tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/christmas-2018-63382/articlesChristmas 2018 – The Conversation2018-12-24T10:07:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1046482018-12-24T10:07:17Z2018-12-24T10:07:17ZWhy Christmas annuals are still a favoured gift – 195 years after the first one was published<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249018/original/file-20181205-186073-137dlfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reading a treasured gift.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/boy-near-christmas-tree-his-book-724279051?src=60zSj0dLc_A7oUm41E6_NQ-1-5">Tatiana Eliseeva/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a devoted reader of weekly comic The Dandy, the gift of its annual was an essential part of Christmas morning. In the midst of the festive excitement, I can remember clearly the thrill of discovering my first annual under the tree in 1983, and filling out the “This Book Belongs To” section in my best handwriting. </p>
<p>Publishers of magazines and periodicals introduced annuals during the first decades of the 19th century. Often produced with the lucrative Christmas and New Year markets in mind, the literary and artistic contributions to these gift books tapped into the sentimentality of the season. The content was influenced by the literary and cultural tastes of an emerging middle class, with the promotion of domestic scenes of home, family, and childhood. </p>
<p>Forget-Me-Not, published in 1823 and edited by London-based publisher <a href="http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=katherine-d-harris-the-legacy-of-rudolph-ackermann-and-nineteenth-century-british-literary-annuals">Rudolph Ackermann</a>, is generally accepted as Britain’s first literary annual. Aimed at female readers, the annual, which was a new concept influenced by ideas Ackermann had seen both in Britain and Germany, contained short stories, poetry, and illustrations.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249007/original/file-20181205-186085-zx91dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249007/original/file-20181205-186085-zx91dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249007/original/file-20181205-186085-zx91dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249007/original/file-20181205-186085-zx91dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249007/original/file-20181205-186085-zx91dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249007/original/file-20181205-186085-zx91dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249007/original/file-20181205-186085-zx91dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249007/original/file-20181205-186085-zx91dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Girl’s Own Annual.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/jxt2ektz?query=V0040191&page=1">Wellcome Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>By the late 1800s, the genre of children’s annuals developed rapidly. Publishers competed for their share of this emerging, and increasingly literate, reading audience with scores of titles aimed at boys and girls. The Boy’s Own Annual and The Girl’s Own Annual – which reprinted content from the Boy’s Own and Girl’s Own papers – first published by the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3669923/Bracing-advice-from-the-Boys-Own-Paper.html">Religious Tract Society</a> in 1879 and 1880 respectively, engrossed young readers with adventure stories for boys and educational articles for girls.</p>
<h2>Comic characters</h2>
<p>Following the cinematic arrival of silent and sound cartoons during the interwar period – including Felix the Cat by Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer, and Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse – the popularity of year-end annuals grew further, now keeping children entertained at home with new escapades and exploits of their favourite characters. </p>
<p>A steady stream of these comic book annuals followed, including Tiger Tim (1922), Film Fun (1938), and a 1923 annual based on the enormously popular Daily Mirror cartoon strip characters <a href="https://thecartoonmuseum.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/remembering-pip-squeak-wilfred-and-the-wilfredian-league-of-gugnuncs/">Pip, Squeak, and Wilfred</a>. </p>
<p>Two favourite annuals of the interwar period were The Dandy and The Beano, from Dundee-based publishers DC Thomson. These stalwart British comic titles, which presented a particular brand of anarchic humour, have one of the most <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-beano-survived-war-and-the-web-to-reach-its-80th-birthday-98022">enduring histories in British popular culture</a> and their characters remain household names today. </p>
<p>Costing 2/6d, the first Dandy book, titled The Dandy Monster Comic, appeared in time for Christmas 1938 and has been published annually ever since (after 1952 as The Dandy Book, and from 2003 to date as The Dandy Annual). Closely aligned with the weekly comic, which launched in December 1937, the 128-page annual contained a mix of comic strips and text stories. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249017/original/file-20181205-186067-5ftccn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249017/original/file-20181205-186067-5ftccn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249017/original/file-20181205-186067-5ftccn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249017/original/file-20181205-186067-5ftccn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249017/original/file-20181205-186067-5ftccn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249017/original/file-20181205-186067-5ftccn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249017/original/file-20181205-186067-5ftccn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249017/original/file-20181205-186067-5ftccn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Dandy books from the 1970s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>The first Beano book, featuring characters such as Big Eggo, Pansy Potter, and Lord Snooty debuted in 1939 – one year after the comic launched – and reached the shops just as World War II broke out. As with editions of the comic during this period, the 1943 annual featured wartime propaganda. Its rear cover pictured Tootsy McTurk’s oversized feet positioned in the V for Victory sign. Below the clown-footed character, there appears the sequence of three dots and a dash, the letter V in Morse code. </p>
<p>Though paper and ink shortages led to the closure of another Thomson publication, The Magic Comic, and its annuals, and forced The Dandy and Beano comics into an alternating fortnightly publishing schedule (weekly issues resumed in 1949), the latter’s annuals thrived. Dandy and Beano annuals continued to be published throughout hostilities and these rare early editions are now highly <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42311453">sought after by collectors</a>. </p>
<p>While there is still a festive market for comic books such as The Dandy, The Beano, and perennial classic <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8838833/Mark-Radcliffe-My-lifelong-love-of-Rupert-Bear.html">Rupert Bear</a>, recent decades have witnessed the arrival of annuals that focus on films, pop stars, television, and toys, as well as sport and games. Popular children’s annuals now include new and enduring favourites such as Star Wars, Little Mix, Doctor Who, Lego, Match of the Day, and Minecraft. </p>
<p>Annuals have survived competition in the digital age, not least because nostalgic marketing successfully taps into memories of childhood and the passage of time. Children unwrapping annuals is part of a long-standing tradition, while for adults the festive annual is already an object of nostalgia – for me, without one under the Christmas tree, some of the magic of the season is lost.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104648/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Anderson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Christmas annuals are still found countless trees but how did they become some popular in the first place?David Anderson, Senior Lecturer in American History, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1081052018-12-21T11:00:52Z2018-12-21T11:00:52ZFive ways to cut down your food waste this Christmas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248711/original/file-20181204-34148-la89b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The average family throws away about <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmenvfru/429/429.pdf">£700 worth of food</a> each year. This is not just a drain on our finances, but also has significant environmental impacts – both in terms of <a href="https://theconversation.com/food-security-we-throw-away-a-third-of-the-food-we-grow-heres-what-to-do-about-waste-64854">production and waste management</a> – and Christmas is no different.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.unilever.co.uk/news/press-releases/2012/74-million-mince-pies-thrown-away-every-christmas.html">A report by Unilever</a> said that each year in the UK the equivalent of 4m Christmas dinners are wasted – the equivalent to 2m turkeys, 74m mince pies and 5m Christmas puddings. And that is before you consider the before and after Christmas buffets, teas and food from other social gatherings.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19397038.2018.1428834">Research</a> from Loughborough University <a href="https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2018/november/expert-panel-discuss-food-waste-issues/">explored the reasons</a> behind all of this consumer food waste. It is not inherently anybody’s fault, but a symptom of the way that the UK’s food provisioning system has evolved. And it turns out that many of the reasons are solvable.</p>
<p>With this in mind, here are some practical approaches that you can take to reduce your food waste this Christmas (and the rest of the year), which will also save you money and reduce your carbon footprint.</p>
<h2>1. Planning is key</h2>
<p>The primary reason for food waste is overbuying. If you are having a large Christmas gathering, plan how much food you will need for the number people attending. Don’t buy extra just in case: you are very unlikely to have too little. </p>
<p>If you feel it absolutely essential to keep some food in reserve, then make sure you buy food that will keep longer. Serve your short shelf life food first, and then if it is eaten, bring out the longer life food – when the prawn ring runs out, bring out the cheese and crackers.</p>
<h2>2. Stick to your list</h2>
<p>Before you even set foot in the supermarket (real or online) make sure that you write your shopping list. Then stick to it. Don’t get drawn in by buy–one–get-one-free (BOGOF) or special offers. They are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/12/goodbye-bogofs-wont-miss-you-sainsburys-supermarkets-customers">not normally as good a deal as you think</a> and you will buy more food than you need. You will likely end up wasting it, or consuming too much. Either way, there’s no benefit.</p>
<p>When buying meat or dairy or other fresh products, be conscious of “use by” dates. Make sure the food you buy will still be good to eat when you plan to eat it. These dates are an important indicator for when food may become harmful to eat due to bacteria growth. You do not want to get your turkey curry buffet and find that your raita sauce is not safe to eat.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248444/original/file-20181203-194938-oa5cu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248444/original/file-20181203-194938-oa5cu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248444/original/file-20181203-194938-oa5cu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248444/original/file-20181203-194938-oa5cu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248444/original/file-20181203-194938-oa5cu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248444/original/file-20181203-194938-oa5cu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248444/original/file-20181203-194938-oa5cu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">More than a third of the sprouts produced in the UK are harvested for the Christmas period.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Do not however confuse “use by dates” with “best before dates”. Best before dates are a rough guide to indicate when food might have gone past its best, but they are very conservative and for most foods, quite unnecessary. In most countries, best before dates do not exist. Assuming the food is not several years old, it is likely to be perfectly safe to eat and still delicious long past its best before date. We should reinstate common sense in determining when food is good to eat or not.</p>
<h2>3. Store food properly</h2>
<p>Most fruit, vegetables and cooked meats will <a href="http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Report%20-%20Consumer%20attitudes%20to%20food%20waste%20and%20packaging_0.pdf">last longer</a> if stored in their packaging and in the fridge, so you should keep them there. A full festive fruit bowl might look good, but you are likely to end up throwing items away which have gone past their best.</p>
<p>Partially consumed refrigerated items should be placed in a reusable, resealable tub and put back in the fridge. Refrigeration slows down the growth of bacteria and will therefore keep your food edible for longer. But there are <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/11-foods-you-should-never-7553377">certain foods</a> that don’t fare so well in the fridge, such as bananas, avocados, cake and melon. So it’s worth checking to get the most out of your food.</p>
<h2>4. Don’t overcook</h2>
<p>It might sound like common sense, but take time to consider how much people might want to eat and cook that amount. Don’t cook extra, it will not only take longer, but it will also cost you more and it won’t get eaten. Many people end up leaving food on the plate. So think about the right amount for a nice meal, not to force your guests to over-consume and struggle with indigestion from those three extra roast potatoes and two pigs in blankets. Christmas may be about feasting, but it is not about gluttony.</p>
<h2>5. Get creative with leftovers</h2>
<p>Despite your best efforts, there may be some food remaining. Make sure you cover it and once cooled store it in the fridge rather than leaving it to fester on the counter top. To me “leftovers” is a dirty word. They are not leftovers, they are delicious ingredients for your next meal. If you really have too much, invite some friends around and get them to help you eat it. They will thank you for it and you will have a better Christmas.</p>
<p>Most importantly, once you have tried these easy approaches to reducing food waste, continue to use them. You will be sure to save money – and help save the planet at the same time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108105/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elliot Woolley receives funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). </span></em></p>In the UK the equivalent of four million Christmas dinners are wasted every year.Elliot Woolley, Lecturer in Sustainable Manufacturing, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1089332018-12-21T11:00:50Z2018-12-21T11:00:50ZTen novels to help young people understand the world and its complexities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251007/original/file-20181217-185237-jfzyov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nataliia Budianska via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In this confusing and often conflicted world, children’s author Gillian Cross has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/sep/08/fiction-refugee-crisis-gillian-cross">summed up</a> what it is about reading fiction that is so important: “Good stories help us make sense of the world. They invite us to discover what it’s like being someone completely different.”</p>
<p>As the author of a children’s novel myself, I’m going to double down on this and say that if this is important for adults, it’s 100 times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1354716276-vBCJNxgtIuIFGnU+PmkBpA&_r=0">more important for children</a>.</p>
<p>Children passionately want to understand what’s going on – and fiction is a potent way for them to do this. A study by education professor <a href="http://www.academia.edu/4402324/_Did_you_feel_as_if_you_hated_people_Emotional_literacy_through_fiction">Maria Nikolajeva</a> found that “reading fiction provides an excellent training for young people in developing and practising empathy and theory of mind, that is, understanding of how other people feel and think”. </p>
<p>In the wealth of recent fiction for children and young adults, here are ten powerful stories for young people, addressing some of the most important, and troubling, questions we face today.</p>
<p><strong>1. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/a-lone-voice-of-hope-in-the-horror-of-a-refugee-camp-a7160261.html">The Bone Sparrow</a> by Zana Fraillon (Orion)</strong></p>
<p>Imagine being imprisoned for your whole life. Imagine growing up like Subhi.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250942/original/file-20181217-185258-4bxgry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250942/original/file-20181217-185258-4bxgry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250942/original/file-20181217-185258-4bxgry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250942/original/file-20181217-185258-4bxgry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250942/original/file-20181217-185258-4bxgry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250942/original/file-20181217-185258-4bxgry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250942/original/file-20181217-185258-4bxgry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Life in a refugee camp. Source=Orion.</span>
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<p>The nine-year-old’s world ends at the diamond-shaped fence – the outer edge of the detention centre he is detained in with his Rohingya family in Australia. </p>
<p>Fraillon draws a vivid picture of life inside the fence – vulnerable people fleeing persecution, only to find – instead of the peace and sanctuary they so desperately need – indifference and hostility. </p>
<p>But Subhi finds hope in his friendship with an Australian girl from outside the fence. (Age: 11+)</p>
<p><strong>2. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/feb/03/the-big-lie-julie-mayhew-review">The Big Lie</a> by Julie Mayhew (Red Ink)</strong></p>
<p>What if Germany had won World War II and the UK was now part of a Third German Reich? This is a coming-of-age story with a difference – 16-year-old Jessika is a talented ice-skater in a high-ranking <strong>REICH?</strong>family. </p>
<p>But her friendship with subversive, courageous and desirable Clem threatens everything: her family, her future, and her very life. This is a story that paints the dangers of totalitarianism in vivid language. (Age: 12+)</p>
<p><strong>3. <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/childrens-book-of-the-week-boy-87-by-ele-fountain-hxrwjqp9v">Boy 87 by Ele Fountain</a> (Pushkin Press)</strong></p>
<p>Fourteen-year-old Shif lives in a country that conscripts its children into the army. The country isn’t named, but may be in Africa. He wants to play chess with his best friend Bini and race him home from school. But the army comes calling and the two must flee. </p>
<p>Shif experiences at first hand the brutality of a totalitarian government, then the trauma of migration and trafficking. Despite this, the story manages to be hopeful. (Age: 12 +)</p>
<p><strong>4. <a href="https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/article/pooja-puri-the-jungle/">The Jungle</a> by Pooja Puri (Ink Road)</strong></p>
<p>Sixteen-year-old Mico is surviving his life in the Jungle refugee camp in Calais. Without anyone to look out for him, he must look out for himself, living on his wits and his luck. Using careful research, Puri shows us what life is like as a refugee, owning nothing, not even the clothes on your back or the blanket you sleep beneath. </p>
<p>She shows us the desperation and terrible lengths refugees will go to, to try to find a home. But when Mico meets Leila, we see, too, the hope – and the risk – that friendship brings. (Age: 12+)</p>
<p><strong>5. <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/will-hill/after-the-fire-hill/">After the Fire</a> by Will Hill (Usborne)</strong> </p>
<p>Moonbeam has lost her mother and she only knows life inside The Fence – it’s a life controlled by cult leader Father John. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250934/original/file-20181217-185268-1f1wm1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250934/original/file-20181217-185268-1f1wm1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250934/original/file-20181217-185268-1f1wm1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250934/original/file-20181217-185268-1f1wm1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250934/original/file-20181217-185268-1f1wm1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250934/original/file-20181217-185268-1f1wm1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250934/original/file-20181217-185268-1f1wm1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250934/original/file-20181217-185268-1f1wm1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Life in a cult.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Usborne</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But one night a devastating fire burns that life to the ground – the buildings, the people, the leader are all gone and only Moonbeam and a handful of children survive. Moonbeam and the others must now discover the world beyond the fence.</p>
<p>Can she do this when Father John has told her to trust no one outside? Using the WACO siege as his source material, Hill explores the power of brainwashing and cult identity. </p>
<p>Moonbeam’s search is for a truth she can stand by now, and for the mother she thinks must be dead. (Age: 12+)</p>
<p><strong>6. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/01/i-am-thunder-muhammad-khan-childrens-book-of-the-week-review">I Am Thunder</a> by Muhammad Khan (Macmillan)</strong></p>
<p>Written in the voice of its smart and self-deprecating heroine, British Muslim Pakistani teenager Muzna, this is both a coming-of-age novel and a thriller. Muzna navigates her life at home and at school, working out how to have her own identity and her own ambitions, not those imposed by her parents, religion, school or friends. </p>
<p>And, as her relationship with Arif develops, the story becomes a thriller, and the stakes become very high. (Age: 13+)</p>
<p><strong>7. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/jul/04/the-territory-sarah-govett-review">The Territory trilogy</a> by Sarah Govett (Firefly Press)</strong> </p>
<p>What happens when the sea levels rise? Govett imagines a flooded world with dwindling resources and not enough dry land for everyone. Choices have to be made, about who stays on the dry territory, and who is banished beyond the fence, to the dreaded Wetlands. But when 15-year-old Noa finds herself beyond the fence, she discovers that not everything the adults have been telling her is true. (Age: 13+)</p>
<p><strong>8. <a href="https://www.rte.ie/culture/books/2018/0528/966556-reviewed-the-night-of-the-party-by-rachael-english/">Night of the Party</a> by Tracey Mathias (Scholastic)</strong> </p>
<p>Following Britain’s withdrawal from Europe, a far-right Nationalist party has come to power. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250936/original/file-20181217-185240-114xzfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250936/original/file-20181217-185240-114xzfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250936/original/file-20181217-185240-114xzfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250936/original/file-20181217-185240-114xzfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250936/original/file-20181217-185240-114xzfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250936/original/file-20181217-185240-114xzfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250936/original/file-20181217-185240-114xzfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250936/original/file-20181217-185240-114xzfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Living in a far-right Britain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Scholastic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Only those born in Britain (or BB as they are known) are allowed to live legally – everyone born outside the country is subject to immediate arrest and deportation and failing to report illegals is a crime. </p>
<p>Mathias has set her thriller in a British dystopia that is more scarily plausible than ever. </p>
<p>The young protagonist Zara is an illegal living in this scary new Britain – and falling in love with Ash might be the most dangerous thing she could do. (Age: 13+)</p>
<p><strong>9. <a href="http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Moonrise_by_Sarah_Crossan">Moonrise</a> by Sarah Crossan (Bloomsbury)</strong> </p>
<p>It’s ten years since Joe saw his brother Ed – and now Ed is on death row, facing execution for the murder of a police officer. What do they know of each other now? Ed says he’s innocent of the murder, but everyone else believes he’s guilty. </p>
<p>Crossan’s verse novel explores a single summer, perhaps Ed’s last, as 17-year-old Joe struggles to understand what has been done to his brother – and to himself. (Age: 13+)</p>
<p><strong>10. <a href="https://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/book/15172/The-New-Neighbours-by-Sarah-McIntyre.html">The New Neighbours</a> by Sarah McIntyre (David Fickling Books)</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250940/original/file-20181217-185234-ips923.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250940/original/file-20181217-185234-ips923.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250940/original/file-20181217-185234-ips923.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250940/original/file-20181217-185234-ips923.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250940/original/file-20181217-185234-ips923.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250940/original/file-20181217-185234-ips923.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250940/original/file-20181217-185234-ips923.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What will the neighbours think?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fickling Books</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The only picture book in the list, McIntyre’s delightfully illustrated story explores how intolerance and scaremongering can run like a mad fever through a community. When new neighbours move in to the tower block, hysteria builds quickly, until finally the other animals discover the truth about their newest neighbours. (Age: 2+)</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Shaw is the author of dystopic children's / YA novel, Outwalkers (David Fickling Books, 2018). The novel is set in a future England, with borders closed, a Wall with Scotland and more surveillance. How will Jake, his dog Jet, and the gang of fugitive kids escape to Scotland?</span></em></p>Here’s a bumper crop of thought-provoking and engaging novels for enquiring minds.Fiona Shaw, Senior Lecturer, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1081162018-12-21T10:58:20Z2018-12-21T10:58:20ZCharles Dickens and the birth of the classic English Christmas dinner<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250804/original/file-20181216-185258-1c74ayz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C1%2C905%2C561&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hand colored etching by John Leech</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Charles Dickens popularised the traditional, English Christmas in 1843 in his novel <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm">A Christmas Carol</a>, when Bob Cratchit and his family sit down on Christmas Day to eat a dinner of goose with mashed potatoes and apple sauce accompanied by sage and onion stuffing and followed by Christmas pudding. </p>
<p>It’s a vision that is watched – unseen by the Cratchits – by a fast-repenting Ebenezer Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present who is showing the miser the error of his ways. </p>
<p>Duly chastened by his supernatural experience, the newly festive Scrooge sends over, on Christmas morning, a turkey that is “twice the size of Tiny Tim” – and will certainly feed more people than the goose. This set the seal for the popular English Christmas meal. But what did people eat at Christmas time before goose and turkey?</p>
<h2>A time of gifts</h2>
<p>In the anonymous late 14th-century poem <a href="https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight-an-introduction">Gawain and the Green Knight</a>, Gawain is served “many delicacies” on Christmas Day in the castle of Sir Bertilak, but no meat in the meal he eats on Christmas Eve, which was a time for fasting.</p>
<p>During the medieval period it was traditional in wealthier households for a boar’s head to take pride of place at the centre of the festive table – a tradition alluded to when Sir Bertilak presents Gawain with the head and flesh of the boar he has killed. A 15th-century carol, The Boar’s Head, celebrates the dish this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Chief service in all this land<br>
Wheresoever it may be found,<br>
Served up with mustard.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course the poor would have eaten what they could get, including scraps from their master’s table if they had access to them.</p>
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<h2>Good bread and good drink</h2>
<p>For the Elizabethans, no specific food was special during Christmas time. In <a href="http://www.archive.org/stream/fivehundredpoint08tussuoft/fivehundredpoint08tussuoft_djvu.txt">Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry</a> (1573), Thomas Tusser recommended: “Good bread and good drink”. Meat was the dominant foodstuff: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Beef, mutton, and pork, and good pies of the best<br>
Pig, veal, goose, and capon, and turkey well dressed. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Potatoes – a product of the New World, like the turkey – were not a regular feature of feasts until the middle of the 17th century. Even then they remained expensive – which is why bread and pies dominate in descriptions of Christmas foodstuffs before Dickens. Vegetables are rare in descriptions of early feasts, and do not feature in the Cratchit Christmas dinner. The Brussels sprout – a member of the cabbage family, specially developed by 16th-century Belgian farmers – may have become a staple of the modern Christmas dinner in part due to fashion and an increasing awareness of nutrition, and the fact that cabbage had a reputation since ancient times of <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A14295.0001.001/1:7.8.3?rgn=div3;view=fulltext">preventing drunkenness</a>.</p>
<p>Robert Herrick’s <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22421/22421-h/ii.html#p784">Ceremonies for Christmas</a> (1648) urges “merry, merry boys” to bring in the Christmas log and to consume strong beer and white bread “while the meat is a-shredding / For the rare mince-pie”. The yule log would have been lit on Christmas Eve; the modern confection of sponge and chocolate is a nod towards this old tradition. On the contrary, mince pies used to be savoury – in Hannah Woolley’s popular cookbook of the time, <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A66847.0001.001">The Queen-Like Closet</a> (1670), there is a recipe for “good minced pies” containing veal. Puddings too were often savoury, similar to haggis – although it is the sweet plum pudding that would become the traditional Christmas pud.</p>
<h2>Twelfth night</h2>
<p>Yet for the Elizabethans, and subsequent generations too, Twelfth Night (January 6) rather than Christmas Day was the main focus of revelry during the Christmas season. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (first performed around 1602) Sir Toby Belch evokes the historical figure of the Lord of Misrule. When Sir Toby mocks Malvolio’s puritanism with “Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?” he anticipates the banning of such food during the English Commonwealth of 1649 to 1660.</p>
<p>Herrick’s poem <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22421/22421-h/ii.html#p1035">Twelfth Night</a>, or King and Queen (1648) describes the Twelfth Night Cake – a spiced fruit cake containing a bean and a pea that represents the king and queen with the recipients of each being crowned king and queen for the night. Herrick’s “bowl full of gentle lamb’s wool” (hot ale, roasted apple pulp, and spices) is used to <em>wassail</em> (toast) the pretend king and queen.</p>
<p>Samuel Pepys makes several references to Twelfth Night Cake <a href="https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1668/01/">in his diary</a>, including an entry for January 6 1668 where he describes “an excellent cake” that cost him nearly 20 shillings – about one day’s salary from his job as Clerk of the Acts at the Navy Board. </p>
<p>Twelfth Night remained the focus of festivities during the Regency period and Jane Austen would have been familiar with the eponymous cake. She also mentions Christmas in her novels but does not specify the Christmas Day meal. In Emma, there is a <a href="https://austenonly.com/2009/12/19/jane-austen-and-christmas-the-christmas-eve-supper-at-randalls/">Christmas Eve dinner at Randalls</a>, the home of the Westons, where saddle of mutton is served, and in Persuasion, a <a href="https://austenised.blogspot.com/2010/12/jane-austens-christmas.html">visit to the Musgroves</a> during the Christmas holidays reveals tables “bending under the weight of brawn and cold pies”. Brawn here indicates a dish of meat from the head of a pig set in its own jelly and so harks back to the boar’s head from medieval times.</p>
<p>The closest most of us get to Boar’s Head these days is likely to be a pub whose name commemorates it. So we can largely thank Charles Dickens, who was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/24/charles-dickens-loved-turkey-christmas-dinner-letters-reveal">himself very fond of turkey</a>, for the tradition of the Christmas Dinner turkey – a gift from the newly reformed Scrooge, which now forms the centrepiece of most Christmas tables.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joan Fitzpatrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If it hadn’t been for A Christmas Carol, the menu may well have centred on goose (or a boar’s head).Joan Fitzpatrick, Senior Lecturer in English (Specialism: Renaissance Scholar), Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1089002018-12-21T10:58:18Z2018-12-21T10:58:18ZChristmas season left Victorian shop workers ‘more dead than alive’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250807/original/file-20181216-185264-1chqgt2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Illustration of a market full of seasonal produce from Thomas Kibble Hervey’s Book of Christmas (1837). </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many of our festive traditions – from exchanging cards and pulling crackers to decorating trees – were popularised by the Victorians. Nowadays, rose-tinted images of 19th-century Christmas often dominate nostalgic advertising campaigns (see 2018’s <a href="https://youtu.be/lGa4KRaDKIY">Curry’s-PC World</a> offering), but it was also a time of rampant consumerism, which saw the expansion of shopping as a feature of the festive period. Industrialisation created a new middle class with disposable income and enabled the mass production of gifts and decorations. The introduction of gas and electric lighting extended opening hours, which allowed consumers to shop late into the evenings.</p>
<p>With changes in the retail industry came considerable anxiety that shop assistants were overworked and underpaid. Shop workers, philanthropists, social reformers and medical practitioners agitated to improve working conditions. Working days were long; it wasn’t <a href="https://schoolshistory.org.uk/topics/british-history/modern-britain/liberal-reforms/shops-act-1911/">until 1886</a> that the number of hours per week was limited to 74, and even then only for under-18s. Unpaid overtime was common, facilitated by the fact that many shop assistants lived on site. There <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(02)14172-9/fulltext">were worries</a> that long periods standing led to aches, pains and varicose veins and endangered the <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(01)99006-3/fulltext">reproductive health</a> of women shop assistants. These pressures and anxieties intensified during the Christmas period.</p>
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</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b28058252">Death and Disease Behind the Counter</a> (1884), campaigning barrister Thomas Sutherst sought to raise awareness about the plight of shop assistants. His book gathered together personal stories from shop workers, with many detailing the pressures of Christmas.</p>
<p>Albert, a draper’s buyer in Mile End, described how a typical working day during the festive period would last 14, 15 or 16 hours. A grocer’s assistant in Islington, Melmoth Thomas, explained that he worked until “1, 2, 3, and even 4 o’ clock in the morning (without extra pay), perhaps three nights a week”. This extra work, he said, started as early as November.</p>
<p>William, a Brixton-based grocer in south London, reported that on Christmas Eve he worked from 7am until midnight. He then caught an early morning train to spend Christmas Day with his friends, feeling “more dead than alive”. A grocer’s clerk in Peckham, Alfred George, similarly complained of unpaid overtime stretching into the early hours. Under this “system of slavery”, he was left “totally unfit to enjoy the most festive and jovial season of the year”.</p>
<p>Charles, a draper on Oxford Street, in London, told how one of his friends – a grocer – had “his health completely ruined” due to “severe work during the Christmas trade”. The friend died and the cause of death was attributed, according to Charles, “wholly to overwork” by the attending doctor.</p>
<p>Common themes across the stories are long working days (often running into the early hours of the morning), the extended run up to Christmas and the inability to enjoy the festivities because of overwork and exhaustion. Many also told of the long-term impact on shop workers’ health. It’s likely Sutherst chose the most extreme examples to arouse public sympathy – and it’s difficult to determine to what extent he crafted the stories himself. But such images of the overworked shop assistant were common in the period.</p>
<h2>Cry of the shop assistant</h2>
<p>An anonymous pamphlet called Behind the Counter (1888) – featuring “sketches” penned by a shop assistant – dedicated a whole section to the pressures of the festive period (the pamphlet has not been digitised, but can be consulted at the British Library or Bodleian Libraries). The writer commented that “a shop assistant’s Christmas is enjoyed only in the anticipation”, since at the very moment he should be ready to “exercise his recreative faculties”, he instead “feels that the strain of the previous weeks […] has affected both body and mind”. In this state, many were driven to “intoxicating drinks”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250808/original/file-20181216-185240-v0i8dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250808/original/file-20181216-185240-v0i8dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250808/original/file-20181216-185240-v0i8dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250808/original/file-20181216-185240-v0i8dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250808/original/file-20181216-185240-v0i8dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250808/original/file-20181216-185240-v0i8dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250808/original/file-20181216-185240-v0i8dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The world’s first commercially produced Christmas card, designed by painter John Callcott Horsley in 1843.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A key voice in the campaign to improve the working conditions in shops was the medical journal <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/">The Lancet</a>. In a piece entitled “<a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(01)60196-X/fulltext">The Cry of the Shop Assistant</a>” from December 1896, it warned that the usual pressures facing retail workers were about to magnify. At Christmas, it explained: “life in the shop becomes one continuous round of toil”. The article shared the familiar story of shop assistants leaving town on Christmas Eve by midnight trains, reaching home “with mental and bodily powers exhausted”. </p>
<p>In “<a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(01)88976-5/fulltext">Christmas Shopping and Public Health</a>”, published in December 1900, the journal appealed to its readers to consider how they – as consumers – could help alleviate the stresses and strains facing retail workers. Pleading readers to think “not only of themselves and their purchases”, it reasoned that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It will not cost more to buy earlier in the day and somewhat sooner in the season, but it will distribute more evenly the work that has to be done […] and thus will mitigate the unhappy and unhealthy strain that weighs so heavily on shop assistants at Christmas time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Lancet article championed the idea of the conscientious consumer, encouraging readers to change their shopping habits so as to benefit workers – though it recognised that not everyone could shop during the day due to work.</p>
<p>Recent decades have seen a <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/besma-whayeb/ethical-consumerism_b_17737500.html">boom in ethical consumerism</a>, whereby people try to reduce their impact on workers and the planet. There are also campaigns to support independent shops and the high street, against the rise of Internet retail. Meanwhile there are legitimate concerns about the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/19/how-your-holiday-shopping-drives-us-amazon-workers-to-exhaustion">conditions of the warehouse workers</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-delivery-drivers-reveal-claims-of-disturbing-work-conditions-2018-8?r=UK&IR=T">delivery drivers</a> who cope with the avalanche of online shopping orders during the Christmas season. So, while sustainable shopping might seem like a modern invention, the concerns about Christmas consumerism are nothing new.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108900/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme ERC Grant Agreement number 340121.</span></em></p>For Victorian shop workers, Christmas could be a miserable time of long hours and low pay.Alison Moulds, Postdoctoral Research Assistant, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1089462018-12-20T12:40:13Z2018-12-20T12:40:13ZThomas Hardy’s little-known Christmas story for children (with a happy ending)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251735/original/file-20181220-45385-16rfoly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">B Calkins via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you are looking forward to curling up with a heartwarming story this Christmas, you might not necessarily choose anything by Thomas Hardy – you’d be more likely to turn to the seasonal staples of <a href="https://www.charlesdickensinfo.com/christmas-carol/">Charles Dickens</a> or <a href="https://www.thesnowman.com/about/raymond-briggs/">Raymond Briggs</a>. While Hardy is renowned for his tragic tales of Wessex life, his brief foray into the world of children’s Christmas fiction is largely unknown. </p>
<p>Published in the Christmas annual Father Christmas: Our little Ones’ Budget, Hardy’s story <a href="http://www.hardysociety.org/stories/5.%20Uncollected%20and%20Collaborative%20Stories/The%20Thieves%20Who%20Couldn't%20Help%20Sneezing.docx">The Thieves Who Couldn’t Help Sneezing</a> is a tale for children which also has much to delight adult enthusiasts of his work.</p>
<p>Hardy’s story made its appearance in the first edition of the annual in December 1877. By this time, he was working on The Return of the Native (1878), having already published five novels – including Far From The Madding Crowd (1874), which first appeared anonymously and established his career as a successful novelist.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, his contribution to the annual could easily be overlooked. In this extract from the Illustrated London News (December 8, 1877) Hardy’s name is sandwiched between lesser-known literary figures:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A new claimant, entitled “Father Christmas: Our Little Ones’ Budget”, is announced to appear shortly. It comes with weighty claims on the favour of the rising generation, being crowded with amusing tales, songs, riddles and acrostics, by its fair editor, Miss N. Danvers, Austin Dobson, Thomas Hardy, W.H.G. Kingston, Reginald Gatty, and other writers of note in this special field of literature.</p>
</blockquote>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251706/original/file-20181220-45391-dx81xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251706/original/file-20181220-45391-dx81xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251706/original/file-20181220-45391-dx81xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251706/original/file-20181220-45391-dx81xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251706/original/file-20181220-45391-dx81xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251706/original/file-20181220-45391-dx81xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251706/original/file-20181220-45391-dx81xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251706/original/file-20181220-45391-dx81xo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Thomas Hardy (1923) by Reginald Eves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Portrait Gallery</span></span>
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<p>The story has received scant critical attention, despite the wealth of Hardy scholarship that exists. Hardy himself does not mention it in his autobiography, although it is included in a list of works compiled by his wife Emma in 1880 (which is available at Dorset County Museum) and categorised as a “Child’s story”.</p>
<p>Unlike Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843) where social commentary is cosily bound up within a supernatural fantasy world, Hardy does not spare the reader his trademark realism. The action takes place in the “Vale of Blackmore”, which was described as “a fertile and somewhat lonely district” later to become the famous backdrop for the tragic events of Tess of the D'Urbevilles.</p>
<h2>‘Twas the night before Christmas</h2>
<p>It is Christmas Eve and the 14-year-old protagonist, Hubert, courageous but “a little vain”, is making his way home on “his stout-legged cob Jerry and singing a Christmas carol”. There is barely time for the reader to reach for a mince pie before Hubert is attacked by robbers with “artificially blackened” faces, tied up and thrown into a ditch. </p>
<p>Disorientated and upset that his horse has been stolen, Hubert extricates his legs from their bonds and wanders on until he chances on “a large mansion with flanking wings, gables, and towers, the battlements and chimneys showing their shapes against the stars”. </p>
<p>He enters the house, hoping to find assistance there but – like a scene from a modern-day thriller – suddenly hears the familiar voices of his attackers. Hubert quickly dives under the dining room table and listens as the thieves discuss their plans. It seems they have created a “false alarm” to get the wealthy occupants briefly “out of the house”, giving them time to find a hiding place where they can wait until everyone is in bed before robbing the mansion.</p>
<p>Before long, the “ladies and gentlemen” return to continue their festive celebrations, unaware of the thieves biding their time in a disused closet. Hubert then makes his appearance and starts to tell his story. However, it is met with disbelief – and he is even accused of being a robber himself as there is “a curiously wild wicked look about him…” So the resourceful lad hatches a plan to expose the thieves by pretending to be a magician with the power to “conjure up a tempest in a cupboard”. </p>
<p>While lacking the seasonal sumptuousness of Dickens, Hardy’s tale serves up its own socially subversive Christmas punch. Hubert, a yeoman’s son, manages to singlehandedly outsmart the upper-class family he encounters residing in the mansion. Though the reader is told he feels shame at their mistrust of his story, he accepts their hospitality. Hardy evokes a child’s sense of triumph at being a part of a privileged adult world:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hubert, in spite of his hurt feelings at their doubts of his honesty, could not help being warmed both in mind and in body by the good cheer, the scene, and the example of hilarity set by his neighbours. At last he laughed as heartily at their stories and repartees as the old Baronet, Sir Simon, himself.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Class conflict</h2>
<p>Although the story’s main action concerns a none-too festive attack on a young boy, the tale deals with wider social issues. Born into a working-class family, Hardy did not attend university and felt himself to be an outsider to London’s literary elite. An acute awareness of the divisions between rich and poor colours his work and The Thieves is no exception. </p>
<p>Hubert, outsider to the wealthy party he encounters, not only exposes the thieves through filling their hiding place with sneeze-inducing snuff, he manages to persuade Sir Simon and his guests that he is a magician. Ultimately, it is a child’s successful navigation of an exclusive adult world that is at the heart of Hardy’s narrative.</p>
<p>The Thieves is not Hardy’s only children’s story. <a href="http://darlynthomas.com/exploits.htm">Our Exploits in West Poley: A Story For Boys</a> (1883), serialised in The Household ( November 1892-April 1893) lay in obscurity until its discovery in 1952. While Hardy is certainly not known for his children’s fiction, it can provide valuable insights into his career, as writer and poet, which had a foot in both the 19th and 20th centuries. </p>
<p>Writing for children in 1877, Hardy gives us a message, as relevant now as it was in his own time: however young, poor or seemingly unimportant a person is, they are still capable of doing great things.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108946/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Meek receives funding from The South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership.</span></em></p>If you are tired of A Christmas Carol, why not try one of the few Hardy stories where all’s well that ends well.Stephanie Meek, Full time PhD candidate, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1090262018-12-20T12:28:31Z2018-12-20T12:28:31ZWinter solstice: the astronomy of Christmas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251564/original/file-20181219-45419-lccubj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C280%2C1599%2C783&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stonehenge sun</span> </figcaption></figure><p>From the Neolithic to present times, the amount of sunlight we see in a day has had a profound impact on human culture. We are fast approaching the winter solstice for the Northern hemisphere, which takes place on December 21. This is the longest night of the year – once celebrated as “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule">Yule</a>” by the pagan people of Northern Europe before it became Christmas. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/from-the-pyramids-to-stonehenge-were-prehistoric-people-astronomers-92901">Stonehenge</a> and the nearby Neolithic site of <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stonehenge-landscape/trails/durrington-walls-stonehenge-landscape-walk">Durrington Walls</a> (circa 2,500 BC) were each built to be orientated to face the midwinter sunset and sunrise respectively. This focus on the winter solstice was an important time <a href="http://blog.english-heritage.org.uk/stonehenge-midwinter-feasts/">marked by feasting</a> and possibly animal sacrifice. </p>
<p>Millennia later, the Romans celebrated Saturnalia (until the fourth century AD) – a festival over the week of the winter solstice <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/matt-salusbury/did-romans-invent-christmas">dedicated to the god Saturn</a>, involving games and merriment. The last day of Saturnalia was referred to as the “dies natalis solis invicti” (birthday of the unconquered sun) by the Romans, who celebrated it by giving gifts to each other on December 25. The pagan Anglo-Saxon event known as Yule was in full swing during the winter solstice a few centuries after that, eventually evolving into the festival we now know as Christmas. </p>
<h2>Tilting planet</h2>
<p>But what causes the winter solstice? Our planet has an axial tilt (of 23.4°) with respect to its orbital plane around the sun, which results in the seasons. The winter and summer solstices, and the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, are the extreme points in each of these seasons (see image). In winter, the Earth’s tilt away from the sun causes sunlight to be <a href="http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/s/seasons">spread out over a larger surface area</a> than in summer. It also causes the sun to rise later and set earlier, giving us fewer hours of sunlight and colder temperatures.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Meniou/Wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>As it happens, the direction of the Earth’s tilt changes over time. These variations have been known about since the time of the ancient Greeks. Hipparchus, one of the founders of modern astronomical techniques, wrote one of the <a href="http://www.astronomy.com/news/2005/01/hipparchuss-sky-catalog-found">first comprehensive star catalogues</a> in 129 BC. After compiling his catalogue, he noticed that the position of the stars had changed from those in much earlier records, such as the Babylonian. </p>
<p>Interestingly, the stars appeared to have moved position by the same amount, and he realised that the location of <a href="https://oneminuteastronomer.com/9905/celestial-equator-poles/">north</a> in the sky must have moved in the intervening centuries. Currently, our celestial north is marked by the position of the star <a href="https://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/polaris-the-present-day-north-star">Polaris</a>. But this was not always the case.</p>
<p>The rotation of a spinning object, like the Earth, can be affected by external forces. Given that the Earth is already spinning, any force applied to it, such as gravity from the moon or other bodies in the solar system, will modify this rotation (known as torque). The result on Earth is called the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/precession-of-the-equinoxes">precession of the equinoxes</a> – a phenomenon which affects our observations of the stars. A visible example of this on a smaller scale is shown several times during the film <a href="https://gph.is/1syOaQ3">Inception</a>, where the precession of a spinning top was used to determine whether the main character was in reality, or still dreaming. </p>
<p>For the Earth, this precession traces out a circle on the sky once every 26,000 years (see image below). In 3,000 BC, the celestial north was the star Alpha Draconis (Thuban), in the constellation Draco. Given that we can predict this motion, we know that 13,000 years from now our north star will be Vega, in the constellation Lyrae.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251489/original/file-20181219-45419-1jxvk7t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251489/original/file-20181219-45419-1jxvk7t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251489/original/file-20181219-45419-1jxvk7t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251489/original/file-20181219-45419-1jxvk7t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251489/original/file-20181219-45419-1jxvk7t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251489/original/file-20181219-45419-1jxvk7t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251489/original/file-20181219-45419-1jxvk7t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>This also affects the onset of the seasons over the length of a year as part of this 26,000 year cycle, and therefore has important implications for anyone attempting to attribute any cultural significance to a particular point in a given season. The time it takes for the Earth to orbit the sun is approximately 365.25 days, meaning we have an extra day every four years. By comparison, the precession of the equinoxes results in about 20 minutes of difference between the Earth’s orbital period when measured against the fixed background stars (<a href="http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/distance/exploring/course/content/module1/">a sidereal year</a>), and the time it takes for the sun to appear to return to the same position in the sky each year (a solar year). </p>
<p>As a historical aside, it was the discrepancy between the length of the solar year and the length of a year as defined by the <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/julian-calendar.html">Julian calendar</a> that prompted the conversion to the presently used <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/gregorian-calendar.html">Gregorian calendar</a>. The precession of the equinoxes was known about and had caused a discrepancy of a few days which prompted the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea">council of Nicaea </a> to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25105305?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">change our calendar system</a>. </p>
<p>Under the Julian calendar, originally established by the Romans in 46 BC, New Year’s day in England used to be on March 25, and this was also used to define the start of the tax year. The adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1752 <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-uk-tax-year-begins-on-april-6-its-a-very-strange-tale-57247">shifted the date of the tax year</a> forward by 11 days, but set New Year’s to January 1. However, to avoid 11 days of lost tax revenue, the government of that time set our tax year <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Give-us-our-eleven-days/">to begin on April 6</a> where it remains to this day.</p>
<p>So, given that there are 1,440 minutes in a day, and a difference of 20 minutes between the sidereal and solar years, then over a period of 72 years the dates of the equinoxes (and the solstices) would shift backwards in the calendar by a full day, if they were not corrected for (which they are). That means a Roman using the winter solstice as a reference point for the timing of Christmas would have been celebrating Christmas near the end of our November. Even further back, the builders of Stonehenge would have experienced the winter solstice in our September.</p>
<h2>Christmas on Mars</h2>
<p>The winter solstice has clearly been important historically, but what about the future? Perhaps in a few hundred years, humans settlers will be celebrating Christmas on Mars. The planet Mars also has an axial tilt (25.2°), and hence seasons like we do. Mars also experiences a precession of the equinoxes, but the precession period is less stable than Earth’s. One full Martian precession is approximately <a href="https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full/2002/11/aah2799/node3.html#SECTION00033000000000000000">167,000 years</a>.</p>
<p>The northern hemisphere winter solstice on Mars has only just passed, occurring on October 16. Because a sidereal year on Mars is 687 Earth days, the next Martian northern hemisphere winter solstice will not occur until September 2, 2020.</p>
<p>This means that any future Mars colonists who wish to recreate the winter solstice “festivities” at Durrington Walls thousands of years ago or, perhaps, just marking Christmas, would have to get used to celebrating in different Martian seasons almost every year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109026/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If we didn’t correct for gravitational effects on the Earth’s orbit, the winter solstice would shift backwards by a day every 72 years.Gareth Dorrian, Post Doctoral Research Associate in Space Science, Nottingham Trent UniversityIan Whittaker, Lecturer, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1086922018-12-20T10:57:51Z2018-12-20T10:57:51ZSilent Night: the story of the carol that paused a war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250221/original/file-20181212-76980-1mhtp9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Artist's impression of the Christmas truce of 1914</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> The Illustrated London News of January 9 1915</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Few Christmas carols evoke the season of peace and goodwill as readily as Silent Night. Two popular stories contribute to its appeal: one concerning the circumstances of its composition in Oberndorf, near Salzburg in Austria, and the other its role in the Christmas Truce of 1914 when the opposing forces walked out of their trenches to greet their enemies and share food and drink.</p>
<p>But its lyrical and musical content are also important factors in understanding its enduring popularity, and Christmas Eve 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of its performance. </p>
<p>Together with the centennial commemoration of the end of World War I, this Christmas seems an appropriate time to consider the appeal of this much-loved carol.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.austria.info/uk/magazine/silent-night-special-edition/franz-xaver-gruber-and-joseph-mohr-silent-night-creators">Joseph Mohr</a> (1792-1849), the assistant priest in the <a href="https://www.salzburgerland.com/en/oberndorf/">parish of Oberndorf</a>, wrote the original German lyrics of Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht! in 1816. Mohr had previously served in the Napoleonmic Wars and his experiences in Austria around the time of the withdrawal of Bavarian troops undoubtedly influenced the composition of the text. The music was subsequently composed by the parish organist in Oberndorf, <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/franz-gr%C3%BCber-mn0000204120/biography">Franz Xaver Gruber</a> for use at a Christmas Eve service in 1818. The church’s organ was apparently out of action, leading Gruber to compose his setting for two voices with guitar accompaniment. </p>
<p>While Gruber may have been responding to an unexpected situation at short notice, the existence of Mohr’s text indicates that some accounts of the carol as a last ditch collaborative solution have been somewhat embellished. But the exact historical record of the carol’s genesis are not the most important matter here, however. Rather, it is the sense of homely resourcefulness that the story conveys that is important to the way in which Silent Night has subsequently been viewed and appreciated. </p>
<p>Whether there is something about the carol’s makeshift origins that resonates with the Nativity story itself, or simply the greater sense of intimacy created by the use of the guitar, a rather more domestic instrument than the church organ, the stories of the carol’s origin invest it with a folksy quality that contributes to its popularity.</p>
<h2>Words and music</h2>
<p>The content and careful craftsmanship of Mohr’s lyrics are important factors too. The same line, “Stille Nacht! heilige Nacht!” (Silent night, holy night) opens each of the six verses, an effective rhetorical device that creates and maintains a tone of quiet mystery throughout the text. </p>
<p>Across the six verses, Mohr juxtaposes traditional imagery of the peaceful newborn baby resting on his mother’s breast with simple statements that reflect the profundity of his birth in Christian doctrine. The third stanza meditates on the divinity of the Christ Child and the mystery of the incarnation, while the fifth explores the work of God the Son in bring salvation from sin.</p>
<p>English translations first appeared in the 1850s, and new versions continued to be published well into the 20th century. Most translate only three of Mohr’s six stanzas – and this shortened form has also become the standard in German-speaking countries. Modern hymn books continue to use a variety of different translations, but from the many different versions of the opening line, “Silent night! Holy night!” has become the most widely adopted.</p>
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<p>Gruber’s music enhances the folk-like qualities of the carol. The melody is set in compound time, that is, with each beat subdivided into three parts. This allows for the frequent use of a three-note dotted rhythm pattern (first heard on the first word: “si-i-lent”), which – together with simple and slow-moving harmonies – helps to create a pastoral atmosphere. These are commonly-used features, often likened to the sound of a shepherd’s pipe, and can be found in many compositions associated with Christmas. </p>
<p>Two of the best-known examples are the <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_Music_and_Musicians/Pastoral_Symphony_(Handel)">Pastoral Symphony from Handel’s Messiah</a>, which sets the scene for the shepherds, and the Sinfonia at the beginning of Part II of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/johann-sebastian-bachs-christmas-oratorio-9780190275259?cc=us&lang=en&">JS Bach’s Christmas Oratorio</a>. The gentle downward contours of all but one of the melodic phrases also contribute to the subdued character of the music; the contrasting penultimate phrase responds to the sense of hope and joy in Mohr’s text, while the final descent underlines the atmosphere of calm and security of Gruber’s musical interpretation.</p>
<h2>Christmas truce</h2>
<p>At least as famous as the story of the carol’s origin is that of its <a href="http://musicologynow.ams-net.org/2014/12/1914-christmas-truce.html">role in the Christmas truce</a> of 1914. In his <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-684-87281-0">book on the truce</a>, historian Stanley Weintraub identifies the singer as <a href="http://forgottenoperasingers.blogspot.com/2014/11/walter-kirchhoff-tenor-berlin-1879.html">Walter Kirchhoff</a>, a German Officer and sometime member of the Berlin Opera. Kirchhoff’s singing of the carol in both German and English is credited with encouraging the exchange of songs, greetings and gifts between the opposing soldiers. </p>
<p>While there is debate among historians about the nature and scope of the truce, Silent night is firmly established in popular imagination as the soundtrack for this remarkable event, as shown by its use in a supermarket television advert in 2014. </p>
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<p>The contrast between the carol’s message of tranquillity and hope and the violence of war is obvious and compelling, but the intimacy and simplicity of Gruber’s music is important too in providing an antidote to the grimness of trench warfare.</p>
<p>The depth of significance attached to Silent Night is summed up its inclusion on UNESCO’s <a href="http://unesco.scharf.net/cgi-bin/unesco/element.pl?eid=68&lang=en">intangible cultural heritage list</a> in 2011. Words, music and contextual narratives combine to create its aura and reputation, making it one of the most striking examples of the ways in which musical associations shape our experiences of the Christmas season.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108692/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Clarke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two centuries on, this beautiful prayer for peace still brings people together around the world.Martin Clarke, Lecturer in Music, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1087682018-12-14T12:56:00Z2018-12-14T12:56:00ZDreaming of a green Christmas? Here are five ways to make it more sustainable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250626/original/file-20181214-185264-1v0m283.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Plastic trees that are reused actually have a lower carbon footprint.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Moderation is the last thing on people’s minds at Christmas. Shopping, travelling and eating reach peak levels – putting pressure on our planet. Even Santa poses a problem. If you don’t believe in flying reindeers, that sleigh must be rocket-fuelled to reach the supersonic speeds needed to travel around the world to visit <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/12/santas-christmas-eve-workload-calculated/249844/**">hundreds of millions of children</a> in just one night using conventional engineering.</p>
<p>The example goes to show just how many presents we buy and send each Christmas – creating problems with packaging and transport. And as <a href="http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/">the population increases</a>, so does the pile of presents. To get round this, presents have got smaller and virtual gifts such as an <a href="https://www.chesterzoo.org/support-us/gifts-and-experiences/experience-days">experience day</a> have risen in popularity. </p>
<p>This has an added benefit of reducing packaging and transport problems. But virtual presents have a carbon footprint too. Electronic downloads <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jiec.12181">still have an impact</a>, as data has to be stored and transferred, using energy. So everything we buy has some impact, even through the electronic process of buying. </p>
<p>So how can we have a greener, more sustainable but generous Christmas? Here are five gold circular things! </p>
<h2>1. Reduce food waste</h2>
<p>The amount of food wasted at Christmas has a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/22/festive-christmas-meal-long-haul-flight-meats-damaging-planet">massive carbon (and water) footprint</a>. Using less and storing excess in a winter wonderland – your freezer – is a great way to avoid waste. If leftover food doesn’t go in the freezer, cooked turkey and vegetables will keep for up to three days in the fridge. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250627/original/file-20181214-185255-bvzbou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250627/original/file-20181214-185255-bvzbou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250627/original/file-20181214-185255-bvzbou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250627/original/file-20181214-185255-bvzbou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250627/original/file-20181214-185255-bvzbou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250627/original/file-20181214-185255-bvzbou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250627/original/file-20181214-185255-bvzbou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Think about whether you actually like turkey.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/roasted-turkey-thanksgiving-table-served-decorated-336936251?src=NNJksgyBXecRyMbDz0BTtQ-1-2">Subbotina Anna/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>However, not producing excess in the first place is the best way to avoid waste. Portion size is a big part of this and so is cooking things you actually like. Just because something is traditional does not make it compulsory. For instance, sprouts can be very controversial – so, if you don’t like them, skip them. You could also try an alternative to the traditional meat option, such as a nut roast. Vegetarian and vegan choices at the Christmas dinner table can massively <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth">cut the impact of your Christmas</a>. </p>
<h2>2. Cut down on packaging</h2>
<p>Lower the impact of gifts through choices of paper and packaging. A lot of seasonal wrapping is non-recyclable as it is coated in plastic. This is concerning as plastic tends to spread everywhere – it has <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/polar-bears-play-plastic-svalbard-arctic-microplastics-pollution-a8444361.html">even been detected at the North Pole</a>. A better approach would be to use wrapping paper made entirely out of paper. Gift bags are another great option – they can be reused and therefore help cut a massive amount of waste. </p>
<h2>3. Buy ethically</h2>
<p>You can give twice if you buy your presents second hand from charity shops – supporting worthwhile projects while also reducing consumption. You can also buy locally produced goods and support your local economy. Buying second hand potentially halves the carbon footprint. A typical T-shirt alone has a footprint of around 8.77kg of carbon dioxide and 2700 litres of water. If 1% of the 55.6m people in England alone bought just one second-hand T-shirt instead of a new one, they would be saving around 4.9m tonnes of carbon dioxide, the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator">equivalent</a> of driving 1,049 passenger cars for a year, and a whopping 1.5 billion litres of water.</p>
<h2>4. Reuse Christmas stuff</h2>
<p>Christmas decorations and fashion are basically the same every year. So celebrate your Christmas collection and reuse it, over and over again. It is a tragedy that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/13/quarter-of-christmas-jumpers-were-worn-once-and-discarded-last-year">only one in four</a> Christmas jumpers are ever reused. According to the <a href="https://www.carbontrust.com/home/">Carbon Trust</a>, an artificial tree needs to be used around 10 times to have an equivalent footprint as its real counterpart. </p>
<h2>5. It’s the thought that counts</h2>
<p>There are few holidays that are so focused on being caring, helpful and generous as Christmas. So celebrate this and try to avoid buying unnecessary stuff that people don’t want anyway. Donations and acts of kindness really lighten the load on that sleigh. A colleague once <a href="https://shop.wateraid.org/collections/charity-gift-cards">bought me a toilet for a family in Sierra Leone</a>. No wrapping, no plastic: the best present ever – and Santa didn’t have to lift a finger!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108768/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon George does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Only a quarter of Christmas jumpers are reused.Sharon George, Lecturer in Environmental Science, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1082782018-12-13T12:28:51Z2018-12-13T12:28:51ZHate Christmas? A psychologist’s survival guide for Grinches<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249665/original/file-20181210-76980-cdtok9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pepgooner/shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two years ago, I came into work on December 1 to find a bag on my desk labelled “Karen’s Christmas Intervention”. It contained many Christmas themed gifts and challenges – such as watching a Christmas DVD and going to a carol service. These were all designed to help me find something to like about Christmas. I tried everything – after all, someone had made a big effort. But while I enjoyed completing each challenge, it didn’t change my values. I remain a Grinch.</p>
<p>In many parts of the world, we are expected to love Christmas and embrace all things about it. Anyone who doesn’t is quickly labelled a Grinch and advised to keep their views to themselves so that they don’t ruin a magical time for others. But how reasonable is this? And if you are a Grinch, how can you survive the yuletide season? </p>
<p>Quite simply, a Grinch is a person who dislikes Christmas. Some definitions suggest that Grinches try to <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grinch">spoil Christmas for others</a>. However, in my experience, it is not the Grinches who proselytise – people who love Christmas work very hard to try to change the Grinch’s standpoint. </p>
<p>If you are considering calling someone a Grinch, think first about how well you know them. If you are unsure of their circumstances then take care, not because being “grinchist” is against the law (Grinch is not a protected characteristic), but because there are many reasons why a person may not like Christmas. These may range from anti-consumerist political views to loneliness, financial worries, family difficulties or traumatic childhood experiences.</p>
<p>However, if you are a fellow Grinch, here are five suggestions, informed by science, that may help you to navigate Christmas. Remember that different strategies work in different contexts and for different individuals, so try to find a strategy that fits you.</p>
<h2>1. Get support</h2>
<p>Countless studies show that people who live with long term health conditions hugely benefit from finding other people who <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5347839/">understand what they are experiencing</a>. Someone who lives with persistent pain may worry that they are a burden on their loved ones and so be reluctant to say how they really feel. Finding other people who have similar experiences provides them with an instant recognition and level of understanding. They can say what they really think, and be who they really are, without fear of upsetting their nearest and dearest. So one solution is to find other grinchy people – perhaps with the help of social media – among whom you can stay true to yourself. </p>
<h2>2. Be strategic</h2>
<p>Can’t face the thought of Christmas dinner in a restaurant with colleagues but don’t want to explain why? Why not conjure up another commitment which means you can only come to the pre-dinner drinks? After all, there are always lots of invitations this time of year, so nobody will be suspicious. This means that you show your face and show you are willing to participate. And you get home at a reasonable hour before the mask covering your grinchiness slips.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250039/original/file-20181211-76965-c46inb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250039/original/file-20181211-76965-c46inb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250039/original/file-20181211-76965-c46inb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250039/original/file-20181211-76965-c46inb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250039/original/file-20181211-76965-c46inb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250039/original/file-20181211-76965-c46inb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250039/original/file-20181211-76965-c46inb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not keen? There are ways out.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Monkey Business Images/shuttestock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>To carry this suggestion off, you need to practice your communication skills. Don’t fall into the trap of feeling that you need to over-explain your other commitment – <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/how-to-tell-when-someone-s-lying-202644">this is what people do when they lie</a>! Also, remember that you don’t have to say yes to everything. Be strategic. Work out which event will gain you the maximum brownie points and politely decline all others. </p>
<h2>3. Fake it till you make it</h2>
<p>If you want to completely conceal your inner Grinch, you may want familiarise yourself with a 1979 experiment by psychologist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Langer">Ellen Langer</a> from Harvard University. She invited a group of men in their 70s to attend a week of reminiscence at a retreat outside Boston.</p>
<p>During the week, they were instructed to act as if they were 20 years younger and were banned from talking about anything that had happened post 1959 (the retreat was also styled using objects from the 50s to give context). At the end of the week, they demonstrated marked improvements in dexterity, mobility, memory, blood pressure, eyesight and hearing. Acting as if they were younger <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/If-Principle-Radically-Approach-Changing/dp/1451675054/ref=sr_1_16?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1544445136&sr=1-16&keywords=richard+wiseman">had rejuvenated them</a>. </p>
<p>So if you are a Grinch wanting to hide your grinchiness or even want to see if you can learn to like Christmas, think about how a Christmas-lover might behave and put it into practice. Even if you aren’t able to convince yourself, you are likely to hoodwink others, hide your grinchiness and so keep at bay the endless questions about why you don’t like Christmas.</p>
<h2>4. Stand up for yourself</h2>
<p>Some people are proud of being Grinches and want to be open about it. If so, encouraging others to respect your viewpoint will require you to ensure your communication skills are in tip top condition – assertive but not aggressive, calm but not not exercised, and open but not judgemental.</p>
<p>Also, remember that respect goes both ways – just as you wish your views to be respected, the choices of those who enjoy and love Christmas also deserve respect. Practising calm and assertive communication with an openness to compromise is most likely to lead to the best outcome. There is nothing wrong with liking or disliking Christmas. But there is no need to spoil it for those who take the opposite position to you. </p>
<h2>5. Be kind to yourself</h2>
<p>Whatever approach you adopt, Christmas can be a particularly draining time. It is therefore very important to be kind to yourself. Make sure you schedule things that are meaningful and restorative to you. Remember that the Christmas season, like everything, will pass. If you can build in time in your schedule for activities and behaviours that reduce your stress and help you reconnect with what is important to you, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/fampra/article-abstract/35/4/511/4772572?redirectedFrom=fulltext">you will find that you are better able to cope</a> with the Christmas demands. </p>
<p>And, if all else fails, do what I have done: I once booked time off work the week before Christmas. I told people I was going away and that, as a consequence, I wouldn’t be able to attend any of the upcoming Christmas functions. In reality, I was at home having an undisturbed, blissful and as grinchy-as-I-liked staycation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108278/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Rodham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How to become a lover of Christmas … or embrace being a Grinch.Karen Rodham, Professor of Health Psychology, Staffordshire UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1074242018-12-11T11:41:15Z2018-12-11T11:41:15ZThis Christmas tell your children the real Santa Claus story<p>Santa Claus will soon be coming to town, bringing gifts to children.</p>
<p>Santa has several aliases, depending on the part of the world you live in. The English call him Father Christmas, the French know him as Père Noël, and Kris Kringle seems be a version of the Christkind, or Christ Child, who leaves treats for good German Lutherans.</p>
<p>In the Netherlands, he arrives in town on a steamboat or horse from Spain. On the night of Dec. 5, Dutch children put their shoes on the hearth – these days near the central heating duct – hoping that he will fill them with sweet rewards rather than a <a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/SK-A-385">reprimand for poor behavior</a>. The Dutch call him Sinterklaas – which has come into American English as ‘Santa Claus’ – short for Sint Nicolaas or <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11063b.htm">St. Nicholas</a>. </p>
<p>St. Nicholas and Santa Claus are historically the same man. But unlike the jolly figure who purportedly flies on a sleigh from the North Pole, the saint came originally from the balmy Mediterranean coast.</p>
<h2>Who was St. Nicholas really?</h2>
<p>As a historian of religions who has <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/bitel-homepage/research/">written books about ancient saints</a>, I caution against reading accounts of saints’ lives as factual history. However, the earliest stories of St. Nicholas seem to correlate with histories and church documents of the period. </p>
<p>According to these early medieval texts, Nicholas was born <a href="http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-is-st-nicholas/">around 260 A.D.</a> into a Christian family. His birthplace was near the town of Myra, now called Demre, on the southwest coast of modern Turkey. At the time, Christianity was illegal under the Roman empire. </p>
<p>He studied to be a priest and spent time in prison for his beliefs. However, after Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, Nicholas was elected Bishop of Myra. </p>
<p>During his lifetime, he became famous for defending his people against imperial taxes and other forms of oppression. According to the earliest document about Nicholas, from the fifth century, he prevented <a href="https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2016/04/19/proclus-of-constantinople-encomium-on-st-nicholas-of-myra-now-online-in-english/">three loyal generals</a> from unjust execution for treason. </p>
<p>A ninth-century Greek legend claims he <a href="http://www.christianiconography.info/Wikimedia%20Commons/nicholasAntiphonary.html">revived three scholars</a> who had been murdered and stashed in a pickling tub. He also saved <a href="https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2018/04/13/nicholas-of-myra-vita-compilata-now-available-in-english/">three girls</a> whose poverty-stricken father wanted to sell them into prostitution. </p>
<p>After his death, people believed that Nicholas continued to work miracles. His burial place, below the floor of <a href="https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/biblical-archaeology-sites/exposing-st-nicholas-christian-capital/">his church</a>, became a popular destination for pilgrims who begged Nicholas to relay their petitions to God. </p>
<p>Proof that Nicholas was listening, they believed, was in the <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/saint-nicholas-the-secrete-santa">“manna”</a> – <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Oil_of_Saints">holy oil or water</a> – that dripped from the tomb. Pilgrims took this manna home in little bottles or used rags to sop up the moisture that dripped from the saint’s tomb in its subterranean crypt. This was a common pilgrimage practice at Christian shrines.</p>
<p>Visitors to the coastal town of Myra spread Nicholas’ fame along sea routes across the Mediterranean. From there, word passed to the Latin West, and upriver to Russia. Soon, pilgrims from all over Christendom were journeying to Myra to seek the gifts of protection and healing from the saint, who was said to be especially attentive to children.</p>
<h2>Italians steal the body</h2>
<p>This pilgrimage was disrupted in the 11th century when Seljuk Turks invaded Anatolia. Christians feared that the Muslims who now governed Demre would disregard the saint’s tomb. So, one crew of pious Italian Christians decided to take action. </p>
<p>In 1087, three ships laden with grain set out from Bari, on Italy’s southeast coast, bound for Antioch. However, according to a monk named Nicephorus who wrote immediately after the event, their real mission was to <a href="http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/translation-1/">steal St. Nicholas’ body</a>.</p>
<p>In Antioch they heard a rumor that the Venetians too were planning a similar heist. The Barian sailors hastily sold off their grain and headed for Myra in search of St. Nicholas’ church. Priestly custodians there became suspicious when the sailors asked to see the saint’s body. </p>
<p>The Barians claimed that the pope had a vision directing him to fetch Nicholas to Italy. When the priests refused, they offered gold for the relics, but the offer “was tossed aside like dung.” Done with arguing, the Barians caught and bound the priests. Suddenly, a phial of manna fell to the pavement and broke. It seemed that St. Nicholas spoke to them: “It is my will that I leave here with you.” </p>
<p>So, the Barians broke through marble floor with picks and hammers. A delicious aroma filled the church as they opened the tomb. They found the bones swimming in a small sea of manna. They carefully wrapped the relics in a silk case brought for the purpose. </p>
<p>Nicephorus describes how they fled to their ship, pursued by outraged priests and a howling crowd of citizens demanding that they “<a href="http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/translation-1/">give back</a> the father who has by his protection kept us safe from visible foes.” </p>
<p>Yet the crew made it back to the harbor at Bari, where the townsfolk and clergy processed, singing joyous hymns, to greet the saint. </p>
<h2>St. Nicholas gets a reputation</h2>
<p>A new church was built for Nicholas in the court of the governor of Bari. A few years later, <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15210a.htm">Pope Urban II</a> — the one who would preach the First Crusade – formally enshrined the relics of the saint. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249753/original/file-20181210-76989-oq1nwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249753/original/file-20181210-76989-oq1nwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249753/original/file-20181210-76989-oq1nwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249753/original/file-20181210-76989-oq1nwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249753/original/file-20181210-76989-oq1nwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249753/original/file-20181210-76989-oq1nwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249753/original/file-20181210-76989-oq1nwf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A view of the interior of the church of St. Nicholas, built in the 11th century, at Bari.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/AP-I-R1191/7f9c1059c9e0da11af9f0014c2589dfb/5/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Barians believed that manna continued to ooze from Nicholas’ coffin. And going by the claim on the basilica’s website, <a href="http://www.basilicasannicola.it/page.php?id_cat=2&id_sottocat1=95&id_sottocat2=138&id_sottocat3=0&titolo=La%20tomba%20del%20santo">the belief persists to this day</a>.</p>
<p>Within a decade of the saint’s arrival in 1087, the <a href="http://www.around.bari.it/basilica-di-san-nicola/">Basilica di San Nicola</a> was one of Europe’s most popular pilgrimage destinations. <a href="http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/bari-festival">May 9 is</a> still celebrated as the day that Nicholas moved shrines or was “translated.” </p>
<p>For at least five centuries, the region, which includes Bari and its saint, was caught in constant wars for possession of southern Italy. In 1500, Bari fell into the hands of King <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/403448/king-ferdinand-v-of-spain-king-of-aragon-1452-1516">Ferdinand</a> of Aragon, whose marriage to Queen Isabella of Spain created a global naval power. </p>
<p>Because Nicholas was a patron saint of sailors, Spanish sailors and explorers carried stories of the saint wherever they went: Mexico, the Caribbean, Florida and other ports around the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249755/original/file-20181210-76986-t62zir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249755/original/file-20181210-76986-t62zir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249755/original/file-20181210-76986-t62zir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249755/original/file-20181210-76986-t62zir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249755/original/file-20181210-76986-t62zir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249755/original/file-20181210-76986-t62zir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249755/original/file-20181210-76986-t62zir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St. Nicholas around the world: Russian Orthodox believers line up to kiss the relics of St. Nicholas that were brought from an Italian church where they have lain for 930 years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Russia-Awaiting-A-Miracle/c54db5d679744a92918843b8efba2a56/54/0">AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Even the Dutch, who rebelled against Catholic Spain and formed a Calvinist republic in 1581, somehow <a href="http://www.sinterklaashudsonvalley.com/the-story/">maintained their devotion to Sinterklass</a>. In other parts of Europe, St. Nicholas lost his feast day but his concern for children helped link him to the gift-giving tradition of another December feast day: Christmas.</p>
<h2>How true is this story?</h2>
<p>In the 1950s, Italian scientists examined the bones enshrined in the Basilica di San Nicola, seeking evidence of authenticity. </p>
<p>They found the <a href="http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/anatomical-examination/">skull and incomplete skeleton of a man</a>, dating to around the fourth century. More recent technology has allowed experts to use the bones to reconstruct Nicholas’ face – he looks like an old Greek <a href="http://atlanticproductions.tv/productions/the-real-face-of-santa/">man with a broad, worn face</a>. He lacks the rosy cheeks and Anglo-Germanic features of modern Christmas decorations, but like the Santa Claus of greeting cards, he was probably bald. </p>
<p>Turkish archaeologists now claim that the Italians stole the wrong body and that Nicholas’ <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/10/santa-claus-st-nicholas-tomb-archaeology-turkey-spd/">remains never left Demre</a>. They have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/04/santa-claus-tomb-may-have-been-uncovered-beneath-turkish-church-saint-nicholas">discovered another sarcophagus</a> dating to the fourth century in the same church, which they claim contains the saint. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/1004.html">historians have suggested</a> that the story of Nicholas’ translation is a fiction purposely created to advertise a new pilgrimage center in the 11th century. Although <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/1004.html">relic theft</a> was common in the Middle Ages, grave-robbers often made mistakes or lied about the authenticity and source of their bones. Nothing in the shrine at Bari proves that the bones inside belong to the fourth-century Bishop Nicholas.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249765/original/file-20181210-76974-6wdek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249765/original/file-20181210-76974-6wdek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249765/original/file-20181210-76974-6wdek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249765/original/file-20181210-76974-6wdek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249765/original/file-20181210-76974-6wdek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249765/original/file-20181210-76974-6wdek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249765/original/file-20181210-76974-6wdek6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Which Santa story will you tell this holiday season?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/deltanewshub/31376056970">Delta News Hub/Flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Still, this holiday season, when you tell your children about Santa Claus, why not include the tale of Santa’s well-traveled bones? And don’t forget the manna, which is believed to still flow in Bari.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Bitel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Behind today’s mythical Santa Claus from the North Pole, is a real saint – St. Nicholas. How he came to be today’s gift-giving jolly figure from the North Pole is a fascinating story by itself.Lisa Bitel, Professor of History & Religion, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.