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Welcome to Santa’s Workshop!
Not sure how you found it, but you have!
And they depict me like this now? As some St. Nick guy? The saint that now takes credit for all I do IS FROM OVER A THOUSAND MILES FROM HERE!! St. Nicholas is a another fake Santa, that simple. Most of the world has now turned me into a semi-religious figure that has been turned into a money machine. That guy in the image below is not who I really am. Besides, who wears clothes like that? Not even your “weird uncle” wears clothes like that at xmas!
This picture, below, is a better representation of me.
In case you’re thirsty, my elves will fill up a horn of ale, spiced honey mead or Sahti ale for you!
Use code below to show the Mogh’s House Ale pic in your reply. *Control(+)a & then Control(+)c to copy the code. Control(+)v to paste it!
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Thank you Ziyi! You are definitely on the “girls & boys who’ve been good this year” list! Yuletide will be extra awesome for you my dear. 😀
@nebibit -
@Eyvisl asked me to fix Santa’s Workshop. For some reason no-one could post a reply! Turns out that some complete asshole hacker inserted some evil code. Why someone would do that to our site is completely beyond me. Had to use my goddess powers to find & isolate it, then to kill it.
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Happy Christmas to you All, it’s been a very hectic Yule caring for two mothers and making sure that they are alright, we are both a little exhausted, wishing great happiness for You & Yours for 2020, good heavens, it seems the Millennium Celebrations happened yesterday, where has all the time gone ! My poor husband, who never complains, seems to be constantly held in a Matriarchal triangle.
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Christmas In Scandinavian Countries :
All the Scandinavian countries have exciting individual beliefs about celebrating the Yule, with their own unique ways and ideas for the festive season. If I was fortunate to be travelling to Finland or Sweden, Norway, Denmark or Iceland I would brush up on my Nordic folklore first to enhance the trip.
In Sweden the Christmas Trees are decorated with flowers, the Swedish Poinsettia, that the Swedish people call, ‘Julstjarna’, with the extra beauty of red tulips and red and white amaryllis.
The Swedish Christmas Eve or, ‘Julafton’ includes a buffet dinner or ‘Smorgasbord’ with freshly cut ham from the bone, roasted pork and various seasoned fish, one of the remaining folkloric customs is dressing up as forest gnomes and giving gifts to children.
In Denmark the whole family is involved in decorating the Christmas Tree, the traditional Danish Yuletide celebrations should start on Christmas Eve by consuming a cinnamon rice pudding called ‘Grod’.
Father Christmas who is known in Denmark as ‘Julemanden’, which translates as ‘The Yule Man’. He is said to arrive on Danish shores from the Northerly Lapland on a sleigh pulled by reindeer with well wrapped presents for the children and well-behaved adults.
‘Julemanden’ is assisted with his benevolent chores by numerous elves, known as ‘Julenisser’ in Denmark, the traditional Danish Feast consists of wild duck or goose, red cabbage and caramelised potatoes.
In Norway the Christmas feasting usually includes pork ribs and various ways of cooking cod, over the Yuletide period restaurants are closed leaving tourists the option of hotel food, the traditional Norwegian fayre when it comes to desserts are gingerbread, rice puddings served with mulled wine.
Paying homage to their Viking past, the Norwegians recognise, like the Finns, the tradition of the ‘Julebuck’, the Yule Goat made of twisted straw, using these figurines as Christmas ornaments to decorate their trees.
If there was a Christmas Tree in Kalevala, in keeping with the story, I would decorate the conifer with ornate dangling boats made of copper, several straw goats, dangling silver snakes, nuts and red berries and something that resembled the mythical sampo.
Reference : Trip Adviser.
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A Letter To Joulupukki :
Childlike letters to Joulupukki have been a Christmas tradition for many years now, usually addressed to Lapland, the globally recognised home of Joulupukki, this letters normally contain an innocent wish-list for toys and the childlike assertion of yearly good behaviour.
Some social scientists have found that girls and boys write entirely different types of letters, girls generally write longer and more polite letters to Joulupukki, expressing their love of the nature of Christmas, more than boys, also girls request gifts for other people.
Many postal services allow children to send letters to Santa, these letters may be answered by postal workers or outside volunteers as part of the benevolence that is Christmas, writing letters to Santa has educational benefits of promoting literacy in the young.
A letter to Santa is often a child’s first experience of correspondence, composed and sent with the help of a parent or teacher, in this a child learns about the structure of letter writing, the polite use of salutations, composing addresses and using post-codes.
The United States Postal Service, has the oldest Santa letter answering service in the world, in New York, since 1940 the postal service has ensured that the letters address to Santa are adopted by charitable organisations, major corporations, local businesses and individuals in order to make children’s holiday dreams come true.
Reference Used : http://www.wikipedia.org
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Joulupukki & Germanic Paganism :
The Germanic people, including the Anglo-Saxon English celebrated the mid-winter festive event of Yule, the Germanic Europeans numerous pagan traditions were absorbed into Medieval Christianity that in turn led to our modern Christmas celebrations.
In Germanic paganism, during the time of Yuletide feasting, supernatural and ghostly occurrences were said to increase in frequency, such as the Wild Hunt, a spectral procession through the sky.
The leader of the hunt is frequently attested to be the Germanic Woden or the Norse Odin, bearing among his many names, the name of ‘Jolnir’ , translating as ‘the Yule figure’ and also the name of ‘Langbaror’, meaning ‘long-beard’, in Old Norse.
Woden’s role during the Yuletide period has been theorized as having influenced the concept of Father Christmas in a variety of facets, including his long white beard and his grey horse Sleipnir, with eight limbs, by Lapland & North American traditions the more acceptable idea of eight reindeer pulling a sledge began to take shape.
The appearance of Father Christmas on the 25th December, owes much to the Nordic Odin, the old man with a white beard, wearing a dark blue hood and cloak, as the gift-bringer from the north.
The idea of flying reindeer, defying the laws of gravity, that led to the idea of the Wild Hunt is believed to have originated from Finland, the induced visions of the Sami shamans, in their half-conscious state, their community recognised familiar became the leaping and flying goat over snow-covered hedges that would open the portals of perception.
Reference Used : http://www.wikipedia. org
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Christmas Tales Of Finland :
In Finnish tradition, the Christmas period has usually been considered to start on ‘Tuomas Nameday’ on 21st December and continue, to party and feast until Knut’s Day on the 13th January, however, King Gustav III of Sweden cut this feasting down to two days, because the Scandinavian nobility and bourgeoisie believed that long holidays made the Finnish work force too lazy in the winter months.
The Finnish Christmas has acquired some characteristics from the Harvest Festival of ‘Kekri’, that use to take place around the Finnish Halloween, in Sweden, Estonia and Finland, Joulupukki, the Christmas Goat, was a man dressed as a fertility rite character, a goat, the Finnish symbol of fertility in the wintery months.
The chosen person would don a headdress of goat’s horns as in the long-seated tradition of the Finnish shaman, placed a grotesque mask made of birch wood over his/her face and to wear a sheepskin jacket with the wool lining on the outside.
The feeding of small birds at the Finnish Christmas is a very ancient tradition, making fat-balls and dangling from trees and the spreading of winter grain on raised bird tables was said to bring good harvests in the following summer and autumn.
Other traditions of adorning trees with the ‘Himmeli’ the hanging decoration of the straw goat, another reflection of the harvest ‘Kekri’, brought into the Yuletide period, Finland was the first country to export evergreen trees, now called Christmas trees to other countries, this trade began in the early 1800’s.
The tradition of the early morning Christmas sauna before the family festivities of feasting and giving gifts, originated in Finland and spread to Sweden and Norway.
The tradition of visiting cemeteries on Christmas Eve is a very old Finnish tradition, the Harvest ‘Kekri tradition of leaving presents for the dead and lighting candles in small raven-stone shrines was also moved to the Christmas period.
Christmas feasting for the ancient Finns relates both to the agricultural cycle and the festival of light celebrated around the winter solstice, as it is for most European people, the family preparation of the Christmas feast and indulging in meat courses and drinking alcohol was a rare treat in these times of austerity.
Lutefisk & porridge are some of the oldest Finnish recipes, meat casseroles were very popular, on-going food that could be ladled from the bubbling cauldron at any time of the day, the harvest ‘kekri lamb’ was later replaced by other meats and the imported use of wild turkey became popular in the early 20th century.
Reference Used : http://www.wikipedia.org
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Christmas Tales Of Finland :
The Lapland Elves :
It isn’t only Joulupukki who originates from Lapland mythology, but Joulupukki’s elves too, creatures known as the ‘tonttu’, which were similar to the more familiar ‘gnomes’ or Germanic subterranean dwarves, these benevolent little fellows handed out gifts wearing pointed red hats.
This evolved into Joulupukki’s little Christmas helpers, although classic ‘tonttu’, were mischievous spirits, filled with festive pranks, if they were disrespected would resorting to stealing, the Finnish practices of leaving out a bowl of porridge to appease the ‘tonttu’, lent itself to the modern practise of leaving cookies outside the door for Joulupukki.
The dark spirits of the Nuutipukki :
Not all of the ancient Christmas mythological figures were good, for the sake of a good fireside tale, the Nuutipukki were dark spirits, men dressed up in terrifying goat costumes, who went from house to house demanding leftovers from the festive feast, and indulging heavily in alcohol, this was later change to friendlier ideas of benevolence.
Reference Used : The Culture Trip.
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Christmas Tales Of Finland :
The Yule Goat :
There are many different origins of the mythos of Joulupukki, one of them was a figure known as the ‘Yule Goat’, which like the Germanic ‘Weihnachtmann’, inspired images of a long white beard which of course resembled a white goat’s beard.
It is believed that the Finnish ‘Yule Goat’, as was ‘Weihnachtmann’ were both inspired either by Odin or Thor, or the Scandinavian respect for the elderly, in the Finnish case, there were tales of Thor driving a wintery chariot, laden with nuts, the fruits of winter, by two or four goats.
So goats made of straw were used as ornaments and are still used to this day on Finnish evergreen trees, also with community festive spirit these straw goats as folk art were left on neighbours thresholds. The red coated Joulupukki and the Lapland reindeer sleigh also originated from the Yule Goat figure.
The Goat Man :
One ‘Yule Goat’ myth, was that he was a regular man, who was turned into a goat on Christmas Eve by one of the Sami deity, this myth was included in the Swedish author’s story of ‘Peter and Lotta’s Christmas’, by Elsa Beskow, but it was toned down for the modern age, because the Goat Man Tale were beginning to give children festive nightmares.
Reference Used : The Culture Trip.
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Christmas Tales Of Finland :
The souls of the recently departed :
Another Sami belief was the Northern Lights were made of the energy Aura of the recently departed, so they showed great respect whenever the brilliant lights appeared in the darkness of the Finnish night sky.
It was considered disrespectful to gaze directly into the lights over a long period or to speak too loudly of departed souls, silent prayers were preferred, any one who was so callous to break these unwritten rules would bring bad fortune upon themselves and perhaps, their families for repeatedly breaking the Sami taboo.
The land of birds :
Centuries ago, the Finnish thought the world was slightly curved, but not circular, like most ancient societies the did not understand or comprehend the idea of migration accomplished from these little hearted fledglings, unlike the Celtic idea of swifts and swallows morphing into sturdy crows to survive the coldness of winter. The Sami thought the birds went to ‘Lintukoto’, the Land Of The Birds’, today the Finnish word ‘Lintukoto’ translates as ‘paradise’.
Reference Used : The Culture Trip.
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Christmas Tales Of Finland :
How the Northern Lights came to be.
The Northern Lights have a mystic aura to them and scientists are still uncovering their elusive secrets, every culture has their own origin story for the Aurora Borealis, and the Finnish Sami people are no exception.
They believed that the lights were caused by a celestial ‘firefox’ running through the snow so quickly that its fur brushed against the night sky before becoming airborne, giving off sparks which cause the colourful Aurora, the Finnish word for the Northern Lights is ‘Revontulet’, that translates to ‘firefox’.
Spiritual messages on polar night.
A polar night, or ‘kaamos’, is any period in which the night lasts for more the 24 hours, North of the Arctic Circle, it can last for two months at a time, with the sun appearing as little as two hours each day.
It was a highly spiritual time during the Finn-Pagan Era when the Northern Lights were associated with the Finnish spiritual world, the Sami believed that the colourful lights could deliver messages from their dearly departed on special polar nights.
Reference Used : The Culture Trip.
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