Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Nude Calendar Revue


It is that time of the year to start looking for next years Calendar, and it seems the nude calendar for Chairty has really taken off as a popular item.


In this case its not Playboy bunnies in the nude but the woman next door, well actually the granny next door, and yep even the politicians expose themselves for the nude for charity calendar gig.....

'Tis Season for Nearly Nude Calendars

Nonprofits strip down for 2007 calendars, but is the practice overexposed?











Giving both competition with and more publicity for the naturalist calendar industry, tasteful photos of folks doffing their clothes in nature.

Naturists/nautralists/nudists
are always quick to remind the purient;

Attention:

Beyond this point
you may encounter
nude sunbathers.
Note:

Anyone looking for erotica will be very disappointed!

And since naturalism is an appreciation of nature its no wonder you find naturists who are environmentalists.


Liberal Politicians Expose themselves.. it was silly season with the Liberal Leadership race, not to be out done by Bob Rae and Rick Mercer doffing it all to go skinny dipping on National TV, Scott Brison outs himself as a poser.....

Brison poses nude for fundraising calendar

Not really he may have been nude but all you get to see is......

the 'Calendar Boy' is standing modestly behind a fridge door.

"You can see his right flank,'' Wendy Elliot, who took the picture, told the Halifax Chronicle Herald.

Ah, come on now only his right buttock was peeking out, that is hardly enough flesh to get excited about. Well apparently not some folks do get excited aobut Scott Brison's right buttock appearing in public.

"This week, ironically anti-pornography week, Canadians were treated to the news that a high-ranking Liberal politician and at least one Supreme Court Justice have frolicked in public in the nude."

And who do you think such antics upset? Hmm.
Why Lifesite News of course.

The morality police, the Mrs. Grundy's of the world, the folks who hate nudity whcih they equate not with adam and eve but with sex. They hate sex, but pretend it is just birth control and abortion they oppose.

It seems that they are lone voice of purile puritanical punditry compared to the supportive comments left on the Halifax Chronicle Herald over Mr. Brisons Flank
shot, put that way he sounds like a race horse. Of course given his picture above his flank may have been a better photo.

But wait perhaps Lifesite is being disingenous in their outrage, after all not all
Christians appear to have a problem with nudity or nude calendars.

Nope check this out.... Church group launches nude calendar

Finally a calendar that says "I'm Christian" and "I love to lust after nude women" all in one. Move over Hooker Headers, here comes the erotic bible calendar!

Although it's a fundraiser for a Christian youth group, the most disturbing thing about this----is the fact that there is a disclaimer on the site that reveals that some of the models were under 18. So, is this German 'Christian' organization peddling child-porn for Jesus?


This nude calendar fundraising business all started seven years ago when some baby boomer babes decided to strike a blow against sexism and ageism. Old baby boomers, original baby boomers, gen X, XX, XXY, etc moms and grandmoms.

Six members of the Rylstone and District Women's Institute, who tastefully posed nude six years ago to raise money in aid of Leukaemia Research, have done it again.

The original calendar took the world by storm and inspired a hit movie starring Julie Walters and Helen Mirren.

Today, the six women will launch their third calendar at the Moathouse Hotel in York.

The 2007 offering features Angela Baker, 60, Tricia Stewart, 57, Lynda Logan, 62, Christine Clancy, 53, Beryl Bamforth, 72, and Ros Fawcett, 56.

Another year: Calendar Girls  Angela Baker, Tricia Stewart and Beryl Bamforth in town to sign copies of their new calendar at Harvey's, Halifax
Another year: Calendar Girls Angela Baker, Tricia Stewart and Beryl Bamforth in town to sign copies of their new calendar at Harvey's, Halifax

It caught on in a big way with the aging women everywhere. After all folks you ain't getting any younger.....Of course with age comes the ability to be cheeky....

light my fire, baby


Bev Lee - one of the original 'Bare to be Different' cover girls
- now looks after the calendar. This year, she says, they're aiming to raise a more modest $15,000 for the Dementia and Alzheimers Association but it's also meant to show "...positive ageing, a lot of fun, a bit of daring, just the fact that laughter is good and being old is fun too."


And it has spread like a proverbial prairie fire in popularity.,across the Canadian Prairies. So since everyone on hte Prairies voted Conservative demand your MP go nude for charity, after all its a Western Canadian value.

Grey-haired and bare: calendar trend sweeps Sask.

It's a Saskatchewan trend that's been spreading like prairie fire — older folks in a variety of tiny towns are doffing their duds to appear as calendar pinups.

It started last year in Eston, on the west side of the province, when a group of mature men put out a calendar to raise funds for the local health centre. That was a big hit, with more than 550 calendars being sold by November 2005.

One of the pictures in the Pangman calendar is titled 'An intergenerational bare-hunt.'One of the pictures in the Pangman calendar is titled 'An intergenerational bare-hunt.'
(Courtesy Gene Kessler)

After that, a dozen, mostly 50-something women in the village of Tantallon, in the southeast corner of the province, launched their charity calendar. This time the cause was the Kinsmen Telemiracle Fund.

"I'm in an old fashioned big, clawed bathtub and I'm sitting there with a glass of wine. With just bubbles up, just barely covering me," said Janet Ryan, AKA Miss February, a wife and mother in her mid-50s who enjoys making crafts.

It's all borrowed from Calendar Girls, the 2003 movie with Helen Mirren about a group of older women who achieve unexpected success from their nude calendar. Since then, real-life communities around the world have embraced the concept.

In Saskatchewan nudity is also a political act, in this case the usual social conservative right wing nuts in the Saskatchewan Party has the naked audacity to bring a nude calendar into the legislature to address the provinces pothole problems.

Nude calendar exposes road neglect

Using a calendar of near-nude Leader residents, the Saskatchewan Party alleged government neglect of Highway 32 in the legislative assembly on Tuesday.

During question period, Cypress Hills MLA Wayne Elhard took a strip off Highways Minister Eldon Lautermilch.

"Why has the NDP government let this highway sink into such a state of disrepair that residents are posing nude to get the government's attention?" Elhard asked.

Lautermilch recognized the innovation behind the 2007 Highway 32 Pothole Calendar, which features scantily clad businesspeople from Leader posing in potholes along the highway.






In this December 2005 photo provided by the Humane Society of Jefferson County, Chandra Gates is shown holding Spree, a domestic medium-hair tabby. Gates is pictured as Miss December for a 2007 Humane Society of Jefferson County calendar. (AP Photo/Humane Society of Jefferson County, Mark Olson)




Everyone is getting into this nude au natural calendar thingee....even in the heartland of the Bible Belt.....nudity goes for the dogs.....

Lansing residents pose nude with dogs for charity

It’s nearly 2007, and nudity is still a hot-button topic that slices right through common decency.

It’s either seen as a natural state of the human body to be explored artistically or seen as a sinful display of depravity from which children need to be protected.

To both literally and figuratively celebrate the fact that time marches on (with or without conventional morality), some brave Lansing-area residents have shed their clothes to express themselves and to raise money for Pet Support Services, a local charity that helps senior citizens keep and care for their animals, too.

The result is the Bark & Buff 2007 calendars.

“What started out as something being done just for fun has turned into this great annual ritual that provides money to a charity as well as giving self-esteem to the participants,” says calendar organizer Jana Nicol. “It’s a win-win situation.”

The Bark & Buff calendars feature nude local folks with strategically placed canines of all breeds and sizes covering their private areas.

The entire project is the brainchild of Nicol, who owns and operates Gone 2 the Dogs, a specialty store for dog lovers in Old Town.

She says finding and convincing men to agree to pose nude for the calendar was the hard part.

“They all want to have six-pack abs before they do it,” Nicol says.

It’s the women’s calendar that gets the most volunteers, and this year there was a waiting list to be photographed.

This is the calendar’s third outing, and, like last year, there are two versions to choose from: One is all women, one is all men.

Speaking of guys with six pack abs....
Not to be left out is of course this years curling calendar, for a sport enjoyed and played by sterotypical Hudson Bay sweater wearing, beer drinking, chain smoking, overweight, guys in their forties one has to say that this is incongruous at best.

In the surest sign yet that curling has reached the big time, the stone-and-broom game has joined other Olympic endeavors with a nude calendar of its own.“It’s about time,” said Paal Trulsen, the skip of the Norwegian men’s team. “It’s a fun thing, but we want curling to be just like other sports. We had the doping thing, now we have the calendar.”

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FIRE ON ICE

The new 2007 Team Sponsorship Curling Calendar from Ana Arce

17 athletes/models from 12 countries, featuring Olympians and World Champions


Following the success of her 2006 Curling Calendar, which was promoted in world media including Playboy and Sports Illustrated, Ana Arce has brought together more of curling's most beautiful women to pose in support of their teams and their sport.

Wait I have seen that pose somewhere before.













And this photo and a link to the story on the Curling Calendar lead a poor blogger to have his site crash from all the hits, even though the photo is commercially supplied by CP!

Polish national team lead Kasia Selwand is seen in an undated handout photo of a Curling calendar. new calendar promises to provide a lot of exposure to the sport of women's curling, with some of the competitors posing nude in it. (CP PHOTO/HO, The Curling News).

Not to be left out is the Golf Calendar, but this is not for charity but another professional pin up calendar. Sorry ladies you will still have to wait for the charity golf calendar with Tiger in it....Golf + nudes = calendar art - Miami photographer Ray Alonso ...

And of course the original pin up/nude calendar was produced exclusively for Pirelli fans.

The Pirelli Calendar has become an annual publication that belies its origin in 1964 as merely a trade calendar published by the Pirelli company's UK subsidiary.

The calendar is famous for its limited availability because it is not sold and is only given as a corporate gift to a restricted number of important Pirelli customers and celebrity VIPs. The Pirelli Calendar is perhaps the world's only prestigious and exclusive "girly" calendar, featuring pictures generally considered glamour photography including artistic nudes.

Which in North America was imitated by the proletarian Snap On Tools Calendar.

Not coincidentally, 1994 was the year that Snap-on ceased giving out its traditional calendar featuring provocatively posed female models holding Snap-on tools. Mr. Van Mater admits that cries of protest were heard from the ranks of the not particularly politically correct mechanics. But with more and more women attending to the servicing of the family car, the calendars were no longer an image either the dealers or the company wanted associated with Snap-on.

If we go by the popularity of the newly liberated nude calander there is hope yet as a new generation of women mechanics prepares to be taken seriously enough they can doff their overalls without fear of being simply seen as eyecandy props for cars. And heck there is a market out there for male nude calendars. So no need to be sexist. Of course these guys will never get picked for the commercial Naked Straight Guy calendar.

Bare faced cheek of the calendar boys!

Dec 7 2006


By Neil Elkes, Birmingham Mail


Nude calendar boys Bryan Evans, Robert Charters, Mark Dalton, Ray Bishop and Kieran Peach.

CHEEKY staff at a Birmingham cleaning company who bared all for a charity calendar have been swamped by demand.

The seven men from Johnson Apparelmaster of Aldridge Road, Perry Barr, have been overwhelmed by requests for the £3 nude calendars in aid of breast cancer research.

Mr January, Keiron Peach, aged 27, said they decided to do the calendar during a work night out and were egged on by their female colleagues.

The models, whose ages range from 20 to 60 and come from all over the West Midlands, set up and took the pictures themselves.

The first nude calendar was of course Fine Art. Which of course is the difference between erotica and pornography. The former is art the latter is not.....

First nude calendar

In 1913, the first-known calendar nude appeared, called "September Morn", a reproduction of an oil painting,"Matinee Septembre", by a French artist, Paul Chabas (1869-1937). The painting might have gone unnoticed if Comstock, of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, had not demanded the removal of the painting from the window of a New York art gallery. A salesman explained that the painting had recently won a Medal of Honour from the French Academy, but we may presume, Comstock was not impressed .


Which has not changed much since then....Yessy > Jim Furness > 2007 Art Nude Calendar


And Perelli still inspires to put the X in X-Men

Brett Ratner, the director of the newest X-Men movie, would rather be taking photos of naked celebrity women. “Mariah Carey is like the only woman I’ve shot. I want to shoot some women. Halle Berry would be cool. And Lindsay Lohan.”Ratner added that what he’d really like to do is photograph them naked. “I’d like to shoot the Pirelli calendar. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Hot!” Ratner gushed, referring to the famed calendar featuring nudes.

And now its even expanding into comics.

Tastefully Done: nude webcomic calendar - The Cancer Blog

Looking for a cartoonishly risqué way to keep track of the days in 2007? Fifteen webcomic artists have created the Tastefully Done: 2007 Nude Webcomic Calendar featuring nude versions of webcomic characters, with all proceeds going to cancer research.

The calendar showcases the work of Ivan Pope, Ali Graham, Gordon McAlpin, Charles Woolbright, Chris Jones, Bryan Chojnowski, Pontus Madsen & Christian Fundin, Chris Simmons, Philip Spence, Rich Dachtera, Robert Koch, Ramón Pérez, Rob Coughler, Ryan Estrada, and of course, webcomic characters appearing in various scenarios of nudity.

Like the issues of ageing in society, which as more of us baby boomers get older, we will celebrate our bodies our selves rather than looking at wrinkled flesh in disdain, there is the other body issue. The disabled. The whole issue around nudity for charity, is about ordinary folks overcoming socially constructed tabbos around self image.....

Hi my name is Sue Hawker, I am a co ordinator for a registered charity called Paul's Place based in South Gloucestershire our age range is 18-59 (people are not asked to leave when they reach 60) We enable Physically disabled people to lead a active social life in a safe and warm environment. Pop in any time to our day facility and you will hear laughter because we are all friends with a ever growing number of people who need our service. Paul's place is user led giving our members the opportunity to lead a fullfilling life choosing activities they want to do.

Now I come to the best bit! We presently rent a village hall which is very overcrowded due to the high demand for a day faciity for physically disabled people.Can you imagine the noise levels with thirty people in one room all wanting to be heard! As a charity we have to raise money throughout the year,but the need for a new building is so great now that we had to think of a major fundraising idea to raise our profile and give our funds a boost. So we produced we think, the worlds first disabled nude calander. It is a stunning piece of artwork by a wondeful photographer,you can see a preview of the calender on his website www.theofolio.com. Paul's Place website address is http://www.paulsplace.org.uk/ please visit. I promise you will be moved by the profiles of the members written by themselves and see the calander shots that we think are beautiful. Inside the front cover you will see a introduction to the calander by our founder Kath Aldom.


Of course there is always one effete latte drinking intellectual that has to be a party pooper and throw cold wat on the whole nude charity calendar thingee....Professor: Nude Calendars Don't Help Fundraising

So why are they popular? And sell out?

And then there are those who just can't stand all this flesh for charity business...

Does my bum look big in this calendar?

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 05/12/2006

As more Britons strip off for charity than ever, Jan Moir makes a plea for modesty

In pictures: calendar capers

In the name of faith, hope and especially charity, will the people of Great Britain please put their clothes back on? This instant. Right now. Without delay. What we mean is, what has got into you all?

Highworth's butchers nude calendar
Titillating: staff at Highworth's butchers are among happy nude posers for charity

This year, the number of individuals willing to pose stark blooming naked for 2007 charity calendars has reached plague-like proportions.

For more nude calendar stories see: igossip nude calendars

And there is a blog and website called Naked Charity. Which covers nude charity calendars.

Naked Charity (the blog) Official follow-up and related discussion to the "Nude Calendar Watch"

Damn and I thought this was going to be an original column. Ah well.



Also See:

Nude

Naked

Sexuality

Gender


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Monday, December 25, 2006

Christmas In The Trenches

It seems a New Comedy Troop out of Ottawa has hit the deck running in Kandahar for Christmas. Its the R&R Review, with Rich Mercer and Rick Hillier and such cut ups as Treasury Board Minister John Baird in Kandahar today entertaining the troops.

For our men and women and for all men and women, boys and girls in the warzone a Christmas Carol from WWI, the War to End All Wars.

Remember that. The War to End All Wars.

Christmas in the Trenches

(John McCutcheon)

My name is Francis Tolliver, I come from Liverpool.
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school.
To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here
I fought for King and country I love dear.
'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung,
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung
Our families back in England were toasting us that day
Their brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lying with my messmate on the cold and rocky ground
When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound
Says I, ``Now listen up, me boys!'' each soldier strained to hear
As one young German voice sang out so clear.
``He's singing bloody well, you know!'' my partner says to me
Soon, one by one, each German voice joined in harmony
The cannons rested silent, the gas clouds rolled no more
As Christmas brought us respite from the war
As soon as they were finished and a reverent pause was spent
``God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen'' struck up some lads from Kent
The next they sang was ``Stille Nacht.'' ``Tis `Silent Night','' says I
And in two tongues one song filled up that sky
``There's someone coming toward us!'' the front line sentry cried
All sights were fixed on one long figure trudging from their side
His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shown on that plain so bright
As he, bravely, strode unarmed into the night
Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man's Land
With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand
We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well
And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell
We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own
Young Sanders played his squeezebox and they had a violin
This curious and unlikely band of men

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more
With sad farewells we each prepared to settle back to war
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wonderous night
``Whose family have I fixed within my sights?''
'Twas Christmas in the trenches where the frost, so bitter hung
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung
For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war
Had been crumbled and were gone forevermore

My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell
Each Christmas come since World War I, I've learned its lessons well
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we're the same

Of course the skeptic might point out that the Taliban aren't like us, they are Muslim. But tis music that lulls the roar of the great beast of war. It's singing not the song.




See

WWI

Christmas

Afghanistan

War





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America's God


You will be forgiven if you did not know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, PA. Really. Because Jesus is an American, he is America's God. So says Billy Grahams daughter Anne Graham Lotz on Fox News Sunday.

But I would say that for myself each one of these people that comes into this country, I don't know where they've come from, whether it's Central America or someplace in Africa, but I wonder if while they're here, if God would allow them the opportunity to hear what we call the good news of Jesus Christ.

And so as a religious leader, I'm more concerned with their souls and that while they're here they have the opportunity to hear about what sometimes they describe as America's god, and they think of Jesus identified with America....

So now we know which God talks to George W. Bush. Why America's God of course. After all Jesus was a Texan.

Not Islams God, or Israels God, or Canada's God, or Mexico's God, or China's God (godless marxists), or the EU's God (subject to ratification), or Africa's God(s), or the God of Vatican City, and definetly not the God of Hugo Chavez.

Nope, Jesus is Americas Personal Savior. He is as American as apple pie and Billy Graham. Ands he ain't no damn Freemason neither. Or maybe he is......

Fox shows how Jesus influenced such major turning points in American history as:

  • Columbus's voyage of discovery
  • The arrival of the English puritans and Spanish missionaries
  • The American Revolution
  • The abolition of slavery and the Civil War
  • Labor movements
  • Social and cultural revolutions of the sixties and beyond
  • The swelling tide of Christian voices in the politics and entertainment of today
Fox gives an expert, lively account of all the ways that Jesus is portrayed and understood in American culture.

Of course there is always a Jesus who would disagree about being American.....



See

Tannenbaum

Rebel Jesus


Jesus


God

Bush's God




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Merry Christmas

Hubby is busy today.


And this is only some of the ways to say Merry Christmas

    How "Merry Christmas" is said .....

    Afrikaans: Gesëende Kersfees
    Afrikander: Een Plesierige Kerfees
    African/ Eritrean/ Tigrinja: Rehus-Beal-Ledeats
    Albanian:Gezur Krislinjden
    Arabic: Milad Majid
    Argentine: Feliz Navidad
    Armenian: Shenoraavor Nor Dari yev Pari Gaghand
    Azeri: Tezze Iliniz Yahsi Olsun
    Bahasa Malaysia: Selamat Hari Natal
    Basque: Zorionak eta Urte Berri On!
    Bengali: Shuvo Naba Barsha
    Bohemian: Vesele Vanoce
    Brazilian: Feliz Natal
    Breton: Nedeleg laouen na bloavezh mat
    Bulgarian: Tchestita Koleda; Tchestito Rojdestvo Hristovo
    Catalan: Bon Nadal i un Bon Any Nou!
    Chile: Feliz Navidad
    Chinese: (Cantonese) Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Haw Sun
    Chinese: (Mandarin) Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan (Catonese) Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Haw Sun
    Choctaw: Yukpa, Nitak Hollo Chito
    Columbia: Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo
    Cornish: Nadelik looan na looan blethen noweth
    Corsian: Pace e salute
    Crazanian: Rot Yikji Dol La Roo
    Cree: Mitho Makosi Kesikansi
    Croatian: Sretan Bozic
    Czech: Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok
    Danish: Glædelig Jul
    Duri: Christmas-e- Shoma Mobarak
    Dutch: Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! or Zalig Kerstfeast
    English: Merry Christmas
    Eskimo: (inupik) Jutdlime pivdluarit ukiortame pivdluaritlo!
    Esperanto: Gajan Kristnaskon
    Estonian: Ruumsaid juulup|hi
    Ethiopian: (Amharic) Melkin Yelidet Beaal
    Faeroese: Gledhilig jol og eydnurikt nyggjar!
    Farsi: Cristmas-e-shoma mobarak bashad
    Finnish: Hyvaa joulua
    Flemish: Zalig Kerstfeest en Gelukkig nieuw jaar
    French: Joyeux Noel
    Frisian: Noflike Krystdagen en in protte Lok en Seine yn it Nije Jier!
    Galician: Bo Nada
    Gaelic: Nollaig chridheil agus Bliadhna mhath ùr! German: Froehliche Weihnachten
    Greek: Kala Christouyenna!
    Haiti: (Creole) Jwaye Nowel or to Jesus Edo Bri'cho o Rish D'Shato Brichto
    Hausa: Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara!
    Hawaiian: Mele Kalikimaka
    Hebrew: Mo'adim Lesimkha. Chena tova
    Hindi: Shub Naya Baras
    Hausa: Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara!
    Hawaian: Mele Kalikimaka ame Hauoli Makahiki Hou!
    Hungarian: Kellemes Karacsonyi unnepeket
    Icelandic: Gledileg Jol
    Indonesian: Selamat Hari Natal
    Iraqi: Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah
    Irish: Nollaig Shona Dhuit, or Nodlaig mhaith chugnat
    Iroquois: Ojenyunyat Sungwiyadeson honungradon nagwutut. Ojenyunyat osrasay.
    Italian: Buone Feste Natalizie
    Japanese: Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto
    Jiberish: Mithag Crithagsigathmithags
    Korean: Sung Tan Chuk Ha
    Lao: souksan van Christmas
    Latin: Natale hilare et Annum Faustum!
    Latvian: Prieci'gus Ziemsve'tkus un Laimi'gu Jauno Gadu!
    Lausitzian:Wjesole hody a strowe nowe leto
    Lettish: Priecigus Ziemassvetkus
    Lithuanian: Linksmu Kaledu
    Low Saxon: Heughliche Winachten un 'n moi Nijaar
    Macedonian: Sreken Bozhik
    Maltese: IL-Milied It-tajjeb
    Manx: Nollick ghennal as blein vie noa
    Maori: Meri Kirihimete
    Marathi: Shub Naya Varsh
    Navajo: Merry Keshmish
    Norwegian: God Jul, or Gledelig Jul
    Occitan: Pulit nadal e bona annado
    Papiamento: Bon Pasco
    Papua New Guinea: Bikpela hamamas blong dispela Krismas na Nupela yia i go long yu
    Pennsylvania German: En frehlicher Grischtdaag un en hallich Nei Yaahr!
    Peru: Feliz Navidad y un Venturoso Año Nuevo
    Philipines: Maligayan Pasko!
    Polish: Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia or Boze Narodzenie
    Portuguese:Feliz Natal
    Pushto: Christmas Aao Ne-way Kaal Mo Mobarak Sha
    Rapa-Nui (Easter Island): Mata-Ki-Te-Rangi. Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua
    Rhetian: Bellas festas da nadal e bun onn
    Romanche: (sursilvan dialect): Legreivlas fiastas da Nadal e bien niev onn!
    Rumanian: Sarbatori vesele
    Russian: Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom
    Sami: Buorrit Juovllat
    Samoan: La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou
    Sardinian: Bonu nadale e prosperu annu nou
    Serbian: Hristos se rodi
    Slovakian: Sretan Bozic or Vesele vianoce
    Sami: Buorrit Juovllat
    Samoan: La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou
    Scots Gaelic: Nollaig chridheil huibh
    Serb-Croatian: Sretam Bozic. Vesela Nova Godina
    Serbian: Hristos se rodi.
    Singhalese: Subha nath thalak Vewa. Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa
    Slovak: Vesele Vianoce. A stastlivy Novy Rok
    Slovene: Vesele Bozicne Praznike Srecno Novo Leto or Vesel Bozic in srecno Novo leto
    Spanish: Feliz Navidad
    Swedish: God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt År
    Tagalog: Maligayamg Pasko. Masaganang Bagong Taon
    Tami: Nathar Puthu Varuda Valthukkal
    Trukeese: (Micronesian) Neekiriisimas annim oo iyer seefe feyiyeech!
    Thai: Sawadee Pee Mai or souksan wan Christmas
    Turkish: Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
    Ukrainian: Srozhdestvom Kristovym
    Urdu: Naya Saal Mubarak Ho
    Vietnamese: Chung Mung Giang Sinh
    Welsh: Nadolig Llawen
    Yugoslavian: Cestitamo Bozic
    Yoruba: E ku odun, e ku iye'dun!





See

Christmas

Xmas

Solstice




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Sunday, December 24, 2006

'Twas The Night Before Christmas


All Day Long, go figure. Since today is officially The Night Before Christmas, that's its tag. All day long we are in the night. Hmmm another hangover fromthe ancient celebration of Winter Solstice and the the the return of the light after the longest night of the year.

So is Christmas really all about the Three Magi or is it the most successful modern capitalist celebration foisted on the public?

Christmas began as a greeting card. Like mothers day which was also subverted by the greeting card industry despite its origin as a feminist abolitionist celebration.

Today's Christmas and Santa Claus are the creation of modern American capitalist society.

Alternative Christmas without Coca Cola Santa

PEJ News
- Richard Walpole - An artist in Sooke on Vancouver Island recenty erected a cross with Santa Clause nailed to it. Santa soon disappeared, only to be found someplace else, but that did not matter. Comparing a mythological character created by a soft drink company to Jesus startled many people. And of course, the irony was not lost on anybody.

Has Santa Claus (r)(c)(tm) corporate shill finally replaced St. Nicholas, as the spirit of Christmas?

Santa Replaces Solemn St. Nicholas

A man points at the new Santa Claus statue in the Mediterranean town of Demre, southern Turkey. ANKARA, Turkey - What's a huge plastic Santa Claus doing among palm trees in a seaside town in Turkey? The mayor's answer is simple: He's back home. Suleyman Topcu put up the statue in the Mediterranean town of Demre to honor its favorite son, St. Nicholas, the inspiration for the Santa legend. "The modern statue looks like a cheap toy, it has no artistic value at all," Ayse Uslusaydam, a pharmacist in Demre, said Thursday. "The previous one had style." St. Nicholas served as bishop of Demre in the 4th century. From there, the legend of his generosity spread around the world and became interwoven with mythical stories of the jolly gift-giver.



The Future is in Our Past

Let's put Christ back into Christmas, is an oft-heard phrase. Peter says, “How can we put Christ back into something in which He never was?” He challenges me to search the Bible from Genesis to Revelation to find even a suggestion to commemorate Christ’s birth. He says, “You will find that we should keep the Sabbath and Passover, which we ignore, but not Christmas.” Peter tells me the same story every Christmas, usually when he’s under the influence, but this year he goes even further. He tells me the real central character of Christmas, Santa Claus, was the brainchild of Coca-Cola's marketing department early in the 20th century. Santa Claus was based loosely on the English Father Christmas and the German Kris Kringle. Apparently, it’s true. My research uncovers that “millions of children every year would be without a lap to sit on or a reason for being good if it weren’t for Coco-Cola’s invention of the fat, jolly Santa Claus we know today, first introduced in 1931.” The only thing that ties Santa Claus to Jesus is we identify him with Saint Nicholas, a churchman who was known for throwing sacks of coins through the open windows and down chimneys of the needy. There is zilch about Santa Claus in the bible. Coca-Cola’s Santa may be present in the modern creche, but no one like him appears in the gospel.


Like the Night Before Christmas , Santa Claus is an American invention. And his invention coincides with the rise of capitalist ascendancy in America as a celebration created by the advent of the Department Store, Madison Avenue advertising, and a popular cocaine laced beverage.

"In considering the social effects of the department store, one is inclined to attach the greatest importance to the contributions which they have made to the transformation in the way of life of the greatest strata of the population, a transformation which will remain the one great social fact of these last 100 years." Hrant Pasdermadjian, The Department Store, Its Origins, Evolution and Economics, 1954


The man in the red suit

He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.

There is no Santa Claus. Not in the poem now known as "The Night Before Christmas" published anonymously in 1823 and credited to Clement Clarke Moore, whose verses feature a weirdly elvish figure named St. Nicholas. Not in Charles Dickens' 1842 "Christmas Carol," with all its sanctimonious sermonizing about Tiny Tim and the true meaning of Christmas.

For all practical purposes, there is no Santa Claus before 1862, the year that Rowland H. Macy took the gift-giving gnome known around New York as Sinterklaas (from the Dutch "Sint Nicolaas"), used an Anglicized name, had him impersonated by a reassuringly full-size human, costumed him in a nice, clean cloak, and installed him in the store as a means of snaring more Christmas shoppers.


And like so many myths all the facts are conjecture, as no one can agree on how all this Night Before Christmas, Santa stuff really got started.

All the Christmas answers you need


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/24/06

Christmas may be among the world's most misunderstood holidays.

No wonder. Every December, stories about the baby Jesus, a moving star, Santa Claus and flying reindeer get tossed into a blender like the ingredients for eggnog.

The result is a hodgepodge of confusing Christian and pagan traditions that form the basis for an annual binge of buying and gift-giving. So where did these traditions come from? Here are some answers.

Q: Where does Santa Claus come from and what does he have to do with Christmas?

A: Everything or nothing, depending on whether you like to get your answers from theologians or the CEOs of large retail chain stores.

The origins of Santa Claus may be nearly as mysterious as the answer to where the baby Jesus comes from.

Many believe Santa got his start as Nicholas of Myra, a fourth-century bishop whose love of children and concern for the poor, sailors and their ships earned him sainthood.

Others see him as a modern day Odin, a Norse god who flew around on an eight-legged horse. The Dutch called him Sinterklass. To the English, he is Father Christmas.

In America, his name became Santa Claus. The publication of a famous poem in the early 19th century firmly established Santa's image as a "jolly old elf" who, once every year, distributes presents around the world with the help of eight flying mammals of the Rangifer tarandus variety.

Q: What's the title of that poem?

A: Bet you're thinking it was " 'Twas the Night before Christmas."

Well, t'wasn't.

The poem, first published anonymously in 1823, was titled "A Visit from St. Nicholas."

Q: What are those reindeers' names?

A: That might be as debatable as is the authorship of the poem, which is credited to Clement Clarke Moore.

In the original version, which some argue was written by Henry Livingston, the names are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem.

In later versions, the last two names were changed to Donder and Blitzen.

The ninth and most important reindeer of all came from copywriter Robert L. May. In 1939, Montgomery Ward hired May to write a story for a free Christmas coloring book to attract shoppers to its stores.

By 1949 that coloring book story of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" had evolved into a hit Gene Autry song that sold 2 million copies in its first year.

In the song, which was written by Johnny Marks, Donder became Donner.

Tracing the legend of Old Saint Nick

The American version of the Santa Claus figure received its inspiration and its name from the Dutch legend of Sinter Klaas, brought by settlers to New York in the 17th century, and the name evolved into what it is today — Santa Claus.

As early as 1773 the name appeared in the American press as “St. A Claus.”

A popular author, Washington Irving, gave Americans detailed information about the Dutch version of Saint Nicholas in his book “History of New York” published in 1809 under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker.

This Dutch-American Saint Nick achieved his fully Americanized form in 1823 in the poem “A Visit From Saint Nicholas” more commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke.

It was further elaborated by illustrator Thomas Nast, who depicted a rotund Santa for Christmas issues of Harper’s magazine from the 1860s to the 1880s.

Finally, from 1931 to 1964, Haddon Sundblom created a new Santa each Christmas for Coca-Cola advertisements that appeared world-wide on the back covers of Post and National Geographic magazines.

Jolly old patriot is theme of historic town's efforts to lengthen it's tourist season
Santa made his entrance into America on Jan. 3, 1863, with a long, white beard and cozy suit adorned in stars and stripes. On the cover of Harper's Weekly, famous cartoonist Thomas Nast showed an image of Santa Claus handing out gifts to weary Civil War soldiers.

Gettysburg businesses hope to re-create that Civil War Christmas experience by creating a destination town immersed in holiday cheer and history.

And they chose Nast's picture, recognized as the first image of Santa in America, to be the central symbol for their efforts this season.



Iconic St. Nick, as fat and jolly elf, was seen in Claymont first

Illustrator Felix Darley drew early image that led to our version of Santa

CLAYMONT -- Perhaps this town should be renamed something more Christmasy.

Like Darleymont.

After all, for nearly two decades before his death, it was the home of 19th-century illustrator Felix Darley (1821-1888), who drew one of the pioneering images of Santa Claus in 1862 -- a year before political cartoonist Thomas Nast, who is often credited with the deed, and long before the even more familiar Coca-Cola Haddon Sundblom version came out in the early 1930s.

Darley's elf-like image of Santa was created to illustrate one of the first book editions of Clement C. Moore's poem, "A Visit from Saint Nicholas," nearly four decades after the poem was written and published in the Troy, N.Y., Sentinel on Dec. 23, 1823. Darley's Santa was depicted in a country setting said to be Claymont of that time, and Darley himself would end up helping to teach and inspire the cadre of illustrators and painters who made the Brandywine Valley their home.


Did Coke really create Santa Claus as a corporate shill? And is Coke really celebrating Santa Claus or the creation of it's famous bottle?




Coca-Cola Honors 75th Anniversary Of Coca-Cola Santa

Anniversary of an icon Coca-Cola contour bottle celebrates 90 years.
2006 marks the anniversary of a true icon. It was 90 years ago, in 1916, that the now famous Coca-Cola bottle began appearing on store shelves, having been patented on November 16 the year before. Called the Coca-Cola "contour" bottle, this unique package remains an instantly recognizable symbol that distinguishes the world's best known soft drink from all other products.


Historic concoction featured in museum display

Coca Cola items appropriately decorate the Alva Cherokee Strip Museum’s Drug Store room, courtesy of Gail Wilks.

A pharmacist, John Pemberton, developed Coca Cola in 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia, in a three-legged brass kettle in his backyard. His bookkeeper, Frank Robinson, suggested the name for the tonic which contained extracts of cocaine as well as the caffeine-rich kola nut.

Robinson, using his excellent penmanship, first scripted “Coca Cola” into the flowing letters which became its trademark logo.

It was first sold as a soft drink at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta on May 8, 1886. Total sales for the first year reached nearly $50. Unfortunately, the drink cost about $70 to manufacture.

As the danger of cocaine became known, the company researched and found ways to retain the distinctive taste without any of the harmful drug.

Wilks began collecting Coke items more than 20 years ago. Many of the ornaments on the tree are limited edition dated items.


Coca-Cola's Santa Claus: Not The Real Thing!

This month, Coca-Cola celebrates the 75th anniversary of its dubious claim of creating today's modern-day image of Santa Claus, when it began using illustrations of jolly St. Nick in advertisements in 1931.

There's one problem with Coke's assertion that it created the fat, white- whiskered, red-and-white garbed Santa: The Claus that refreshes was actually introduced two decades earlier by White Rock Beverages.
The White Rock Collector's Association has posted several White Rock "Santa" ads at http://www.whiterocking.org/santa.html , including a 1915 ad in Collier's and several from the 1920's in Life magazine, featuring Kris Kringle enjoying the taste of White Rock.




So it is no wonder that Santa Claus(tm)(c)(r) has been associated with sweat shop labour, he is the ultimate icon of American corporate citizenship, the symbol of mass consumer culture.


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