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Celestial
Registered User
(12/23/04 4:10 pm)
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Scary Santa
Interesting article ...
Scary Santa Lurks in Finland's Christmas Past
www.reuters.com/newsArtic...ID=7139541
By Laura Vinha
ARCTIC CIRCLE, Finland (Reuters) - The song goes that Santa "knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!" But have we ever sought to find out if Santa's been naughty or nice?
In Finland at least, the unthinkable is true -- the jolly old man has a dark past. The forefather of the portly, bearded man, known in Finland as Joulupukki, was not dressed in red, did not greet children with smiles and he certainly brought no gifts. Instead Joulupukki, literally "yule goat," donned horns and an animal hide and covered his face with soot or a bark mask. He traveled from house to house frightening children with his wild dancing and singing and expected offerings of food and booze. The form this Christmas-time character took varied greatly in different parts of the country. According to some versions of the legend he also brought sticks with which to whip naughty children. Stingy households suffered the goat's insults.
No one knows exactly how or when, but as cultural influences from elsewhere spread into Finland, this beast transformed into the smiling Santa Claus that now meets children from around the world at his log cabin in Finland's Arctic Circle.
"The history of Santa Claus is an interwoven cultural braid. Santa Claus, like other cultural phenomena, is a reflection of its time," says Ahti Ahonen, regional Christmas coordinator in Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland. The name is all that now remains of the nasty old goat, and the man himself says much of his past is exaggerated.
"In much the same way as time makes good memories better, it can also make frightening memories worse," Santa Claus said, rocking in his chair and sipping tea during a break from replying to the half a million letters he receives every year.
Santa's modern look is often attributed to Coca-Cola's Christmas advertisements from the 1930s by U.S.-born artist Haddon Sundblom, whose family roots stretch to Finland's autonomous Aland islands.
"It is often claimed that Santa's red outfit comes from Coca-Cola, but I would argue that Coca-Cola got the red from Scandinavian elf mythology," says Ahonen, citing pictures of bearded, red-clad, rosy-cheeked elves from the early 1900s. Either way, a red-robed Father Christmas is arguably one of the most popular images used by companies to advertise their wares at Christmas, the modern celebration of mass consumption.
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DonnaQ
Registered User
(12/25/04 1:57 am)
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Re: Scary Santa
For a great chuckle, there's a short, personal tale in - Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - by David Sedaris, which speaks of cultural variations of Santa Claus, including one similar to the above mentioned. If I remember correctly, it's called "Six or Eight Black Men." Highly recommended!
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Colleen
Unregistered User
(12/27/04 11:05 am)
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Anya and Scary Santa
Anyone else remember Anya telling the Scooby gang about the real Santa on Buffy the Vampire Slayer? "Been around since, like, the 1500s. He wasn't always called Santa, but you know, Christmas night, flying reindeer, coming down the chimney - all true.... he doesn't traditionally bring presents so much as, you know, disembowel children, but otherwise...."
That was the first thing I thought of when I saw the subject "Scary Santa". Never knew there really was one! (Disemboweling aside.)
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