(no subject)
Merry Christmas Everybody...
Here's something to think about. There's a long-standing rumor that 90% of Santa Claus's image comes from Coca-Cola. But his red-and-white ho-ho-ho fatness isn't all market research and advertising - it's actually a slowly-evolving literary tradition.
So where did Christmas come from? (Taken from Straight Dope)
Preview:
Christmas initially was the result of a tradeoff with the pagan world Christians were trying to convert. They didn't want to be seen as the bad guys by out and out banning the general rowdiness of post-harvest Saturnalia celebrations. So they compromised, letting the populace keep its celebrations as long as they were now done in honor of the birth of Christ. The drawback was that an air of pagan abandon carried over to the new holiday, and Christmas developed a bad reputation as a time of "misrule."
Here's something to think about. There's a long-standing rumor that 90% of Santa Claus's image comes from Coca-Cola. But his red-and-white ho-ho-ho fatness isn't all market research and advertising - it's actually a slowly-evolving literary tradition.
So where did Christmas come from? (Taken from Straight Dope)
Preview:
Christmas initially was the result of a tradeoff with the pagan world Christians were trying to convert. They didn't want to be seen as the bad guys by out and out banning the general rowdiness of post-harvest Saturnalia celebrations. So they compromised, letting the populace keep its celebrations as long as they were now done in honor of the birth of Christ. The drawback was that an air of pagan abandon carried over to the new holiday, and Christmas developed a bad reputation as a time of "misrule."