Lots of people like to take their picture with Santa, but the picture you can get in Scottsdale, Arizona is a little bit different. The Scottsdale Gun Club lets you take a picture where you and Santa are both armed to the teeth with all manner of machine guns. Eartha Kitt made the song “Santa Baby” famous in 1953, and it’s still a Christmas classic today. But if you take a closer look at the lyrics, the weird mixture of children’s traditions and the sexualization of Santa is more unsettling than charming. There are some positives in contrast to 1986; my recent blood results from the DGH were available on screen to my GP and not held up by the postal strike, my CT scan appointment at the cancer centre was confirmed by text and again the results will be on my care record in near real time.

The 25 Weirdest, Darkest Christmas Songs Humbug Hit Parade: The 25 Weirdest, Darkest Christmas Songs

They know from my demeanour what I’m gonna tell them. I tell them and they dissolve in tears, “no it can’t be true” they say, like they always do. “I’m so sorry, there was nothing we could do, he didn’t suffer”. I look at my watch, 8.55pm. How long is this going to take, I’m late for my hot date. For years, people have dressed up as Santa to delight little children around Christmas time, but SantaCon has somewhat tainted the tradition. An infamous pub crawl that started in New York City and has now spread to many other cities, and not only does having hundreds of people dress up as Santa spoil the illusion for the kids that witness the event, but their drunken antics cause damage and public nuisance every year. The book’s appeal, he says, lies in the combination of “classic English Christmas fantasy” – carol singers, food markets with plum puddings, cathedral choirs – with “the long shadows of pagan tradition” that still haunt our midwinter feast.Christmas 1986, the snow fell silently in the ambulance reception area of the Ingham Infirmary, South Shields. I was half an hour in from the end of my day shift when the Ambulance Service hotline rang and we were told to expect a road traffic accident (RTA). It dawns on me that I feel nothing, because some time in the previous 6 months I have died inside. The hours, the work, emotional trauma, years of tory underfunding of the NHS have left me burnt out. I can’t tell her that, can I? So it’s a joy for those of us who like a bit of pagan magic with our mince pies to see two examples enjoying a revival, on stage and through the power of social media. Forget turkey… in South Africa, many people enjoy the deep-fried caterpillars of the Emperor Moth on Christmas Day! Le Père Fouettard means “The Whipping Father,” and you can probably guess what he does. This French/Belgian character accompanies Saint Nicholas, whipping the children who weren’t nice.

Best Dark or Sad Christmas Movies The Best Dark or Sad Christmas Movies

Gryla is a giant ogre who lives in a cave. During Christmas she emerges to hunt for children, which she kidnaps, takes to her cave, and cooks in a vat of stew. If you’re celebrating Christmas in Finland, you might find yourself in a cemetery… at night. The Finns go to the cemetery on Christmas Eve and light candles at the graves of passed family members. It’s a quiet and solemn ceremony, but it’s sure to unsettle some young Finnish children every year. Just like in other countries, people in Glamorgan, Wales go from house to house caroling. But unlike in other countries, they bring around freaky horse figure called the Mari Lwyd, and they try to argue their way (with song) into the house for food and gifts. Maybe NHS IT’s darkest hour is the turning point. It maybe it isn’t too late to build an open NHS IT ecosystem, more like the app store than a 30 year-old monoliths we’ve converged on but it will require leadership who understand the need to put NHS staff ahead of dogma and AI pie in the sky. Maybe NHS IT can save the NHS? Gryla has a variety of companions, including the Yule Lads – her 13 unruly troll children/ Large Adult Sons – and the Jólakötturinn, or Yule Cat.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Beneath some of the great Christmas classics runs a current of darker, older beliefs underlying the cosy festivities On Christmas Eve, parents often blame their child's inability to fall asleep on the anticipatory excitement they experience while waiting to begin a fun-filled Christmas morning. However, the truth is that there is a dark side of Christmas, and it's worse than anything you'll encounter on Halloween. An annual tradition, this year’s Joe McDonald Christmas column looks at Christmas past, present and future with regards to digital health and NHS IT and the issues and pressures facing the NHS. Nativity scenes seem like a pretty standard Christmas tradition, but in Catalonia they’re a little… different. Specifically, they feature a character called a caganer. There’s no good way to say this: caganer means “defecator,” and in the scenes they’re squatting, with their pants down, with a pile of poop on the ground beneath them. Seriously.