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old hand
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And finally the Coca Cola company for an advertising campaign in the 1930s gave him the red and white (guess why???) pyjamas we are now used to seeing him wear. The whack-a-doodlest idea I've heard is that it's the color of amanita muscaria mushrooms that the Lapp shamans consumed (second hand by drinking the urine of the reindeer they fed the mushrooms to) to go on their shamanistic flights. They left and returned by flying through the smoke holes of their tents, hence Santa's entry through the chimney. Aww, shucks, y'all made that'n up y'self faldo! 
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Carpal Tunnel
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The whack-a-doodlest idea I've heardI am an aficionado of krank-kook-ism, and the work of one John Allegro yclept The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) is one of the doodly-whackiest ( link). It makes a great reading companion to the just as pseudo-scholarly, though slightlyless whacky, and still controversial Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968) of R Gordon Wasson ( link). Allegro alleged that Jesus was actually a mushroom. (and he has a ton of Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hebraic etymologies to prove all sorts of other things; it helps that mushrooms tend to be phallic shaped. Wasson claimed that Amanita muscaria was the Vedic soma. I don't remember Faldo's offered Santa Claus theory having been mentioned by either author, but it is possible, both myco-amateurs being so enormously fecund with factoids and theories. Oh, the shamans, the reindeer urine, the 'shrooms.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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And visions of sugar plums.
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Poor Nicholas of Myra, in what is now Turkey. A 1930's American
advertising campaign to drinking reindeer urine. Oh how our
discussions travel, more so that the ole' elf hisself,
to say nothing of sugar plums or 'shrooms.
Last edited by LukeJavan8; 12/28/08 12:48 AM.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Does Holland have a church tax like Germany? That might be a reason for so many declared atheists. Happy happy to you, too, Bran, and it's nice to see a picture of youfor a change! 
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OP
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No church tax that I know of. I remember black (!) velvet saggy bags on top of a stick that where passed along the bench rows where we put in nickles and dimes, called "collecte". Of course the rich people put in old useless buttons . (we children made that up in our home made radio plays) For the rest you've all worked it out and I've made the virtual trip to Köln. Christmas has always been celebrated as a family feast, only without Santa C and presents, but always with the tree and true candles up to the mid-sixtees. In spite of statistics and mushrooms, the country's culture has been till this day dominated by Calvinistic morals since the end of the spanish reign and religious civil war's ending in the beginning of the 17th century. (but see Pook, globbelism has changed a lot on the surface) (thanks for all the links, I can't do much searching; as long as I don't have my own computer back I 'm just a wandering visitor).
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Why might a Roman Catholic martyr be celebrated in a predominately protestant country at Christmas time? May I suggest the following for consideration. Assuming that the protestant country referred to is the Netherlands, one of the reasons has to do with Reformation history and the formation of the various protestant churches. What must be realized is that the Reformation did not consist of an absolute and total repudiation of Christianity before the 16th Century. The Reformed or Calvinistic Reformation was a restoration movement that intended to restore Christianity to its Biblical roots in part by removing the unbiblical accretions instituted by Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthdoxy. Some and even much of pre-16th Century Christianity was retained by Protestantism. I was going to write more on differences within Protestantism to explain the existence of differing practices and traditions connected with Christmas -- but will not for now.
Vaughn Hathaway
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And what could better represent the restoration of Christianity to its Biblical roots than the greed and spending frenzy personified by the ghost of a Roman Catholic martyr?
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old hand
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Christmas was hardly celebrated at all in Scotland until the 1950s when English TV introduced it to the dour northerners. Even today some exclusive Presbyterian sects don't acknowlege it as a valid expression of Christian celebration.
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The Pook is correct. The addition of Christmas in the 1930s to the annual calendar of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (the Southern Presbyterian Church), which merged with the Presbyterian Church in the USA (the Northern Presbyterian Church) in the early 1980s, was labeled by conservatives, who eventually founded the Presbyterian Church in America in the 1970s, as a move away from biblical Christianity. The commercialization of Christmas is not a fruit of Christianity. The additional item that I chose not to include in my first post is what separates strictly Reformed Christian denominations, such as the Pook referenced, from other Protestant denominations, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. It is a doctrine called the Regulative Principle of Worship and is based on an interpretation of the Second Commandment found in Exodus 20:4-6. Simply stated the RPW limits acceptable Christian worship and celebrations to those that are specifically indicated in the Bible. Since Christmas is not one such, it has not been observed by many Reformed (i.e., Presbyterian) Christians. Unfortunately, many Protestant Christians do observe Christmas; but to their credit decry the commercialization of the corporate world. Christians this side of heaven are not perfect. They are all sinners.
PastorVon (Vaughn Hathaway)
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