Darkest Christmas: December 1942 and a world at war

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It was shattering and dehumanising, after a number of months of chronic sleep deprivation, I’m seeing things no 24-year-old should ever see. I was a burned-out husk of my former self. I’d come to regard the public as the enemy. People became acronyms. On the small white cards which served as the record of a visit to A&E I’d record the history: Christmas has always been a religious holiday, but they take it one step further in Guatemala. Every December 7, Guatemalans take part in La quema del diablo, or burning the devil. Families gather outside their houses and burn flaming effigies of the devil as a way to cleanse their home of evil. 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. One of the most disturbing traditions is one that scores of people participate in, when you really think about it. Every year, there are long lines at malls all over the world for children to get the chance to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. Some adults might do the same thing to get a laugh. But all of those mall Santas are just guys in costume, and all those people are just sitting in a stranger’s lap. 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.

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

Available on BBC Radio 4, 18:00, Monday 18 December, and on demand afterwards. Iceland's Dark Lullabies John Masefield’s 1935 novel The Box of Delights perfectly captures this tension between the civilised rituals of Christmas and the wilder, pagan forces beneath that threaten to overturn it, like the Green Knight bursting into King Arthur’s Christmas feast. The central plot revolves around the wizard Abner Brown attempting to prevent the thousandth Christmas service at Tatchester cathedral; clergymen and bishops are kidnapped, and representatives of the church shown as helpless against a more potent, ancient magic. A man dressed as the Père Fouettard parades during the festivities of Saint Nicholas in Nancy, eastern France. Photograph: Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP via Getty Images What did I say above? Thanks for the supporting comment. I have had a couple of takers for my offer of process templates (layman style to show the principles not real life health processes. To this day, next to people who dress as Santa, you can find others dressed as Le Père Fouettard, complete with the whip, threatening French and Belgian children.Did you think that the Yule Cat sits on your lap as you open gifts, playing with the wrapping paper and contributing to the overall atmosphere of cozy Christmas hygge? Wrong. The Yule Cat is terrifying. However, a few centuries ago Norway celebrated Lucia (or Lussi) in a very different form. For the night before 13 December – Lussi’s Night - was the night when evil spirits and demons rose up to wander the Earth. Children needed to be good and the adults warded off evil by protecting their homes with the sign of the cross. The Dark is Rising is a disturbing book, in a way that children’s stories rarely are now. At the beginning, Cooper describes Will’s fear of the dark in a way that makes the hairs stand up on your arms; she draws out echoes of the old powers of the English landscape – now hostile, now beguiling – in a way that recalls the Gawain poet.

Christmas Songs That Are Darker Than You Realized Classic Christmas Songs That Are Darker Than You Realized

As if they Yule Lads weren’t creepy enough, Icelanders also tell children about their horrifying mother Grýla. She’s a hoofed half-ogre, half-troll who’s covered in warts and has large, terrifying horns. She gets her children to snatch bad boys and girls from their homes at Christmas so she can cook and eat them. This story was so terrifying to Icelandic children that the government eventually had to ban using the story of Grýla and the Yule Lads as an intimidation tactic to make children behave. The family arrive in A&E and are shown to the “crying room”. It’s my job to tell the family that Daddy won’t be home for Christmas. If you were faithful, obedient and observed her rituals, Perchta would appear to you as a woman of divine beauty. If you angered her she would appear as a demonic, horned monster with a ferocious bloodlust.

27. Yet Another Christmas Witch

The author Piers Torday had been similarly obsessed with the story as a child. He wanted to stage an adaptation while at university with two friends who shared his passion for it, but the rights were not available, and the project was forgotten. Twenty-five years on, the stars aligned: the same friends were now a theatre executive and a producer, and Torday’s new adaptation of The Box of Delights has just opened at Wilton’s Music Hall in east London. Since Berlin was Jewish, he didn't really celebrate the holiday.But he had developed a yearly tradition of visiting his son's grave; the child had passed away on Christmas Day when he was three weeks old. The melancholy Berlin associated with Christmas certainly came through in the song, and it became a hit after resonating with sentimental listeners during World War II. My son joined an experiment at school, where they would see what the reaction was on wearing a “Go vegan” shirt for 2 weeks. His telling of the Yule Lads became the 'official' version and his playful but macabre poem on the Christmas Cat captured the ferocity of the beast and the terror it inspired. In 1987 Björk did her own version of the poem, in one of her earliest solo recordings.

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Sometimes she appeared as a mischievous, dishevelled old woman. Alternatively, her appearance could depend on how you perceived her and whether you had pleased her. minutes or less is all it takes to elevate your Healthcare knowledge with our expert-curated weekly AI newsletter.In 1934, songwriter Haven Gillespie was asked by his publisher to write a Christmas song for children. Having gone to the meeting directly from his brother Irwin's funeral, Gillespie had no interest in the project. Somehow he was talked into it and began writing the song on his train ride home. Thinking of all the pleasant memories he created with his brother during the holidays, Gillespie wrote "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town." Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46 In Eastern Europe, one of the stories told to children is about Frau Perchta, or the Christmas Witch. She has two faces, a nice face that she shows to nice children, and a scary face she shows to bad ones. She comes into homes on the 12th night of Christmas and leaves a piece of silver in the shoes of nice children. Whilst many sinister Christmas characters peaked during the 15th and 16th centuries, interest in Krampus has grown over time. The 19th-century invention of Christmas cards saw an explosion of images of Krampus sent around the world.