By Diego Campbell Christmas is considered a lot of things. A holiday, a birthday, the day after advent calendars end, etc. Lots of people around the world generally expect Santa to come down and deliver presents to all the good little boys and girls. Letters are mailed, chores are done, and maybe even some Christmas carols are sung. But this is a massive and diverse world we live in, and with that diversity comes hundreds of tales and traditions. While some are fun and playful, others can be downright horrifying if you don’t play nice. These are a few of the worldly stories that I have been able to collect, and I hope you will enjoy them. Legends The Yule Goat- A goat may not be the first thing that comes to mind when we imagine the Christmas spirit, but Saint Nicholas had other plans. According to legend, St. Nicholas would ride a goat into towns, and give presents to children from on top of it. This was a way to show the power Saint Nicholas had over evil, because the goat's horns were meant to be a metaphor for the devil. The goat itself seems to have no supernatural powers, other than being able to support Saint Nicholas and his sack of toys for extended periods of time. Today, towns in Sweden, like Gävle, have a tradition of building straw statues of goats to honor the animal. The goat itself was not actually evil, but it was still a sign that even the most evil of spirits can be conquered. Picture via Carnegie Museum of Natural History The Yule Cat- In Icelandic folklore, there exists a giant feline who is a major fashion critic. The Yule Cat is an evil spirit who watches families through windows, looking to see if children have gotten any new clothes for Christmas. If one unlucky soul doesn’t have a new pair of socks in their stocking, the Yule Cat will hunt them down and devour them. The Yule Cat is probably inspired by all the cats that could be seen around Iceland. It is likely not real, but it did inspire lots of children to work with their families to knit new socks every year to avoid the Yule Cat's wrath. While it is an activity based on fear, it ends up becoming a period of positive bonding time between family members as they work together to keep the Yuletide predator away. Krampus- When children are well-behaved, they are visited by St. Nicholas, who brings gifts. When children are rude and misbehaving, they are visited by something darker. Armed with bells and chains, Krampus catches naughty boys and girls and drags them to an unknown fate. This Christmas demon is a horned menace who haunts German folklore, and is connected to Saint Nicholas in a strange way. According to some stories, he follows Saint Nicholas around and punishes children who can’t remember their prayers. The threat of Krampus was motivation to keep children from being naughty because they’d rather play nice than go wherever Krampus will take them. Picture via Britannica Santa Claus- One of the most famous names in pop culture history, this jolly red man is globally recognized and the kindest of the Christmas legends. According to stories, he lives in the Earth's North Pole with elves who help him make toys for good girls and boys. He flies around the world in a sleigh that holds all the toys and gifts, which is pulled by magical flying reindeer. He delivers all these gifts in one night, Christmas Eve, which is coincidentally right before the birthday of Jesus Christ. In the years that followed, Santa has been integrated into Christmas songs, toys, and clothes. He is rumored to have a naughty and nice list, where nice-list kids can have toys and presents while bad-list kids will get coal. This motivates kids to clean up their acts in time for Christmas so that they can earn their presents. With half of the holiday practically caused by him, it's no wonder Santa Claus is the figurehead of the Christmas season. But where did Santa Claus come from? Red, magic toy-makers don’t exactly come out of nowhere. The legend of Santa Claus goes back hundreds of years, and its origins seem to tie in with an aforementioned generous saint: Saint Nicholas. The greatest Christmas legend of them all, St. Nicholas was a monk who gave away his inherited wealth to help the poor and needy. The stories about him tell tales of a man who was willing to help others, and as someone who loved children. One of his more popular stories is where he saves three poor sisters from slavery by paying them dowries (money) so that they could get married. Saint Nicolas was born in present-day Turkey, but this didn’t confine him to the one country. He would spread all across Europe and was beloved by everyone (even the Protestants, who were trying to deny the saints.) Eventually, Jolly Old St. Nicholas would find himself in the heart of American pop culture by way of the Dutch. In the Decembers of 1773 and 1774, a New York newspaper wrote about a group of Dutch families honoring Saint Nicholas’s feast day. The Dutch called St. Nicolas “SinterKlaas” because it was short for Sint Nikolaas, the Dutch translation of Saint Nicolas. Sinter Klaas was the name that stuck, and it would evolve into the name we all know and love today, Santa Claus. Picture via The Living Church
Traditions Las Posadas For all theater lovers, this tradition tells the story of Mother Mary’s Christmas day in a much more dramatic way. A town will prepare by having certain houses assigned to be “inns,” and actors pretending to be Mary and Joseph will knock on each one to ask for lodging. Mary and Joseph will sometimes be guided by a child dressed as an angel, and be followed by a procession of onlookers. Mary and Joseph will be denied at every inn, and in some towns an actor in a devil's costume may even taunt Mary and Joseph from the rooftops. The process of getting denied a room repeats until a specified point in the town is reached, and Mary and Joseph are allowed to stay in the “stables.” At that point, it's fiesta time, and everyone celebrates Jesus’s birth. This Hispanic tradition actually originated in Italy, after St. Francis of Assisi decided to hold a live reenactment of the story. Las Posadas means “The Inns” because of all the inns they needed to create for it. The tradition would spread to Spain, whose missionaries would bring it to New Spain, a Spanish colony that would become present-day Mexico. This reimagining of the Nativity demonstrates how special the story is to these people and gives them all a chance to be part of the legend. Under the Mistletoe Mistletoe is the romance plant of the holiday season, thanks to its tradition of having people kiss while they are under it. This rule can be found everywhere in pop culture, from books to music, but the story that may be behind its origins is a romantic comedy that even Shakespeare would approve of. In Norse Mythology, there was a goddess named Frigg, who had a godly son named Baldur. Frigg was so in love with this child that she cast a magical spell that prevented any plant growing on earth from harming her son. Unfortunately, resident god of mischief, Loki, was good at finding loopholes, and discovered a plant that wasn’t grown on the earth, but in a tree’s branches, perfectly capable of killing Baldur: Mistletoe. Loki crafted a spear out of some mistletoe and goes on to kill Baldur with his spear. In many versions of the story, Frigg goes on to make mistletoe a symbol of love after her son dies and promises to kiss anyone who passes under it. This is an odd ending, though, because why would you make your son's murder weapon a metaphor for love? But historians believe this account is actually false, so take it with a grain of salt. In any case, despite mistletoe having a tragic history in heartbreak, it has grown to be a symbol of love anyway. The Candles and Calendars of Advent The Advent Calendars of today are usually boxes with tiny compartments behind doors marked with numbers from 1 to 24. Really though, an advent calendar can be anything with numbered pockets on them. These pockets are to be opened up on the date their number describes during the month of December. Some advent calendars have toys, others have chocolates, but the first Advent Calendars weren’t actually concerned with getting a daily sweet treat. They were simply chalk lines in the 19th century, counting down the days until Christmas arrived. The word “Advent” comes from the Latin word for “coming,” as in when Christmas is coming. Christians also have an Advent season, which is a four week period that counts down the days until it's Jesus’s birthday / Christmas. Within the Advent season there are four candles, three purple and one pink, although white works too. Every Sunday of Advent, a candle is lit, with the pink candle going third. Advent is a time of waiting, perfect for a holiday when everyone is waiting for Christmas day. People all over the world celebrate Christmas, but not everyone does it the same way. There is always some little change, some local myth, that sets apart one place from the other. This is because we aren’t all the same people. We have different traditions and stories because we are different people, and it’s those differences that make these traditions special and precious (or in the case of the Yule Cat or Krampus, terrifying). But just because they may be a little strange doesn’t mean they are any lesser than other celebrations. No matter where you come from or what you believe, every tradition is worth respecting. Even then, you may find that your yearly traditions may be practiced by more people than you’d think.
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