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Carbon dioxide posted:Let's actually contextualize this with some recent history: Really good post and context. I'm slightly nervous the situation next year, though: if Wilders actually becomes PM, he's going to try anything in his power to gut public broadcasting. And since those are the guys that organize the national parade, I could see them tossing out dumb poo poo like "no funding without Black Pete." lol our country is hosed
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 09:53 |
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# ? May 31, 2024 22:56 |
It seems to always be a rump of about a third of any given society that insists on absolutely making said society as lovely and unpleasant and backwards as possible, and almost always gets their way
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 10:27 |
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Barry Foster posted:It seems to always be a rump of about a third of any given society that insists on absolutely making said society as lovely and unpleasant and backwards as possible, and almost always gets their way We elected a man who denies climate change exists while living beneath sea level.
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 10:41 |
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Sucks that the bad third of humanity has all the money and power.
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 10:46 |
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A Worrying Warlock posted:We elected a man who denies climate change exists while living beneath sea level. The Dutch have hybristophilia.
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 10:57 |
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Anectdotal but my 4 year old nephew was staying with his grandparents (from my brother in laws side) and they filmed him doing the shoe thing because it was his first time with them and it's cute. (There's a tradition where you put out your shoe before going to bed and sing a little song, maybe leave a carrot for the Saint's horse, and the next morning the Petes have left you a treat or small gift, kinda like the christmas stockings?) So he sings the song and loudly thanks Sinterklaas, and his grandparents say he forgot to thank someone. He's confused for a bit and they say you gotta thank zwarte Piet too, which only confuses him more because for him it's just Piet. So you can see him visibly uncomfortable say "Dank u Sinterklaas and.... uh... zwarte Piet!" My brother in law told me the story laughing, saying they had to have a talk with the grandparents about the whole Black thing not being appropriate anymore. Young kids these days don't even know or care about the 'tradition' and for them it's just Piet. The story about him having soot on his face from the chimneys makes sense and is fine. There's no need for blackface and all the racists making a big deal out of it are so loving obviously in the wrong it's contemptible. They're the ones ruining it for the kids because for the kids it simply doesn't matter.
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 11:11 |
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The obvious solution to this is to have the shoegifts be delivered by 13 ogres each of which has its own gimmick.
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 11:52 |
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Steal the yule lads from Iceland, they can give you gifts
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 12:27 |
bring back Krampus imho
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 13:08 |
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 13:12 |
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Don't forget Mari Llwyd and the Jule Goat. They get angry when they're forgotten. You wouldn't like them when they're angry
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 15:05 |
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Philippe posted:Steal the yule lads from Iceland, they can give you gifts Which would be a bit of an oroburos because the Yule Lads didn't give gifts until the late 20th century when Icelandic fishermen landing their catch in Rotterdam came home with tales about how the Hollanders had their kids put shoes in windows to get gifts from a saint around Christmas. So they took it back home and slotted the Yulelads into the same role, thankfully without any Blackface. Before that they were at best mischievous pranksters and thieves and at worst childsnatching monsters going back to the 17th century. In a Danish decree on education and religion from 1746 Icelanders were forbidden from frightening their children with"såkaldte julesvend eller spögelser" ("so-called Yulelad or ghosts")
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 15:38 |
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Carbon dioxide posted:Let's actually contextualize this with some recent history: I'm trying to imagine being so invested in being racist that you start throwing guerrilla minstrel parades, flash mob style.
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 16:29 |
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Spoiled kids these days only want to get presents from the forest spirits. You're supposed to give them oatmeal at the least and your gift is not being cursed for a year.
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 16:29 |
Wasn't the logic behind Santa giving you a lump of coal basically "you were a poo poo kid, but you can have this so at least you're a little less likely to freeze to death over the winter and you can try again next Christmas"? Really harkens back to a time when children were lucky to get the gift of another year of not dying from scarlet fever or typhoid or somesuch
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 16:53 |
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Never saw it fact checked outside of a 3rd grade history book but I thought the 19th century US tradition for a while was your stocking stuffed with either a lump of coal if you were naughty (or poor, same thing here) so that you can help the heater stay running or an orange because it was an expensive treat.
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 17:40 |
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Growing up I always got an orange and a dime in my stocking (with candy and toiletries). I was told it was a holdover from what my grandparents got growing up
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 17:42 |
zedprime posted:Never saw it fact checked outside of a 3rd grade history book but I thought the 19th century US tradition for a while was your stocking stuffed with either a lump of coal if you were naughty (or poor, same thing here) so that you can help the heater stay running or an orange because it was an expensive treat. "Here kid, you don't deserve a toy, but you ALSO don't deserve scurvy. Solid C student."
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 18:08 |
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drat, I really wanted a faceless corn husk doll
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 18:15 |
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks really stands out historically for its variety and creativity.
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 18:39 |
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Asterite34 posted:"Here kid, you don't deserve a toy, but you ALSO don't deserve scurvy. Solid C student." My theory for the coal (and there is no historically accepted One True Reason so whatever) is that you want a decoy gift of some kind so you can watch your kids all get excited and the bad one you're punishing won't realize they're being punished until the whole family opens the stockings: if it's meant to be a public punishment you want the disappointment to be in public, and if you're the type of parent to do this then you're probably a shithead who wants to witness and laugh at the moment of disillusionment. If the bad kid's stocking is obviously empty you don't get that. And coal is literally right there in the household at the time and place when this was a thing (turn of the 20th century America) and a big lump of coal might be indistinguishable from the other kids' oranges once each is tucked into a stocking. You already have it and it's convenient and it extends the kayfabe
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 19:03 |
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InediblePenguin posted:And coal is literally right there in the household at the time and place when this was a thing (turn of the 20th century America) and a big lump of coal might be indistinguishable from the other kids' oranges once each is tucked into a stocking. You already have it and it's convenient and it extends the kayfabe This is why I don't buy the "it'll keep you warm" theory. It's like saying "Here's your one piece of coal, go put it in the furnace for yourself" when there's obviously already a pile in the cellar
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 21:02 |
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Soul Dentist posted:This is why I don't buy the "it'll keep you warm" theory. It's like saying "Here's your one piece of coal, go put it in the furnace for yourself" when there's obviously already a pile in the cellar I base my history facts on Mickey’s Christmas Carol it checks out. I think the Muppets also support the “single piece of coal will warm a small family of rodents” theory.
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 21:07 |
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Soul Dentist posted:This is why I don't buy the "it'll keep you warm" theory. It's like saying "Here's your one piece of coal, go put it in the furnace for yourself" when there's obviously already a pile in the cellar I always saw it as "Santa didn't forget you. Here's a useless hunk of nothing so you know I was here and didn't think you deserved anything good."
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 21:21 |
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It's a tidy karmic retribution even if the sum of things mean no one actually got anything they weren't going to get. "You were naughty (selfish) during the year. As a gift, here is something you can contribute to the family to make your year a little less selfish."
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# ? Nov 30, 2023 21:54 |
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A Worrying Warlock posted:lol our country is hosed
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 02:51 |
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Heating a house for the winter could require literal tons of coal, tens of pounds per day. One lump is practically nothing.
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 03:15 |
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Kaspar (and many variants) is shown as black in a lot of old art around Europe. He’s held to be somewhere from Persia or northern India which apparently meant “idk a black guy?” in 1583. I have heard that the three kings/wise men/magi are typically depicted as a diverse trio suggesting they're each from one of the 'continents', one from Europe, one from Asia and one from Africa. ThisIsJohnWayne posted:Don't forget Mari Llwyd and the Jule Goat. They get angry when they're forgotten. You wouldn't like them when they're angry The Christmas expanded universe is getting wild.
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 06:50 |
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It’s always been specious reasoning that there were three gifts, and therefore three wise men. Frankincense and myrrh are extremely similar things. They’re both sap from trees native to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and both commodities are used for overlapping purposes. It’s possible that they were harvested on opposite sides of the Red Sea, but there’s no particular reason to believe this.
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 07:00 |
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Ok yeah man but what do you get a baby for Christmas in antiquity
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 11:21 |
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Platystemon posted:It’s always been specious reasoning that there were three gifts, and therefore three wise men. If I remember correctly, there are some sects of Christianity which states there were as many as twelve. As far as the biblical text goes, I think all that can be said for certain is a number greater than one.
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 11:34 |
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Soul Dentist posted:Ok yeah man but what do you get a baby for Christmas in antiquity High quality linen cloth
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 11:39 |
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I mean in the Dutch tradition, if you were a naughty child, santa puts you in his bag and takes you home to his castle in Spain where he forces you to manufacture toys for a year.
Carbon dioxide has a new favorite as of 12:21 on Dec 1, 2023 |
# ? Dec 1, 2023 12:19 |
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Carbon dioxide posted:I mean in the Dutch tradition, if you were a naughty child, santa puts you in his bag and takes you home to his castle in Spain where he forces you to manufacture toys for a year. Huge win for dutch children if true
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 12:53 |
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I wish I'd gotten to manufacture toys... Santa had other things in mind for me.
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 12:53 |
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Platystemon posted:It’s always been specious reasoning that there were three gifts, and therefore three wise men. If the poo poo I sang in choir was accurate, Jesus received Golden Frankenstein and Merv
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 13:13 |
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The guy from home alone?
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 13:46 |
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Platystemon posted:It’s always been specious reasoning that there were three gifts, and therefore three wise men. The gifts have very different cultural symbolism though, which is probably why the author chose and listed them like that. As for the 3 gifts -> 3 magi tradition that most Christians hew to, keep in mind Christianity has a notable theme involving the number 3. Milo and POTUS posted:The guy from home alone? Guy was giving the houses a baptism on Christmas day and the woke left cancelled him for it
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 14:18 |
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Carbon dioxide posted:I mean in the Dutch tradition, if you were a naughty child, santa puts you in his bag and takes you home to his castle in Spain where he forces you to manufacture toys for a year. If you were a good child I presume he took you for two years.
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 14:52 |
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# ? May 31, 2024 22:56 |
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Subjunctive posted:If you were a good child I presume he took you for two years.
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# ? Dec 1, 2023 14:53 |