...

 

[atari 2600]

http://www.souledout.org/christmas/s...anicholas.html

 

Santa Claus ~ The Myth

St. Nicholas ~ The Person

Most people know that our Santa Claus today originated from St. Nicholas, but the derivation of the Santa Claus story comes from many sources. In fact, since the Catholic church in 1969 demoted St. Nicholas from his official saintly status—as there were no records of his having been canonized—the original legend of this third century Turkish bishop is not very widely recognized as part of our Christmas celebration.

Nicholas was born into a wealthy family living in Patera, in the south of Turkey. Legend claims that on the church's fast days, Wednesdays and Fridays, the infant Nicholas nursed only after sundown.

Just one of many stories demonstrating his holy reputation is about an angel who appeared to the cardinal appointing a new bishop for the Turkish town of Mira, with a face bright like the sun, who told the cardinal to ordain the 30-year old Nicholas.
Through his priesthood in the early Christian faith, even while alive he came to be recognized for his generosity to all those in trouble. In his good-doing role as priest, one story tells of Nicholas, who took pity on a girl in his parish whose family had no dowry. Had Nicholas not intervened, this would have prevented her from marrying. He made a parcel of money from his family's coffers and donated it anonymously to the young woman and her future by throwing it in through the open window, where it is said to have landed in her stocking. This type of event occurred more than once, and Nicholas became known for late night gifts, and the granting of wishes.
A miracle of his legacy is the story of three young students who were robbed and dismembered on their way home from school, and stuffed in a pickle barrel. Nicholas is said to have appeared out of nowhere, and the boys arose at his command, intact.

In 314 A.D., at the Council of Nicea, the Emperor Constantine brought up the question of whether Christ was divine. During the arguments on the subject, Nicholas is reported to have slapped a doubting priest.
Once the story of his deeds spread, he became widely known for helping those in trouble: lawyers and their clients, pawnbrokers, and sailors, as he was invoked to calm turbulent seas. And he became the patron saint of children. From his tomb, a viscous myrrh-like material oozed and was used by pilgrims as an ointment, to heal sickness. By 1082, his body was removed from where it was initially interred in Turkey, and moved to Bari, Italy by grave robbing sailors, and a cathedral was built there in his name. For centuries there were more churches in the middle ages named after him than all the apostles, and next to Christ and the Virgin Mary, St. Nicholas was the next most popular figure in Christianity.

In a French village during the 12th century, local nuns honored their patron on December 6, which became St. Nicholas Day. The nuns delivered candy to all the children who'd been good, leaving it for them in their shoes, and leaving switches in those of the naughtier children. Because they seemed to cover so much territory, some began to say it was St. Nicholas himself who delivered the gifts.
By medieval times Nicholas had become the most beloved patron saint of Europe, and through the middle ages, the story of Christmas in Europe developed to combine religious and pagan myths.

German culture told of the ancient god Voden, the mystical sky rider who would pass judgment over villages to determine who did well, and who did not. In the 16th century reformation, Martin Luther's strong Protestant church banned St. Nicholas, denouncing his popularity as a saint because it rivaled the worship of Jesus.

 

When Luther created the Protestant church, he realized it would be necessary to wean German children off of St. Nick, so he created Krist Kindle, the winged Christ cherub, who also flew and brought gifts to good children—but which instead focused the celebration around Christ. He came on Christmas Eve at Christ's birthday, which more closely coincides with the Winter Solstice, around which pagan religion celebrated the return of the Sun's light.

 

In England the myth developed around Father Christmas, and in France, Pere Noël. Italy's old hag Bafana, out looking for the Christ child, left gifts in her wake for other kids. The gnome Tompten was Sweden's figure, and in the U.S., Martin Luther's Krist Kindle became Kris Kringle.

It was Dutch sailors who came to the New World and would not give up St. Nicholas as their patron; when they settled, particularly around the New York area, their nickname Santer Klause became the name we know as Santa Claus.
In early colonial times around the American Revolution, the new American culture embraced most all that was not British, and so took on the Dutch Christmas celebration honoring their beloved St. Nick. Washington Irving gave the Dutch culture prominence in his "Knickerbocker Tales," which he wrote for the New York newspaper press. He mentions St. Nicholas over two dozen times in his chronicle, and it is from these writings that the original story "A Visit from St. Nicholas," better known as "The Night Before Christmas," was conceived. The poem came to Clement Clark one night before Christmas when he was riding in a horse and carriage through the snowy streets of New York City, and so went home and wrote it for his children.
St. Nick came to be depicted as a jolly man in the more familiar red suit and white beard, and Harper's Weekly publisher Thomas Nast printed drawings that brought these images to the public. By this time, St. Nicholas' bishop's staff had become the more pagan candy cane. Other popular writers in the 1800s also published variations of the Santa Claus story, and by the 1890s, the first department store santas had emerged. By the 20th century, Santa Claus was here to stay!

[atari 2600]

Originally Posted by A Thousand Threads

Coca-Cola actually invented the image of the modern Santa Claus for a advertising campaign in 1931.
That´s pretty much all i know about the legend of Santa.

Here in Austria we have a so called "Christ Kindl" , translated - "christ-child".
i remember my grandmother saying: "This year there won´t be any presents, the russians shot the christ-child"

I remember hearing something to that effect on a documentary once.

http://www.icubed.com/~colagrrl/xmas.htm for thumbs of Coca-Cola illustrator Haddon Sundblom's Santas

Coca-Cola and Christmas

In 1931, the Coca-Cola Company commissioned Chicago illustrator Haddon Sundblom to develop the image of a human-like Santa Claus, based on the positive public response to a magazine advertisement for Coca-Cola depicting such a character that appeared in late 1930. Prior to Sundblom's first rendition in 1931, people envisioned Santa Claus as leprechaun-like, or as a queer mixture of a gnome and a bishop. Over the next third of a century, Sundblom's Santa would be embraced by the public worldwide, and become a holiday tradition.

For inspiration in creating his Santa Claus, Sundblom turned to Clement Moore's 1822 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas". Moore's description of the toy maker as "chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf" led to an image of Santa that was warm, friendly and human.

Sundblom often used neighborhood kids, dogs and family members as models, changing their hair color, clothes, even genders to suit his subject. Sundblom's original model for Santa was his friend and neighbor Lou Prentice, a retired salesman. After Prentice died in the late 1940's, Sundblom would often find his model by looking in the mirror.

The remaining Santa paintings use Sundblom as his own model -- although he said he added the beard as he painted, rather than growing one.

Haddon Sundblom painted 35 years of Santa portraits that were used in magazine ads and posters, and which now also appear in special exhibitions around the world.

"Of the thousands of pieces of art in our archives, none is as valuable as the Sundblom Santas," said Philip F. Mooney, the Company's archivist. "But their value goes beyond the worth of the paintings themselves."

 

Another one of Haddon Sundblom's famous creations for the Coca-Cola Company was the Sprite Boy, which was originally used to introduce the brand name Coke in 1942. The Sprite Boy wore either a soda-jerk's cap to promote fountain sales of Coke or a bottle cap to advertise bottled Coca-Cola. After 1949, the Sprite Boy would not appear with Santa again, and he disappeared altogether from advertising for Coca-Cola by 1958.

Haddon Sundblom, who died in 1976, created numerous illustrations used in advertising for Coca-Cola over the years, but is best known for the Santa and Sprite Boy characters.

[cuetzpalin]

ANDY GOLDSWORTHY! love him*