Varies: the Yule Man.
North african name looks like a western URL address
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Tree trunk that defecates present
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Ummm…
CRANK THAT LOG
Very funy, i have one of them. It represents the fertility of the soil.
Defecates is a bad word for that…
Unfortunately, defecating is exactly what it does. It’s not a euphemism. It is literally a pooping log!
And the log it self is also a represenation of defecation. A similar use of the word log in english also exists.
I think I willfully didn’t make that connection. I’m well aware of the English use of log for poop but I guess I hoped there was some other explanation and didn’t want to believe that it was a basically a pooping piece of poop
Yes. And you have to beat it until it starts shitting
Time to sing “Caga tió” and beat a log until it gives us sweet treats…
Btw Christmas-Man comes early
(Christmas Eve)
Isn’t it the same for Christ Child? Or do other Germans in the south get their presents on First day of Christmas? At least I didn’t.
England: “Father Christmas”
Ireland: “make it kinkier”This is not completely correct.
In Belgium and the Netherlands it’s Sint-Nicolaas (Sinterklaas) who brings the presents on December 6th. Christmas does have a Santa Claus (Kerstman) because of modern culture, but you’ll mostly see people gifting presents themselves, instead of Santa gifting them.
Don’t forget Sint-Maarten who brings gifts in November.
Olentzero is no ordinary old man that brings presents to kids on Christmas, he’s a charcoal burner that is also a Jentil, a giant in the Basque mythology.
He was originally a pagan, but some say he stayed behind and converted to chrisitanism when he saw Jesus about to be born, while the other jentilak escaped. Other less favorable interpretations say he converted and betrayed the rest of the jentilak, showing the people their locations so they could be killed.
All these are modern interpretations for Christmas because afaik originally he was supposed to be somewhat evil.
Source: am basque
This is fascinating, thank you!!
He is also shown as a shepherd, although Jentils would naturally be shepherds I guess. Also another clarification, Gentile are not just giants, but ancestors of Basque people that did not descend from mountains and forests and thus didn’t get civilised and shrink.
Source: another Basque.
The Polish going with Ziggy Stardust. And why the hell not, seems like a fine fellow to bring gifts.
The note on the Low Countries says there’s no traditional Christmas gift-giver, but doesn’t Sinterklaas traditionally bring gifts on Sint Nicolasdaag?
Yes, but that’s a different holiday
Then the Ukrainian and Russians don’t count either
Chistmas starts at Holy Eve and ends on Epiphany, January 6th, so New Year’s Eve fits into that time frame.
Saint Nicolaus’ December 6th according to the Julian calendar is probably on December 19th according to Gregorian calendar, thus, this is a different holiday.
As a non christian, I’m talking about ‘the winter holiday where gifts are given’ which happens to be on slightly different dates depending on local traditions.
Basing the definition of what counts as ‘christmas’ on the church calendar isn’t very helpful in this global context where most people celebrating aren’t christian believers to begin with. And of course the christians borrowed from older traditions, which where also on different dates originallySanta Claus is a straight copy of Sinterklaas. Even Wikipedia says so. Also, I don’t know any Dutch kids that believe in Santa Claus but a great many believe in Sinterklaas. Santa is not a gift giver here at all. If there are gifts at Christmas (a minority) then it’s given by family, not by Santa.
In Germany, Saint Nicolaus is filling boots of the nice kids with nuts, oranges and chocolate (or alike) on the morning of December 6th and also doesn’t bring the Christmas gifts.
The Weihnachtsmann (or Santa Claus), however, afaIk, was imported from the US in the last century, where it had evolved from the St. Nicolaus figure.
As I’m from a ‘Chist child’ family, I don’t know if the Weihnachtsmann actually “brings” the presents in the more northern parts.So many mandarines/clementines on Sinterklaas 😭
I always found the image of the Christ child lugging all the gifts around funny as an American who grew up in Germany.
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Hey, “Apalpador”? You’re gonna have to find a new thing. That’s not gonna fly anymore.
Funny they say France is Father Christmas but Spain it’s Daddy Christmas when they’re the same words technically. Maybe they confused Papá with Papí?
Yeah that’s an error, he’s father Christmas here. On a side note, papi has no accent
Dang it, I corrected it to the wrong thing.
I never use Papi so I didn’t remember if it had one
Papá has one to mark the intonation and to differentiate it from Papa, the pope.
Papi is said with the same intonation as Daddy so it doesn’t have an accent.
Papa is also potato in America, but in Spain we use patata
Yup, but also means pope, so my dad would joke about the potato pope
In French, “papa” is the informal way to call your own father, while “père” describes the relationship.
I don’t know enough about Spanish to compare, but the french translation feels right to me.
(Actually… Translating “Noël” into a word that talks about Christ and Masses feels weird to me!)
Padre = father Papa = dad Papi = daddy
I need to live somewhere you can call someone Sweaty as an honorific
A note on Deda Mraz/Дед Мороз - these days it’s 100% conflated with Santa Claus, with the red robe and reindeer. If there is any old Slavic tradition there, it’s been completely lost.
But they were all of them deceived, for another gift giver was the real one, in the lands of humanism, where the seculars live, in the fires of reality, there it was known that the true gives of gifts and indeed gifts themselves, were our fellow mortals.
Happy holidays everyone! May your days be merry and bright and thank you for being such a great community Lemmy!
I never knew that about Morocco’s people
More maps at jakubmarian.com
Translating “julemanden” as “Christmas man” just feels wrong.
You could say “Yule man” instead, but it means the same thing.
Well not exactly. Yule and similar words are used as the word for Christmas in Scandinavian languages but it used to refer to a non-christian tradition. Scandinavian countries are generally not very religious and I personally don’t like the association of yule with christianity.
Came here to point out that “jul” isn’t exactly Christmas. It feels weird seeing “julenisse” be translated as “Christmas gnome” knowing the mythos behind the
little pyromaniac shitterlittle buddy.Its meaning has become conflated with Christmas just as Christmas was stolen from pagan traditions, but that is still its current meaning in English.
Yea but coming from a danish viewpoint, I find it strange to equate them.
