Talk:Santa Claus in Northern American culture/Archive 1

message: I read somewhere a US army detecting system found him. ... :I I AM SERIOUS
:Really? Earlier you said you were joking. You meant this? AstroHurricane001 21:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Santa Claus is Real 

message: All this article and no mention of Mrs Claus? I'd like to see Mr Kris Kringle fly around in a sleigh devilering toys to the world w/o the support of his wife. Sure he gets to eat milk and cookies one day a year, who takes care of the man during the rest of the year? I wonder if he has an AK47?
Mrs. Claus is basically a very recent (and very American) figure essentially made up to defuse the cultural problems raised by a single man with Pagan origins who only interacts with children(see micheal jackson). She could be mentioned somewhere, though, as a debatable part of the modern view of Santa.
:Mrs. Claus is mentioned in the last paragraph of Overview, with a link to the article about her.  Val42 21:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No mention of Mrs Claus?? 

message: The reindeer are traditionally pictured with antlers, although true reindeer shed their antlers in the winter. -- Isn't it only true that the males shed their antlers, and the females keep theirs? -- Zoe
:I've seen so many photos and videos of reindeer in snowy landscapes with their antlers, my impression is that they keep them. Wetman 18:09, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Male reindeer shed their antlers by January, according to University of Alaska's "Reindeer FAQ". But Santa's reindeer are magical. If Rudolph's nose glows red and all nine reindeer can fly, it's possible that normal reindeer physiology does not apply.--Westendgirl 07:52, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: Should an entry on Canasta include some Christians' disapproval of card-playing? Wetman 18:16, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other Disputed Facts 

message: Why is this listed in the header for the page? As far as I can tell, this term is not used by any group of native English speakers. If we start putting every non-English term for Santa Claus in bold in the first paragraph, the page will go on forever and be filled with junk like Santaa Kurozu (the Japanese pronunciation of Santa Claus). A better idea is to take the little bits and pieces of info about Santa in non-English speaking countries that doesn't relate to the history of Santa in English-speaking countries and make a separate page called "Santa Around the World" or some such thing. This is a good idea anyway because kids frequently have to do pre-Christmas reports on Christmas traditions around the world. I'll pick out whatever bits of info I can from this article and put each bit under a header for a particular country. Ie. "Japan: Santa is non-religious. On Christmas people go on dates.", etc., etc.
Unless anyone objects in the next few days, I'll start working on that soon.--Carl 03:45, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joulupukki? 

message: What is the source for the 1903 birthdate given? I've never heard of this before. I recommend the birthdate be deleted unless there is some "canonical" backing to suggest this. 24.71.223.141 04:12, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birthdate? 

message: Ive removed the comment in bold below from the body of the article. Ive reproduced the whole paragraph here so it can be seen in context:
:When the Dutch still owned the land that later became New York, they brought the Saint Nicholas' eve legend with them to the Americas, but without the red mantle and other symbols. The name Santa Claus is derived from the character's Dutch name, Sinterklaas. Note that in Dutch, the feast is called 'sinterklaas feest' and it celebrates the birthday ((Conflict: The Saint_Nicholas page states that it's his death day, not his birth day.)) of sinterklaas during sinterklaasavond ("sinterklaas's evening") on December 5th or in Belgium on December 6th.
213.202.163.174 21:23, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sinterklaas feest 

message: The santa has this text:
"This image is a work of an U.S. Air Force airman or employee, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain."
I found it funny that it's supposedly photographed by a USAF Airman/Employee on duty and property of US government? I wonder if that's really correct and it's really in the public domain since it's so nicely arranged and all, like it was a professional capture for advertisement or whatever. -- Jugalator 11:18, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
I find it doubtful that the image is really public domain...it doesn't exist at the original URL anymore.  Seems to me that we should find another public domain Santa image.  TheDapperDan 11:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hilarious image copyright note 

message: The article says about the transition from Sinterklaas to Santa Claus that ...in an attempt to move the origin of the festivities away from their pagan background to a more Christian one, the date was moved back a few weeks to the celebrated day of the birth of Jesus: Christmas. Pagan background? The guy was a bishop! (well, what's pagan actually depends on what religion you happen to follow - if you're not religious nothing is pagan - or everything? Well, whatever). Ironically, from a christian point of view it's really Christmas that's a pagan festivity  It was originally a Germanic tribe celebration of the fact that the days were going to lengthen again, with decorations hung from a holy tree. But that would then have to be on the 21st of December, because that's the shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere). Also, given the fact that the western calendar is based on the birthday of Jesus, one would expect it to be on the 1st of January. So I suspect that a compromise was made. The Christmas atricle doesn't say much about this (so needs some work too), except for the reference to the Winter solstice celebrations.  By the way, English is a second language to me, but shouldn't it read that the celebrations were moved forward a few weeks? DirkvdM 20:02, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Sinterklaas]] is a pagan background? 

message: Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, Papá Noel (Weihnachtsmann in German, Noel Father in Spanish, Papai Noel Noel Father in Portuguese, De Kerstman in Dutch, Joulupukki in Finnish,Babbo Natale in Italian, or simply Santa) is a character in North American, British, Brazilian and other cultures who gives presents to children on Christmas Day.
To whom it may concern.
now before you read this , I am not trying to make anyone mad, or mislead you,
but people need to remember the truth about certain things and quit hiding it and taking it for granted. I'll give you a little you seek the rest. these notes are from historical documents of the catholic church (vatican archives).
evidently someone has not done their job or tried real hard to make sure children and adults know the truth about santa claus and other things that are trying to be forgotten.
now so you know so you don't jump the gun , I am an ordained minister of the nazarene church for 11 years and the better part of 25 years studying religins at the seminary in colorado.
I will give you a little bit of the facts,you seek the rest and if you are ready to tell the truth about it if your not scared like most are , you will add it to your site .
santa claus was a pagan god known as the lord of misrule, to make children behave. children were told if they don't behave they would get a visit from him and a sack of coal. that's where you get, you better watch out you better not cry you better not pout
i'm tellin you why. look it up there is no excuse you have a computer use it. now if you are one of those people that are griping about saying happy holidays instead of merry christmas you don't want to read further ok cause you already don't want to hear the truth. these are the facts. actually taken from historical published writings from the catholic church (vatican) archives. 
in order to make conversion from paganism to christianity the catholic church adapted some of their (pagan)gods and rituals to make it easier to convert to christianity.
lord of misrule is one of them, wiccas winter solstice, now according to the bible, christ was born 2 months later. a white rabitt and hunting eggs are part of a pagan ritual for fertillity, and so forth. has nothing to do with the birth of christ or his resurrection. which is what christmas is supposed to be about, RIGHT ?.
any questions about what i have said or where i got my info please feel free to email me any time and you can look it up for yourself
... Is it necessary to have the name for every language of every editor that comes across this page? We don't do this for other people (e.g. Archimedes (also known as Arkimedo in Esperanto, Arhimed in Croatian, Archimede in Italian, Arquimedes in Catalan, Archimédés in Chzech, Arkimedes in German, 아르키메데스 in Korean, etc etc. — if those are all too similar, imagine instead God, Dios, Isten, Bóg, Dieu, Gott, Gud, Dio, Bůh, Déu, etc etc). I think we can stick to the English ones, or the list will simply grow out of control. Also, the line "in North American, British, Brazilian and other cultures" seems a little arbitrary — Brazlian more than, say, Italian? Should all the countries that have Santa be included?
— Asbestos | Talk  (RFC) 00:50, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  All these names... 

message: The section on velocity is utterly ridiculous and should be removed. It does not belong in a serious encyclopedia. Gerrit CUTEDH 10:10, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Velocity 

message: Misleading. The web didn't exist in 1991. Perhaps it was founded as a Gopher site, FTP site, or email address? --68.97.210.191 16:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  SantaLand.com 

message: Where did the name Kris Kringle originate from? The name is mentioned a few times in this article, but with no reference to the origin of this name. It's particularly different from Santa Clause or Sinterklaas or any of the others, so merits some explanation.
FashionNugget 19:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The article says Christkind ("Christ child") is the German/Austrian version of the name. I guess it was anglicised to Kris Kringle in German immigrant communities in America. Isn't the material side of Christmas a German tradition, along with Christmas trees and manufactured toys? Santa is real.--shtove 21:45, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kris Kringle 

message: How is it that a Canadian postage stamp is shown as a representation of Ded Moroz?  Дед Мороз is not from Canadia. — Kbh3rdtalk 14:33, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To partially answer my own question, the image is identified as "Ded Moroz" on the stamp itself, so okay.  Note the staff with the star finial and the full length robe which are part of the traditional Russian image. — Kbh3rdtalk 14:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ded Moroz image 

message: Prior to the Germanic peoples' conversion to Christianity, Germanic folklore contained stories about the god Odin (Wodan), who would each year, at Yule, have a great hunting party accompanied by his fellow gods and the fallen warriors residing in his realm. Children would place their boots, filled with carrots, straw or sugar, near the chimney for Odin's flying horse, Sleipnir, to eat. Odin would then reward those children for their kindness by replacing Sleipnir's food with gifts or candy [Siefker, chap. 9, esp. 171-173]. This practice survived in Belgium and the Netherlands after the adoption of Christianity and became associated with Saint Nicholas.
Sugar was practically unknown in Europe until the Middle Ages, after Christianisation happened. I don't think sweets/candy would have been in people's diets then; honey was the only source of sweetness available. Could someone explain and/or take another look at the source for this? adamsan 20:57, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sugar 

message: "Father Christmas is a well-loved figure in and many countries outside the United States, predating the "Santa Claus" character"
* Firstly, it makes no sense gramatically.
* Secondly, why does the United States have a special claim to Santa Claus?
should it not read "Father Christmas is a well-loved figure in many countries and predates the "Santa Claus" character"?
Emoscopes 00:06, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I was wondering about that as well while copyediting the article. I have changed the sentence as you suggested. Graham/pianoman87 talk 11:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  do not understand this sentence 

message: ... for example in Scandinavia, Santa normally visit the families (in person) on Christmas Eve and hand over the gifts directly to the children. Probably there are other variations too in other non-english-speaking countries. I didn't really read all of the article, but wasn't able to find a reference to those customs... TERdON 12:23, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Santa doesn't put his gifts in stockings all over the world... 

message: Ive made a revert of the edit someone made, that is adding Santa Claus under the category of "real people", which was amusing but inappropriate. Fyver528 21:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And just what are you implying by this??? Wavy G 01:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert