A little open thread for Christmas Eve.
Is it cold where you are? It’s really cold where I am.
As an early Christmas gift, here are some cats in flying saucers:
That is all.
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Hoping for a good holiday for all. Anyone who’s not traveling, anyway.
It’s been cold everywhere in the US this month. Here, it’s not cold today and sunny, which is nice. Last week sucked.
I will be traveling
over the river and through the woodsa couple blocks to the BFFs, where we are all going to eat the store-bought dinner and fight off their cats. Been a LOT of medical problems and hospitalizations for all of us this year so we’re going to enjoy just sitting together and keeping their cats off the ham. And one of them out of the green beans.Be as festive as possible, or just be a hermit in silence. Whatever you need.
Happy Holidays to everyone I am grateful I am not traveling and I do not live in the cyclone bomb target zone. Be well!
Happy Hogswatch, everybody!
Well, it’s certainly officially Xmas here now.
Happy getting hammered and crashing your tank into a hedge day to all who celebrate.
I’m stuck marking six more student papers. The prof I’m a TA for got COVID, and I was slow with other things, so here I am. But she’s feeling better and my cousin is coming over to my folks’ place to do presents tomorrow, so that should be a fun break, at least.
In honour of the holiday, here’s a surreally google-translated version of that Night Before Christmas poem: http://blather.newdream.net/red/n/nicholas_visit_report.html
Here’s a heartwarming holiday tale of two Elves on the Shelves:
https://shanklinthestabpossum.tumblr.com/post/704567440806494208#notes
Twitter’s NORADSANTA account is inactive this year, perhaps for fear of revealing Santa’s assassination coordinates.
Am now the proud owner of a copy of “Trek The Halls”.
@FM Ox: NORAD itself is still tracking him. He’s in Honduras as I type this.
https://www.noradsanta.org/en/map
Santa’s very big on generosity and good boys and girls, so maybe he’s withdrawn his patronage from Twits.
@Alan: I saw that in the Graun. I like how no one was surprised.
@epitome: Good reading.
@FM Ox: Good cat! Particularly liked the hashtags “snitches get stitches but kitty gets scritches”.
@VP: I’m eating ham tomorrow so don’t tell the Hogfather.
@Victorious Parasol; @GSS ex-noob:
I’m eating ham tomorrow so don’t tell the Hogfather.
Ah, but the point of the Hogfather was that he originated as the dying-and-reviving sacrificial beast-god, who died to feed others through the winter. (You may recall that in the book, the customary offering to the Hogfather was pork pie and sherry, along with turnips for his draft pigs.)
In fact, this is what Death, in his understudy role, gifted a peasant who’d just been the object of his king’s condescending charity:
“Been there, done that, chewed the bones,” said Albert. “Charity ain’t giving people what you wants to give, it’s giving people what they need to get.”
VERY WELL.
Death reached into the sack again. HAPPY HOGSWATCH. HO. HO. HO.
There was a string of sausages. There was a side of bacon. And a small tub of salt pork. And a mass of chitterlings wrapped up in greased paper. There was a black pudding. There were several other tubs of disgusting yet savory pork-adjacent items highly prized in any pig-based economy. And, laid on the table with a soft thump, there was—
“A pig’s head,” breathed the old man. “A whole one! Ain’t had brawn in years! And a basin of pig knuckles! And a bowl of pork dripping!”
HO. HO. HO.
“Amazing,” said Albert. “How did you get the head’s expression to look like the king?”
I THINK THAT’S ACCIDENTAL.
@Full Metal Ox:
Aww, but the way he says HO. HO. HO. reminds me of Ho. Ho. Ho. the story by Neil Gaiman.
I’ve been tormenting my cold-weather friends lately with a pic I took two days ago of California beach-people running into the waves with a sailboat behind them and a guy windsurfing with a bright yellow parasail in the background, the sun beating down everywhere.
In fact they had to be on some kind of challenge, because it was like 40F and everyone else was wearing heavy coats because the wind whipping everywhere was making it feel even colder regardless of the sun. But you can’t tell it from the picture! I’ve gotten several middle fingers. 😀
Stay safe everyone, become warm soon if you are not now, and have a happy holiday of your choice!
@Big Titty Demon:
Courtesy of WLKY News in Louisville, Kentucky, we now have meteorological imaging confirmation of the Witch’s Tits!
http://i.redd.it/soxdpkyvnkd21.jpg
Re: Hogfather
Incidentally, I just ran across this map that purports to list all the traditional “Christmas gift-bringers of Europe”
Amazing Maps on Twitter: “Christmas gift-bringers of Europe Via @JakubMarian https://t.co/HKwvSFnSk8” / Twitter
I understand that some of these aren’t traditionally “gift-bringers”, but rather either folklore monsters/spirits, or young men putting on carnival costumes and going door to door being raucous. Finnish Joulupukki (“Christmas goat” or perhaps more accurately “Yule goat”) falls in the last category.
The goat reference in the name apparently comes from historical Joulupukki being a satyr-like character whose costume included a crude wooden or tree bark mask crafted with goat horns. I bet there’s some historical connection to the straw goat figurines that seem to be traditional Christmas decorations in Sweden (not really common in Finland, at least nowadays). You may have heard of the world-famous Gävle Goat, a giant public straw decoration that almost annually attracts ambitious arsonists.
The caption says Joulupukki is “nowadays conflated with a character similar to Santa Claus”. Indeed, modern Joulupukki is a character almost identical to Santa Claus, and is considered the same character for cross-cultural translation purposes. Finnish “Santa’s office” is a major tourist attraction in northern Finland that has been quite successfully marketed for international audiences.
Swedish Jultomten and Norwegian Julenissen are translated in the caption as “Christmas gnome”. AFAIK, traditionally tomte (Finnish equivalent tonttu) was a category of little folk associated with houses and other human structures, not really with Christmas. They were kind of vestigial household gods, looking somewhat like garden gnomes, sometimes receiving food offerings. In modern Finnish Christmas tradition, the tontut have been rebranded as the local version of “Santa’s elfs”.
Our fridge decided to go boom last night. Sigh.
Our kitties: https://toot.cat/@DidiCarisma/109569939840524396
I forgot to add that in Finnish Discworld translations, Hogfather is rendered as Karjupukki, literally “Boar goat”. In think it sounds incredibly fitting for the character, considering that modern Finns don’t usually perceive the “goat” part in Joulupukki as referring to literal goats but more like the “father” in Father Christmas. At the same time, it kind of subtly evokes the mental image of a satyr-like character that’s based on a hog rather than a goat.
@Lumipuna:
You may have heard of the world-famous Gävle Goat, a giant public straw decoration that almost annually attracts ambitious arsonists.
Indeed I have—and I would go so far to propose that the attacks on the Gävle Goat constitute a bonafide modern folk ritual of Winter Solstice fires and symbolic sacrifice—and the fact that the vandalism is illegal adds the element of festival Misrule. It’s an expression of something archetypal; note that fire is the overwhelming favorite M.O., although there’ve been a couple destructions by impact and one goat thrown in the river.
As of 9:43 AM Central European Standard Time, the goat is still standing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqvguE5cKT0
@Skiriki:
Damn—what inopportune timing, on top of the expense! Are you at least in a position to store your perishable food elsewhere—such as the garage, if you have one and it’s cold enough out your way?
@Full Metal Ox
Yeah, we’re keeping “must stay cold” foods into stiff cardboard boxes to the balcony, since the weather is slightly on freezing side but the building radiates enough warmth to keep it in ‘close enough to fridge’ temps.
Fortunately it should not be expensive to fix nor replace, as it should be covered by our housing company (Asokodit for Finns). It just will take ’till 27th or 28th, though maintenance wrote it down as ‘very urgent’ when I called to their 24/7 service (I was 100% pleasant to the young fella who answered; not his fault etc). Separate freezer unit is OK (*knock on wood*) so we should be OK ’till 27th, since cold weather should persist and annoyingly warm sunshine to balcony is NOT a Finnish wintertime problem. 😀
Also, 2nd floor, closed glass, so wildlife shouldn’t be a problem.
I am currently ill at home (not covid, at least, so that’s something). Spent christmas eve watching the 2019 remake of ‘Black Christmas’. It was actually really good. It really updated the themes of the original (the fear of not knowing who to trust as a woman in a patriarchal culture) to the present age. Highly recommend it, assuming you are up for this kind of fare.
@Battering Lamb:
I am currently ill at home (not covid, at least, so that’s something).
Then I wish you recovery, and warmth, secure shelter, and restorative hot comfort food and drink toward that end. Maybe reassuring warm compresses in the persons of a partner or mammalian pets?
Spent christmas eve watching the 2019 remake of ‘Black Christmas’. It was actually really good. It really updated the themes of the original (the fear of not knowing who to trust as a woman in a patriarchal culture) to the present age. Highly recommend it, assuming you are up for this kind of fare.
I also seem to recall that (ROT-13 (http://rot13.com/) for spoilers) gur onq thlf vapyhqrq n jbhyq-or Pbby Tvey jub pbyyhqrq jvgu gur zheqrebhf sengreavgl—jub cebprrqrq gb xvyy ure va ghea, gur genqvgvbany aneengvir sngr bs genvgbef.
Lest we forget:
(Content warning: scenes of trench warfare)
Happy Winter Solstice celebrations, everyone!
Husbeast and I are going to his girlfriend’s place to have a cooperative dinner; I have brined a turkey breast roast, made cranberry sauce, and am making tiramisu for dessert. With all my maladies, this took me half the week to accomplish but it will be worth it. Girlfriendbeast will be making a fancy green bean and mushroom casserole, roasting the turkey breast, providing the bevvies, gingerbread, and other assorted things.
That’s right—Sunday has become Tiny Mammoth Concert Time. Accordingly, here’s Donald Trump’s Christmas message according to Bruce J. “Mangy Fetlocks” Nelson:
And, because more than one holiday is underway, here’s a song that I’m surprised isn’t covered more, since it’s such an earworm—the existence of a children’s song with a similar title and cadence furthermore makes it tricky to search.