…
Well, potential whores.
Love it.
Boyo Jim, it’s the possibly just-so story of how getting stockings filled with goodies came to be a thing. There was a poor family with three daughters. They were so poor that they could not provide a dowery for any of them and therefore the girls were destined to be prostitutes. The family also hung their stockings on the hearth to dry whenever they were washed. And left their windows open at night.
As each girl came of age, Saint Nick would toss a purse of gold coins through their window to land in one of that girl’s stockings. So all three were able to marry instead of embracing whoredom. And if that doesn’t give you a nice Christmas glow, I don’t know what will.
I agree 100%.
From the article:
She does have a point here.
Especially since:
So, for that parent, at any rate, does equate Santa with Christmas (which Santa is). Though I guess it is also awkward for parents who refuse to go along with the Santa-existence story (because they feel it is an unnecessary lying to their kids).
(in response to Yllaria): Is that also the origin of “ho ho ho?”
I thought Snowmen were non denominational.
Ah, I always though “stocking stuffer” was a metaphor for prostitution.
I’m all for a Santa visit, but let’s be inclusive about it. If we’re going to take the kids to visit with Santa, you’ve also got to take the little shits to see Krampus!
I wouldn’t want an institution of education deliberately lying to my child. I didn’t raise my son that way. I never told him SC was real, and I wouldn’t appreciate it if my son’s school did.
You want to lie to your own children? Fine. But leave my kid out of it.
I’m pretty sure South Carolina really exists, though it has a certain nightmarish quality.
Cracked did an article the other day mentioning both the prostitute stockings and claims that Santa is partially a secular creation.
Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Heh, great username for this thread?
You know how every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings? Well, every time a war on Christmas is declared, Bill O’Reilly gets more ad revenue.
What both right-wing cranks and left-wing PC stereotypes fail to realize is that by replacing “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays” you are still etymologically wishing people have a joyous time during the holiest of days.
You know it’s just a fairy tale to scare kids! “Now Timmy, finish your plate or else we’re going to move to South Carolina”…
What, you mean like talking, sword-fighting cats? Superheroes? Spiders that talk to pigs and write in English? Car-driving toads? Hookah-smoking caterpillars? Santa’s just another fictional character. Some kids believe he’s real, just like Spiderman is real. (And Spiderman has been known to visit schoolchildren.) Some kids don’t believe in Santa Claus. But even the kids who don’t believe in Santa like to go on outings.
But I’ll bet you willingly take the day off, with pay, from work.
When reading those classic stories you refer to, I don’t recall my teachers ever playing the characters off like they were real. This isn’t so with Santa Claus, they are actually playing him off as if he were real. Big difference.
And speaking for myself, I never thought superheroes were real at any age.
Huh. I was raised Catholic and never raised to believe in Santa. Jesus’s birth was what it was all about.
Isn’t there an anecdote of a Japanese department store decorating for Christmas with images of a crucified Santa?
You don’t have to separate Santa from Christmas, you have to separate christmas from christianity. Like the grand majority of us already do. There is nothing christian about Santa, or christmas trees, or yule logs, or presents, or absolutely anything else people do to celebrate christmas. Devout christians and jews seem to be the only ones left who still think this is a religious holiday.
So your kid is the little asshole that tells the other kids Santa isn’t real? What’s wrong with a little magic for a few years?