Every year as I get older I think the decorating gets a bit more of "how can I simplify this?'.
I have hung up our Christmas green sprays on the garage sidelights and plugged in the lights.
That's it so far. I missed the opportunity before the big snows to put up the other outdoor lights. I may have to skip them this year. Still thinking though of an alternative lighting plan. Perhaps changing it up. I read today that a big freeze is heading our way so that may dampen any real outdoor lighting endeavors.
Here is an image looking out the front entrance, I will be getting the tree down to place in the entry hall. That needs to get put up soon.
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Looking out the front door at the winter storm snow. |
Some interesting facts about St. Nick or Santa Claus
St. Nicholas is the world's most popular non-Biblical saint. He has over 2,000 churches dedicated to him in France and Germany, and 400 in England.
German-born American illustrator Thomas Nast (1840-1902) helped create the modern version of Santa as jolly, chubby, and dressed mainly in red. Coca-Cola further solidified his image in the mainstream media in 1931 when they used him in their advertising.
In the mid 1800s, poet Thomas Nash wrote a poem that famously placed Santa's home in the North Pole, even though the original saint lived in Turkey. Nash most likely chose the North Pole because, at the time, there were several scientific explorations to the North Pole, a region that was seen as a type of fantasy land, mysterious and just out of reach.
Believing in Santa Claus cultivates a child's imagination and ability to think of possibilities and potentialities.
In Europe, before the 16th century, gifts were exchanged on December 6th, the feast of St. Nicholas. Later, German protestants began celebrating Christkindl on December 25, a feast day for the Christ child.
In the Santa Claus narrative, naughty children most likely receive coal as a matter of convenience. Santa is already wriggling down the chimney, so it's easy for him to pick up coal. Another theory links coal to Charles Dickens's Christmas Carol, in which Scrooge refuses to give Bob Cratchit even one piece of coal.
In Austria and Britain, beer and sherry are left for Santa Claus.
Clement Moore's famous 1822 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," also known as "The Night Before Christmas," helped popularize Santa as jolly, plump, and the owner of eight reindeer. Moore did not claim ownership of the poem until 20 years after its publication, and its true authorship is debatable.
Santa's list of "naughty" and "nice" children has its roots in Belgium and the Netherlands where their version of Santa Claus, Sinterklaas, kept a similar list. The Norse god Odin kept two ravens that would listen at people's chimneys to find out who was good or bad.
With over 2.1 billion children in the world and an average of 2.5 children per household, Santa must make 842 million stops on Christmas Eve.
Santa Claus must travel 218 million miles on Christmas Eve, which means he must travel 1,280 miles per second to reach everyone.
Researchers calculate that if Santa is to reach every child on Christmas Eve, he has only a millisecond to go down each chimney, eat cookies, and distribute presents.
Santa's sleigh would weigh over 400,000 tons if it carried enough toys for all the children in the world. To carry that much weight, Santa would need over 360,000 reindeer.
Assuming each household in the whole world leaves out two chocolate chip cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve, he would eat 374 billion calories, 33,000 tons of sugar, and 151,000 tons of fat in one night. If Santa could run an eight-minute mile, he would have to run for 109 centuries (109,000 years) to burn off all those treats.
f Santa needs presents for nearly 2 billion children globally, and if, on average, each child's presents take 31.5 inches (80 cm) of wrapping paper, Santa needs about 1.6 million miles of wrapping paper. That is enough to wrap around the world 60 times.
So as you can see from some of these facts, the work of Santa and his history are truly remarkable!
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