Time is running out and I don’t have anything of value to say right now, so I’m going to let JibJab do the talking and summarize the past year for me. They do it better anyway. So, Happy New Year’s everyone! Hopefully the new one will be better than the last.
I never really thought of this tradition as weird, but when reading the view of an outsider, it makes me question what normal really is. Props to the Disney company for managing to enslave and indoctrinate a whole nation, making Donald Duck synonymous with Christmas. Who would have thought it to be possible?!
Three years ago, I went to Sweden with my then-girlfriend (now-wife), to meet her family and celebrate my first Christmas. As an only partially lapsed Jew, I was not well-versed in Christmas traditions, and I was completely ignorant of Swedish customs and culture. So I was prepared for surprises. I was not prepared for this: Every year on Dec. 24 at 3 p.m., half of Sweden sits down in front of the television for a family viewing of the 1958 Walt Disney Presents Christmas special, “From All of Us to All of You.” Or as it is known in Sverige, Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul: “Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas.”
Read the rest of the article here.
From All of Us to All of You, I wish you a Merry Christmas!
(Thanks for the link Jonas)
Dear Everyone on Earth,
I’m writing to you with a plea for help. I’m desperate and I have no one else to turn to. So, please hear me out and provide assistance if you can.
I’d like to believe in Santa. I want to believe. The problem is, that the Santa story is too convoluted and insane for anyone to really believe in. The only reason kids do, is because they have yet to develop the right amount of cynicism needed to realize that their parents are lying to them.
See, the problem isn’t necessarily the story itself, it’s more that there are so many different versions of it. Or rather, ways they’re executed. Coming from a different culture than the country I grew up in created its challenges. Our Christmas celebration differed from the one most of my friends’ had. It could be just minor things like what music was played or what was eaten at Christmas Eve, but it still created irreversible cracks in the foundation of the narrative. For us, Santa appeared in person. One of the adults, usually a dad or uncle, mysteriously disappeared for a while to go to the store, to get that random, critical, christmasy thing that was so incredibly essential that it justified an absence at the crescendo of the evening. Minutes later, of course, Santa would appear handing out presents to everyone.