Fact of the Day

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CHRISTMAS CARDS

Did you know... If you want those Christmas cards to arrive by the holidays, here’s what you need to keep in mind.

 

For many, sending cards out for Christmas is a cherished annual tradition. For others, it can be a source of stress amid the holiday rush.

 

You may even wonder when the optimal time is to impart your best wishes for a cheerful season. From what you should say to what to do if you think it might be too late to send one, everything you need to know about Christmas card etiquette is down below to hopefully make the process smoother and more meaningful. 

 

The Best Time to Mail Christmas Cards
It’s not just when your recipient gets a Christmas card that matters—it’s also how long they get to enjoy it and show it off to other loved ones. As a good rule of thumb, the earlier you send one out, the better.

 

Jennifer Hunt, owner of a Birmingham, Alabama-based stationery company, recently told Southern Living that the first week of December is usually considered the ideal time to send a Christmas card. Why? Because this gives your recipients plenty of time to enjoy the cards throughout the season. But this doesn’t mean you have to wait until then to start the process.

 

In fact, to avoid the holiday chaos altogether, Hunt recommends starting the card-sending process as early as October, which allows ample time for selecting cards, taking family photos, and addressing envelopes. Still, Hunt—and other etiquette experts—recommend waiting until after Thanksgiving to put cards in the mail.

 

How Late is Too Late to Send Christmas Cards?
In the lead-up to the holidays, it’s pretty easy to get swamped with other things, especially if you have kids at home or you’re traveling to visit extended family and other loved ones.

 

Even if you do want to send out a bunch of thoughtful cards, time might get away from you. If you’re sending things via the United States Postal Service (USPS), keep these cut-off dates in mind if you want something to arrive by December 25, 2024:

 

 

U.S. Domestic Mail Class  - Mail By:

USPS Ground Advantage - Mail By: Dec. 18

First-Class Mail  - Mail By: Dec. 18

Priority Mail - Mail By: Dec. 19

Priority Mail Express - Mail By: Dec. 21

 

Those dates listed above apply to deliveries throughout most of the U.S., but if you’re trying to send something to Hawaii or Alaska this holiday season, the cut-off dates for 2024 slightly differ.

 

State: Alaska

USPS Ground Advantage: Dec. 16

First-Class Mail: Dec. 18

Priority Mail: Dec. 19

Priority Mail Express: Dec. 20

 

State: Hawaii

USPS Ground Advantage: Dec. 16

First-Class Mail: Dec. 18

Priority Mail: Dec. 19

Priority Mail Express: Dec. 20

 

But beyond mailing deadlines, what if you just straight-up forget? Experts say to not stress it too much. Hunt claims that receiving cards all the way up to Christmas Eve is still totally acceptable. Etiquette expert Sydney Dunn echoes this sentiment and recommends getting cards out “ASAP but BLTN” (meaning, as soon as possible but better late than never).

 

For those sending cards later in December, consider jotting down a little extra message within the card, just acknowledging the delay. Both Hunt and Dunn also highlight the importance of personalization in making Christmas cards genuinely memorable. Plus, adding a handwritten signature from each family member can infuse the card with added warmth and personality.

 

 

Source: When Should You Send Christmas Cards?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - SPACE AND A COMPASS

Did you know... On Earth, compasses always point north—but when you’re drifting outside our planet’s magnetosphere, things get more complicated. 

 

The earliest known compasses were made in China’s Han Dynasty, between 300 and 200 BCE. These simple instruments were made from a lodestone—a naturally occurring, magnetically-charged mineral that, when suspended in midair by a piece of rope, naturally points directly toward Earth’s magnetic poles. 

 

Although these magnetized rocks were originally used for divination, owing to their seemingly supernatural qualities, they eventually proved to be an irreplaceable tool for people traveling across the globe. These compasses allowed navigators to orient themselves day and night, even when the skies were cloudy and other guiding lights, such as the North Star, were obscured. 

 

Earth itself is a magnet with two magnetic poles, just like the magnets stuck to your fridge, generated by the interplay between the planet’s axial tilt, rotation speed, and movement of the molten metal at its core. A compass contains a tiny piece of magnetized material that is attracted to its opposite pole on Earth, which is is located about 1000 miles south of the geographic north pole, due west from Canada’s Ellesmere Island. So, even if you’re standing in the Southern Hemisphere, your compass needle will always point north.

 

Where Would the Compass Needle Point in Outer Space? 
The answer to that question depends on where in outer space you’re located. Earth’s magnetosphere, the area around the planet where its magnetic force is dominant, is thought to extend about 23,000 miles toward the sun and 230,000 miles away from the sun. As long as you stay within this zone, the needle on your compass should still be able to register Earth’s magnetic field and point you toward that spot in Canada.

 

Beyond the outer edges of the magnetosphere, however, things get a little more complicated. That’s because Earth isn’t the only object in the solar system that generates magnetic force. Our moon and Mars have magnetic fields, but they are far weaker than Earth’s, meaning you would have to get pretty close to either one before they start affecting the bearing of your compass.

 

If you’re traveling even farther through the solar system, your compass is likely to point into the direction of one of two celestial objects. 

 

The first of these objects is Jupiter. Due to its high rotation speed (28,273 mph compared to Earth’s 1000 mph) and massive, metallic hydrogen core (about 1.5  times the size of Earth), Jupiter’s magnetosphere is stronger than any other of our planetary neighbors,’ extending some 12 million miles around the gas giant. 

 

The second of these objects is the sun, whose magnetosphere is bigger still and encompasses the entire solar system. Unless you’re within a planet’s personal magnetosphere, like Earth’s or Jupiter’s, your compass is going to point toward the sun. 

 

What’s the Point
Exactly which part of the sun is hard to say, because the location of its magnetic poles changes roughly every 11 years, when sunspots produced during the solar maximum cause its magnetosphere to reorganize itself. Earth’s magnetic poles flip polarity as well, but at a much slower rate, reversing every 30,000 years or so. The next reversal is due to take place within the next couple of centuries.

 

Of course, while different celestial bodies will certainly have an affect on your compass needle, this does not take away from the fact that a traditional compass is useless for navigation in space, where compass-holders can move in more directions than north, south, east, and west.  

 

That’s why space agencies use special compasses known as vector magnetometers, which measure not only the direction a magnetic force is coming from, but also its magnitude, making them more useful than their Earthbound counterparts.

 

 

Source: In Outer Space, Where Does a Compass Point?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ELF VS GNOME

Did you know..... How to tell an elf from a gnome, and vice versa.

 

Centuries of folklore have familiarized us with elves, the diminutive species best known for assisting Santa Claus in the production and distribution of holiday gifts. You can also find them in a litany of stories and fables by such luminaries as J.R.R. Tolkien and William Shakespeare, or, more ignominiously, in advertisements for Keebler crackers.

 

The equally whimsical gnome is also pervasive in culture but is perhaps best known as lawn ornamentation. Considering their similar builds, hats, and penchant for adventure, a question arises: Are elves and gnomes so different? Are they simply two different names for the same tiny creature? Why don’t we have a Gnome on the Shelf or elves populating gardens? An attempted explanation can be found below.

 

Elf vs. Gnome Origins
It’s believed that elves have origins in Norse mythology. Known as the Álfar, these elves were described as aesthetically attractive wielders of magic who were either “light” or “dark,” either helping humanity or harassing them. Their physical trademark: pointy ears. If one wanted to rid themselves of an elf, one could chop down the tree in which they were said to reside.

 

Come the 1800s, it was hard to differentiate an elf from a fairy. Both were small, mischievous, and prone to pranks. But elves soon broke away from the genial fairies of legend by being capricious and sometimes cruel. Cross an elf and you might find yourself missing a baby or faced with financial ruin from spoiled or destroyed farm crops. These imps might even swap a human baby with an elven one, though it’s unclear why they would give up one of their own, or what exactly they would do with the ill-gotten infant.

 

 

Their reputation for cruelty was such that any real-life mishap was sometimes attributed to elves. Tangled hair? It was considered elf-locked. A birthmark? It was considered elf-marked.

 

Santa Claus helped change public perception of elves. The creatures began popping up in depictions of Kris Kringle in the mid-1800s and were portrayed as his loyal assistants. (In some versions of Santa lore, Santa himself is an elf, just a well-fed one.) 

 

By the 1900s, elves were being co-opted by Tolkien, who transformed their profile from tiny to human-sized in his Lord of the Rings saga. Numerous fantasy authors have used elves, shifting their mythology to suit a specific narrative. But for the most part, they exist mostly to keep Santa's sleigh well-stocked.

 

Elf vs. Gnome Differences
A gnome, in contrast, emerged from 16th century European folklore, when Swiss alchemist Paracelsus depicted them as subterranean dwellers who could tunnel through the Earth. The gnome was charged with protecting rare elements. Unlike elves, which are often ethereally beautiful, gnomes aren’t going to make the cover of Vogue. They’re often portrayed as hunched, elderly, and somewhat brutish.

 

While gnomes are also fantasy figures, they’re perhaps best known in North America as the embodiment of garden décor. It’s likely garden gnomes came from sculptures of little persons popular in Germany circa the early 19th century. These weren’t for lawns but for general art display. The figures demonstrated labor skills, often accompanied by tools as well as the conical hat that’s since become endemic to their depiction. They soon spread from Germany to the UK, acting as status symbols for wealthier landowners, before becoming common landscaping fixtures in the 20th century.

 

 

Gnomes don’t always enjoy dignity. Some lawn sculptures offer irreverent farting or finger-flipping characters. But in most cases, they’re perceived as pleasant creatures who take pride in toiling in the fields.

 

Elves might be best described as purveyors of magic who can sometimes exert a supernatural influence on others. Gnomes have comparatively lesser aspirations, with more of a blue-collar approach to their existence. They also tend to skew older, whereas many elves of fantasy fiction can be young and even attractive. Orlando Bloom made for a fine Tolkien elf, but might have a harder time playing a gnome.

 

 

Source: Elf vs. Gnome: What's the Difference?

Edited December 9, 2024 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - YOGI BEAR CHRISMAS SPECIAL

Did you know.... ‘Yogi’s First Christmas’ might not have the cultural cachet of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ or ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas,’ but the people who loved it remember it fondly—and now, it’s getting new life on streaming.

 

During the 1980 holiday season, viewers got a holiday treat on TV—just not necessarily in the usual places.

 

Starting that November, a new special called Yogi’s First Christmas aired. It featured Yogi, Boo-Boo, and Cindy Bear partaking in holiday festivities with other Hanna-Barbera characters, including Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, and Augie Doggie and his Doggie Daddy.

 

The special debuted at an inflection point in animation and television history. Hanna-Barbara’s namesakes, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, had sold to Taft Broadcasting in 1966, but still had active roles in animation production. The special featured classic Hanna-Barbera voice actors—including Daws Butler, Don Messick, and Janet Waldo—but it wouldn’t be long before new voice actors would take over.

 

The special was also part of a new trend in production for independent TV stations, was made as cable television started to grow, and came as the home video era was ramping up.

 

But though Yogi’s First Christmas was a staple of holiday television programming in the 1980s and 1990s, it never got the love of other animated holiday specials, like A Charlie Brown Christmas or the Grinch That Stole Christmas, and showings diminished sharply after the 21st century dawned. It took another sea change in television—streaming services—for it to come back to the mainstream.

 

Hanna-Barbera and the Rise of the Christmas Cartoon
Hanna and Barbera got their start at MGM in 1937, where they created Tom & Jerry. At the time, cartoons were shown in movie theaters, and were most certainly not made exclusively for kids. “They were aimed at the full entertainment audience,” animation historian Jerry Beck tells Mental Floss. “They had a lot of topical references, and they didn’t really expect anyone to watch them 20 years later.”

 

 

But animation was expensive, and eventually, MGM shut down its cartoon studio. Hanna and Barbera saw a future in a new medium, at the time at odds with movies: Television. But they had to figure out how to make cartoons more cheaply. They came up with “limited animation,” using more close-ups and dialogue to cut down on the sheer number of animated cels that had to be generated. “When there was a car crash, it would occur off screen,” says Mark Evanier, who worked as a writer for comic books and television shows, both live and animated, including a stint at Hanna-Barbera. “You’d just the wreckage.”

 

The 1960s also saw the rise of holiday-themed cartoons, starting with Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol in 1962, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer—based on the song, itself based on a character created for Montgomery Ward department store—two years later.

 

“They lit the fuse, and Charlie Brown was the explosion,” Beck says. “After that was The Grinch, and from that point on, there were holiday specials for every holiday you could think of.”

 

Hanna-Barbera made holiday specials in the 1970s, including A Christmas Story (not to be confused with the 1983 movie of the same name) and A Flintstone Christmas, but they weren’t the studio’s bread and butter. They dealt in volume, usually with series, creating animal characters like Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Yogi Bear, and Top Cat; prime-time cartoons like The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Jonny Quest; and churning out cartoons for kids to watch on Saturday mornings—sometimes competing against themselves across the three major networks.

 

“Hanna-Barbera had a near monopoly, and if the show got canceled, it would get replaced with another Hanna-Barbera show,” Evanier says.

 

Enter Operation Prime Time
Also a near monopoly? The three broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. But that started to change in the 1970s when Al Masini, a television advertising executive, formed a consortium with independent TV stations called Operation Prime Time. OTP’s goal was to develop shows and movies with network production standards to air on the independent channels, rather than being bought from networks to be re-run on those channels.

 

Among the projects were movies based on several John Jakes books, biopics on famous figures (one of them featured Ingrid Bergman in her last role, as Golda Meir) … and Christmas programming. Rankin-Bass did a special, Jack Frost, that appeared in 1979, and the following year, Yogi’s First Christmas was produced. (Operation Prime Time’s most enduring contribution, though, was the series Entertainment Tonight; other TV shows for OPT included Solid Gold and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.)

 

Yogi’s First Christmas told the story of Yogi and Boo-Boo waking up during winter hibernation and wanting to take in the holiday, having never celebrated it before (hence the title). The action takes place at Jellystone Lodge, where Yogi curries favor with its owner, Mrs. Throckmorton. Her bratty nephew and a misanthropic hermit learn the value of Christmas, she opts not to sell the lodge, and everyone feels warm and fuzzy at the end. The special also featured songs (some of which were taken from other Hanna-Barbera Christmas specials).

 

 

Yogi’s First Christmas could be found on various channels during the holiday, either as a two-hour movie, or serialized in half-hour installments, and its ratings were such that, Greg Ehrbar writes in Hanna-Barbera: The Recorded History, that Hanna-Barbera was able “to sell ten more syndicated full-length animated TV features”—including three that featured Yogi Bear himself.

 

As VCRs started to proliferate, Yogi’s First Christmas became a natural candidate for release on home video. It went on sale in 1984 accompanied by what an ad called “a velvety Yogi Bear hand puppet.”

 

Then, in 1991, Turner bought Hanna-Barbera, and Yogi’s First Christmas—like a lot of the animation studio’s output—found a home on the new Cartoon Network. But its popularity waned as Cartoon Network started to create its own programming. The Hanna-Barbera cartoons found a new home on Boomerang, a secondary channel that was started in 2000, but that channel eventually also started producing its own programming, edging classic programming out.

 

Where You Can Watch Yogi’s First Christmas Today
Yogi’s First Christmas might have been merely a nostalgic memory of Christmas seasons past if not for streaming, which generated a shift in the entertainment industry similar to the one that had led to the special’s creation decades earlier.

 

Suddenly, streaming services were looking for programming, and Yogi’s First Christmas was still relatively high-quality, produced before Hanna-Barbera really started offshoring animation work. Today, you can find it on Apple+, Prime Video, and this holiday season, on MeTV Toons, a new network. Beck has been working with MeTV to select cartoons for airing, and Yogi’s First Christmas was a natural. “This is great programming that a lot of people have great memories of—and we want to get these shows back into people’s memories,” he says.

 

And maybe Yogi’s First Christmas will warm the hearts of a new generation of fans, just as it did for those who watched as kids 40 years ago.

 

“Hanna-Barbera characters to me are like friends and relatives,” Ehrbar tells Mental Floss. “They were always on TV. Seeing them at Christmas is like seeing old friends.”

 

 

Source: The Yogi Bear Christmas Special You Probably Forgot

[Zemekis]

Jeez, I've never heard of this and I thought I knew them all. You got me with this one @DarkRavie.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - DOMINICK THE DONKEY

Did you know.... Everyone loves Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He’s got the whole underdog thing going for him, and when the fog is thick on Christmas Eve, he’s definitely the creature you want guiding Santa’s sleigh. But what happens when Saint Nick reaches Italy, and he’s faced with steep hills that no reindeer—magical or otherwise—can climb?

 

That’s when Santa apparently calls upon Dominick the Donkey, the holiday hero immortalized in the 1960 song of the same name. Recorded by Lou Monte, “Dominick The Donkey” is a novelty song even by Christmas music standards. The opening line finds Monte—or someone else, or heck, maybe a real donkey—singing “hee-haw, hee-haw” as sleigh bells jingle in the background. A mere 12 seconds into the tune, it’s clear you’re in for a wild ride.

 

Who is Dominick the Donkey?
Over the next two minutes and 30 seconds, Monte shares some fun facts about Dominick: He’s a nice donkey who never kicks but loves to dance. When ol’ Dom starts shaking his tail, the old folks—cummares and cumpares, or godmothers and godfathers—join the fun and “dance a tarentell,” an abbreviation of la tarantella, a traditional Italian folk dance. Most importantly, Dominick negotiates Italy’s hills on Christmas Eve, helping Santa distribute presents to boys and girls across the country.

 

And not just any presents: Dominick delivers shoes and dresses “made in Brook-a-lyn,” which Monte somehow rhymes with “Josephine.” And while the donkey’s doing all this, he’s wearing the mayor’s derby hat, because you’ve got to look sharp. It’s a silly story made even sillier by that incessant “hee-haw, hee-haw,” which cuts in every 30 seconds like a squeaky door hinge.

 

 

There may have actually been some historical basis for “Dominick.”

 

“Travelling by donkey was universal in southern Italy, as it was in Greece,” Dominic DiFrisco, president emeritus of the joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, said in a 2012 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. “ playing easy with history, but it’s a cute song, and Monte was at that time one of the hottest singers in America.”

 

Rumored to have been financed by the Gambino crime family, “Dominick the Donkey” somehow failed to make the Billboard Hot 100 in 1960. But it’s become a cult classic in the nearly 70 years since, especially in Italian American households. In 2014, the song reached #69 on Billboard’s Holiday 100 and #23 on the Holiday Digital Song Sales chart. In 2018, “Dominick” hit No. 1 on the Comedy Digital Track Sales tally. As of December 2024, the Christmas curio had surpassed 56 million Spotify streams.

 

“Dominick the Donkey” made international headlines in 2011, when popular BBC DJ Chris Moyles launched a campaign to push the song onto the UK singles chart. “If we leave Britain one thing, it would be that each Christmas kids would listen to 'Dominick the Donkey,’” Moyles said. While his noble efforts didn’t yield a coveted Christmas #1, “Dominick” peaked at a very respectable #3.

 

Why do people like listening to “Dominick the Donkey”?
As with a lot of Christmas songs, there’s a certain kitschy, ironic appeal to “Dominick the Donkey.” Many listeners enjoy the song because, on some level, they’re amazed it exists. But there’s a deeper meaning that becomes apparent the more you know about Lou Monte.

 

Born Luigi Scaglione in New York City, Monte began his career as a singer and comedian shortly before he served in World War II. Based in New Jersey, Monte subsequently became known as “The Godfather of Italian Humor” and “The King of Italian-American Music.” His specialty was Italian-themed novelty songs like “Pepino the Italian Mouse,” his first and only Top 10 hit. “Pepino” reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963, the year before The Beatles broke America.

 

“Pepino” was penned by Ray Allen and Wandra Merrell, the duo that teamed up with Sam Saltzberg to write “Dominick the Donkey.” That same trio of songwriters was also responsible for “What Did Washington Say (When He Crossed the Delaware),” the B-side of “Pepino.” In that song, George Washington declares, “Fa un’fridd,” or ‘It’s cold!” while making his famous 1776 boat ride.

 

 

With his mix of English and Italian dialect, Monte made inside jokes for Italian Americans while sharing their culture with the rest of the country. His riffs on American history (“What Did Washington Say,” “Paul Revere’s Horse (Ba-cha-ca-loop),” “Please, Mr. Columbus”) gave the nation’s foundational stories a dash of Italian flavor. This was important at a time when Italians were still considered outsiders.

 

According to the 1993 book Italian Americans and Their Public and Private Life, Monte’s songs appealed to “a broad spectrum ranging from working class to professional middle-class Italian Americans.” Monte sold millions of records, played nightclubs across America, and appeared on TV programs like The Perry Como Show and The Ernie Kovacs Show. He died in Pompano Beach, Florida, in 1989. He was 72.

 

Monte lives on thanks to Dominick—a character too iconic to die. In 2016, author Shirley Alarie released A New Home for Dominick and A New Family for Dominick, a two-part children’s book series about the beloved jackass. In 2018, Jersey native Joe Baccan dropped “Dominooch,” a sequel to “Dominick.” The song tells the tale of how Dominick’s son takes over for his aging padre. Fittingly, “Dominooch” was written by composer Nancy Triggiani, who worked with Monte’s son, Ray, at her recording studio.

 

Speaking with NorthJersey.com in 2016, Ray Monte had a simple explanation for why Dominick’s hee-haw has echoed through the generations. “It was a funny novelty song,” he said, noting that his father “had a niche for novelty.”

 

 

Source: The Wild Ride of “Dominick the Donkey”—the Holiday Earworm You Love to Hate

Edited December 11, 2024 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - SNOWPERSON

Did you know... To be a snowman is to live a life of extreme impermanence. During the coldest parts of the season, these snowy beings take shape on lawns across the world, but by the spring, they’re all but forgotten. However, one snowperson avoided this date with oblivion by entering the history books as the tallest snowman, or rather snowwoman, ever made. Built with 13 million pounds of snow in 2008 in Bethel, Maine, the 122-foot-tall snowwoman was named Olympia in honor of the state’s U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe. “I have to say I’ve joked that it’s just my luck I’d have a world record-breaking monument named after me and it will be gone by summer,” Snowe said at the time.

 

Bethel residents needed to greatly exaggerate a snowperson’s usually quaint features to complete their creation. In this case, Olympia’s smile was made from car tires, each of her arms was a 25-foot-long spruce tree, and her red stocking cap was 20 feet in diameter and hand-knit by middle school students. Oh, and those lovely eyelashes? Alpine skis. 

 

Bethel previously earned the title of world’s tallest snowman when the town constructed the 113-foot-tall Angus (named after then-governor of Maine Angus King) in 1999. But Olympia surpassed her forebear, and still holds the Guinness record for the world’s tallest snowperson at the time of writing. However, the record may not hold for long. In 2020, a snowman in Austria surpassed Olympia’s height — though its extremely tall stovepipe hat did a lot of the work, and the structure has yet to be officially recognized on the Guinness website. Future challengers to Olympia’s crown may one day require the town of Bethel to again gather and build a snowperson to remember.

 

A suburb of Quebec City is home to the only ice hotel in North America.

The Hôtel de Glace, or Ice Hotel, first built in 2001, lasts for only three months out of the year (January through March) when the temperatures in Quebec, Canada, are at their coldest. Every year, a team of about 50 people — both workers and sculptors — labors for six weeks to (re)build the snowy abode in a suburb of Quebec City called Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier. The Ice Hotel isn’t just some roadside igloo — the structure takes 500 tons of ice and 30,000 tons of snow to complete its usual 44 rooms (though during the COVID-19 pandemic the hotel was much smaller). The hotel costs hundreds of dollars per person per night, and it’s not exactly comfortable. Because the structure is made entirely of snow and ice, the interior is kept at a frigid 25 degrees Fahrenheit (the bathrooms, however, are heated). Luckily, you don’t necessarily have to shell out that much cash just to experience the hotel, as guided tours are also available.

 

 

Source: A town in Maine built a 122-foot-tall snowperson.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - FIGGY PUDDING

Did you know.... You’ve demanded that someone bring it to you. But what the heck is figgy pudding?

 

“We Wish You a Merry Christmas” is an ode to figgy pudding disguised as a straightforward Christmas song. Three out of four verses in some versions are dedicated to the dish. So after listening to enough holiday music this December, you may start to wonder: What is figgy pudding, anyway? And is it really so good that you’d actually beg for it on a stranger’s doorstep through song?

 

According to NPR, figgy pudding, also called “plum pudding,” isn’t pudding—at least not the kind of pudding many Americans think of when they hear the word—and it contains neither figs nor plums. In the UK, pudding is used as catch-all to describe any sweet dish served after a meal. Figgy pudding isn’t creamy or custardy, but it is a sugary cake, which qualifies it as pudding overseas.

 

In its most basic form, figgy pudding is a steamed, often domed-shaped cake made with alcohol and dried fruit. The first version of figgy pudding surfaced in Britain in the 14th century. Back then, it was a stew-like, savory dish containing beef and mutton as well as fruit and wine. In the 15th century, this mixture was stuffed into animal casings to make sausages that would last through the winter.

 

By the end of the 16th century, figgy pudding had transitioned to a fully sweet dish—right around the same time carolers started singing, “Now bring us some figgy pudding,” to their wealthy neighbors around Christmas. Today, the dessert is commonly filled with currants, raisins, and soaked in rum or brandy.

 

So where did the first half of its name come from? In pre-Victorian England, the word plum was applied to any type of dried fruit, including raisins, so plum pudding caught on. Figs occasionally appeared in recipes throughout the dish's history, though they’re not considered a traditional ingredient.

 

If you’re thinking about cooking a throwback feast this Christmas, don’t stop at figgy pudding. From oyster stew to mincemeat pie, here are some more classic British dishes that have ties to the holiday.

 

 

Source: What Is Figgy Pudding, Anyway?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - GIFT VS PRESENT

Did you know... Let’s clear some things up now that we’re in the thick of the holiday season.

 

It’s that time again when we’re busy buying, wrapping, and giving them. Sometimes we call them “gifts,” sometimes “presents.” Is there a difference?

 

The words come to us from different language families. Gift comes from the old Germanic root for “to give.” It referred to an act of giving, and then, to the thing being given. In Old English it meant “the dowry given to a bride’s parents.” Present comes from the French for “to present.” A present is the thing being presented or bestowed. Both words were in use for the idea of something undergoing a transfer of possession without expectation of payment from the 13th century onward.

 

The words gift and present are well-matched synonyms that mean essentially the same thing, but even well-matched synonyms have their own connotations and distinctive patterns of use. Gift applies to a wider range of situations. Gifts can be talents: You can have the gift of gab, or a musical gift. Gifts can be intangibles: There is the gift of understanding or the gift of a quiet day. We generally don’t use present to describe things like that. Presents are more concrete or a bit more, well, present. If your whole family gave donations to your college fund for your birthday would you say “I got a lot of presents”? It doesn’t exactly sound wrong, but since you never hold these donations in your hand, gifts seems to fit better.

 

Gift can also be an attributive noun, acting like an adjective to modify another noun. What do you call the type of shop where you can buy presents for people? A gift shop. What do you call the basket of presents that you can have sent to all your employees? A gift basket. Present doesn’t work well in this role of describing other nouns. We have gift boxes, gift cards, and gift wrap, not present boxes, present cards, and present wrap.

 

Gift appears to be used more frequently than present, though it is difficult to get accurate counts, because if you compare occurrences of the noun present with the noun gift, you include that other noun present, meaning the here and now. However, the plural noun presents captures only the word we want. Gifts outnumbers presents in the Corpus of Contemporary American English by four to one.

 

Still, according to my personal sense of the words, present—though it may not be as common—is more casual sounding than gift. I expect a child to ask Santa Claus for lots and lots of presents, not many, many gifts. But whether it’s gifts or presents you prefer, I wish you many and lots this year, of both the tangible and intangible kind.

 

 

Source: What’s the Difference Between a Gift and a Present?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - JACK FROST

Did you know.... And why does he keep nipping at my nose?

 

For many people, the name Jack Frost instantly brings to mind Nat King Cole’s crooning voice as he sings “Jack Frost nipping at your nose” in “The Christmas Song.” Most iterations of Jack Frost see him colored and/or clad in icy blue and white, and as well as being responsible for nose-nipping, he’s also credited with creating frost—particularly the artistic fern-like patterns on windows. But where exactly did this mythical cold-weather figure originate?

 

A Touch of Frost
The earliest known mention of Jack Frost appears in Round about our Coal Fire: or Christmas Entertainments, first printed in 1730: “This Time of Year being cold and frosty generally speaking, or when Jack Frost commonly takes us by the Nose.” It’s unlikely that the author of this festive book—who goes by the pseudonym Dick Merryman—was the one to create Jack Frost, as the name seems to be a recognizable reference.

 

Jack Frost continued to be a personification of winter weather who was only used as a brief turn of phrase. For instance, in the October 1806 edition of The Sporting Magazine, John Mason wrote that “that scoundrel poltroon Jack Frost has so benumbed my fingers.” 

 

 

The 19th century saw Jack Frost begin to take shape as an actual character, rather than simply being a saying. An 1832 poem by Hannah Flagg Gould added to his mischievous reputation by having him freeze fruit and burst a pitcher (although he isn’t explicitly called Jack). The frosty figure was also the subject of an 1841 song, which similarly paints him as playfully naughty: “Bent on mischief—who is he? / Jack Frost—Jack Frost.” The first illustration of Jack Frost also comes from this century; in an 1861 edition of Harper’s Weekly, Thomas Nast drew him as a war general dripping with icicles, in reference to Union General Benjamin Butler calling Jack Frost “our faithful old Ally of the North.”

 

It wasn’t long before Jack Frost became a fully-fledged literary character. Margaret T. Canby’s short story “The Frost Fairies” (1874) tells of how the kind-hearted Jack Frost, a.k.a. King Frost, also became responsible for changing the colors of the leaves each fall. L. Frank Baum, best known for penning The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), also expanded the role of Jack Frost. In “The Runaway Shadows, or A Trick of Jack Frost” (1901), Jack is the cheeky son of the Frost King; when he’s unable to freeze children’s ears and noses—thanks to them being bundled up in furs—he decides to freeze their shadows. Baum also included the sprite in The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902), which sees Old Saint Nick ask Jack to refrain from nipping kids’ noses (he reluctantly agrees!).

 

On Thin Ice
You may have heard that Jack Frost can be traced back to Norse mythology, specifically a god called Jokul Frosti, whose name translates to “Icicle Frost.” But Jokul Frosti isn’t actually a mythological figure. Kari, ruler of the wind, was said to have a son called either Jokul or Frosti, but there’s no direct link between that mythical ice deity and the Jack Frost we know today. 

 

 

Many cultures across the world have mythological counterparts to Jack Frost. The prevalence of these figures isn’t surprising given that frost patterns do often look like they have been made by a magical being (the fern design on windows is actually created by the temperature difference between warm air indoors and cold air outdoors). In ancient Greece, the god Boreas was believed to bring the cold north wind that ushered in winter. In Russia, it’s not Santa Claus who brings children presents, but wintery figure Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost). And in Japanese folklore, a dangerous spirit called Yuki Onna (Snow Woman) can be found lurking amid the snow flurries. 

 

There have been many different takes on the character of Jack Frost himself over the years. Often, his mischievous or downright villainous side is emphasized—the Chris Pine-voiced teenage boy from animated film Rise of the Guardians (2012) falls into the former category, while Martin Short’s character in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006) falls into the latter. There are also gentler versions, such as the stop-motion sprite in the 1979 Rankin/Bass Christmas special and the artistic Jack Frost in Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather (1996).

 

Straying further from the traditional portrayal of the character are the two films titled Jack Frost from 1997 and 1998, both of which are about men called Jack Frost who are turned into snowmen. The 1997 movie is a horror flick about a serial killer (played by Scott MacDonald), while the 1998 film is a family-friendly story about a resurrected father (Michael Keaton). 

 

 

Source: Who Is Jack Frost?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - HANUKKAH COLORS

Did you know... Hanukkah’s colors stem from historical and religious symbolism. 

 

Red and green are so synonymous with Christmas that a tree decked out in other shades can feel downright subversive. And it certainly isn’t the only holiday with its own color scheme: Hanukkah paraphernalia tends to come in blue and white or blue and silver.

 

The most obvious explanation for blue and white being the colors associated with Hanukkah is the Israeli flag, designed by the Zionist movement in 1891 and officially adopted in 1948. The flag’s blue stripes symbolize those found on tallitot, traditional Jewish prayer shawls that are worn at synagogue, bar or bat mitzvahs, and Jewish weddings. So why are there blue stripes on tallitot? According to the Bible, the Israelites were told to dye a thread on their tassels with tekhelet, a blue ink from a sea snail, “so that they may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them.”

 

In 1864, the Jewish poet Ludwig August Frankl named blue and white “the colors of Judah” in a poem not so surprisingly called “Judah’s Colours.” An excerpt: “When sublime feelings his heart fill, he is mantled in the colors of his country ... Blue and white are the colors of Judah; white is the radiance of the priesthood, and blue, the splendors of the firmament.”

 

Blue and white come with universal associations, too. White suggests purity, peace, and light; blue is associated with the sky, faith, wisdom, and truth. (The expression isn’t “true blue” for nothing.)

 

And what about the silver we see in Hanukkah decorations? Some people think the holidays call for a little more sparkle, not to mention the popularity of silver menorahs. Blue and white clearly aren’t just the colors of Hanukkah; they’re symbolic all year long.

 

 

Source: Why Are Blue and White the Colors of Hanukkah?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - POSSET

Did you know... The next time you take a sip of eggnog, you should know you’re indulging in a centuries-old tradition that traces back to medieval Britain. This sweet concoction — made from milk, cream, sugar, spices, and eggs — is the modern descendent of posset, a fixture of festive gatherings in the Middle Ages. Posset recipes vary, but most combine wine or beer with cream, sugar, and eggs, and are topped with a thick gruel made from bread, biscuits, oatmeal, or almond paste. To separate the drink from its rich topping, it was served in specialized “posset pots,” teapot-like vessels with two handles and a spout. These unique pots were passed around at English celebrations, particularly weddings, to toast prosperity and good health.

 

Several centuries later, the drink made its way to the American colonies, where it became a hallmark of holiday festivities. Colonists added rum, making it more potent, which paved the way for the modern recipe as we know it. By 1775, the term “eggnog” was part of the American English vernacular. Etymologists pose two theories about its origin. The first suggests that “nog” comes from “noggin,” meaning a wooden cup, while others speculate it comes from “grog,” a strong beer. The origin of the word “posset” is more mysterious, possibly from the Latin word posca for a drink made of vinegar and water. The term endures to this day in the world of British baking, although it now refers to a cold cream-based dessert.

 

Spiked eggnog caused a “grog mutiny” at West Point.
The infamous “grog mutiny” at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, is an uncharacteristically unruly chapter in the highly esteemed institution’s history — and it all started with spiked eggnog. In 1826, West Point’s annual Christmas party erupted into chaos after Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, the superintendent, banned alcohol — including eggnog — from campus.

 

A group of defiant cadets boated up the Hudson River to gather whiskey from a nearby town, smuggling a few gallons onto campus by bribing a guard 35 cents for reentry. Mayhem ensued as eggnog-fueled cadets sought retribution by assaulting Captain Ethan Allen Hitchcock, the officer on duty during the party. As the revelers smashed windows, broke furniture, and even drew swords, Hitchcock barricaded himself in his room, calling upon the commandant for reinforcements. The mutiny eventually dispersed, but 19 cadets and one soldier were court-martialed for their involvement in the “eggnog riot” — a holiday rebellion that’s since been cemented into West Point lore.

 

 

Source: Eggnog is a descendant of the medieval British drink posset.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - GINGERBREAD HOUSES

Did you know... No, the brothers behind “Hansel and Gretel” did not create the confection.

 

This Christmas, you might find yourself elbow-deep in frosting and candy canes, trying to construct a gingerbread house that doesn’t collapse. But it turns out that creating a gingerbread house isn’t just a Christmas construction project—it’s a ritual with sometimes surprising connections to royalty, brutal fairy tales, and global trade.

 

A Brief History of Gingerbread
Although versions of gingerbread date to ancient Egypt and Greece, the cookie we eat today has its roots in the Middle Ages, when cakes became all the rage in Europe as an increasingly global world opened up to new spices and ingredients. First there was fruitcake. The once-hot, now played-out treat came into favor after medieval cooks finally got access to dried fruit from Spain and Portugal thanks to increased trade in the 13th century.

 

 

That led to a vogue in cakes and breads, which spread as better construction made having an oven in your house less terrifying. Trade with the East also made the ingredients in gingerbread available for the first time. Early gingerbread recipes contain spices that were once coveted and expensive, like cinnamon, sandalwood, and saffron, which became more accessible after the Crusades. Gingerbread became big business, and local variations began to arise. Lebkuchen, a gingerbread-like spiced treat, became popular in Germany; guilds of gingerbread makers began to emerge in the 15th and 16th centuries.

 

As gingerbread makers got better at their craft, they began to press the luxurious creations into intricate molds and even paint them. The sweet treat became a popular way for rich rulers to impress visitors, as when Elizabeth I handed out gingerbread men to visiting dignitaries.

 

From “Hansel and Gretel” to Holiday Craft
Then, a simple story thrust gingerbread from yummy treat to full-blown cultural phenomenon. Though the original doesn’t reference gingerbread specifically, the Brothers Grimm‘s “Hansel and Gretel” told the story of two children who are left to starve by their poor, hungry parents, then enticed and imprisoned by a wicked witch in a house “built of bread and covered with cakes.”

 

After the Grimms published the tale in 1812, building gingerbread houses became a popular pastime in Germany. Food historians debate whether the Grimms’ story simply drew on gingerbread houses that were already popular, or whether it gave people the idea in the first place, but it certainly seems that constructing gingerbread houses became a widespread activity among Germans right around the time the Grimms began publishing their bestsellers.

 

 

By then, of course, gingerbread was already associated with Christmas. And nobody celebrates Christmas like the Germans, who pioneered everything from Christmas presents to Christmas trees to some of the most popular carols.

 

In the 19th century, many gingerbread house-making Germans, armed with their favorite holiday traditions, moved to the United States in multiple waves of immigration. The opera “Hänsel and Gretel” by Engelbert Humperdinck, which premiered in Germany in 1893 and in the U.S. two years later, featured a gingerbread house that may also have increased the popularity of the confectionery construction.

 

By 1909, Good Housekeeping was suggesting that moms make a “Jack Horner pie” (the term was used as a catch-all for any pastry that had goodies inside) featuring a miniature gingerbread house for a Hansel and Gretel children’s party. And with each Christmas, more elaborate gingerbread creations could be found.

 

These days, gingerbread structures are so popular that many become tourist destinations, as in the case of a three-ton gingerbread village built each year by a New York chef. And next time you see one, you might want to remember its convoluted history—one that belies its sugar-sweet looks.

 

 

Source: The Not-So-Grimm Story of Gingerbread Houses

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - COAL FOR THE NAUGHTY CHILDREN

Did you know.... The origins of the classic “gift” for those who made the naughty list are murky. 

 

The tradition of giving misbehaving children lumps of fossil fuel predates the Santa we know, and is also associated with St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas, and Italy’s La Befana. Though there doesn’t seem to be one specific legend or history about any of these figures that gives a concrete reason for doling out coal specifically, the common thread between all of them seems to be convenience.

 

Santa and La Befana both get into people’s homes via the fireplace chimney and leave gifts in stockings hung from the mantel. Sinterklaas’s controversial assistant, Black Pete, also comes down the chimney and places gifts in shoes left out near the fireplace. St. Nick used to come in the window, and then switched to the chimney when they became common in Europe. Like Sinterklaas, his presents are traditionally slipped into shoes sitting by the fire.

 

So, let’s step into the speculation zone: All of these characters are tied to the fireplace. When filling the stockings or the shoes, the holiday gift givers sometimes run into a kid who doesn’t deserve a present. So to send a message and encourage better behavior next year, they leave something less desirable than the usual toys, money, or candy—and the fireplace would seem to make an easy and obvious source of non-presents. All the individual would need to do is reach down into the fireplace and grab a lump of coal. (While many people think of fireplaces burning wood logs, coal-fired ones were very common during the 19th and early 20th centuries, which is when the American Santa mythos was being established.)

 

That said, with the exception of Santa, none of these characters limits himself to coal when it comes to bad kids. They’ve also been said to leave bundles of twigs or sticks, bags of salt, garlic, and onions, which suggests that they’re less reluctant than Santa to haul their bad kid gifts around all night in addition to the good presents.

 

 

Source: Why Does Santa Claus Give Coal to Bad Kids?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - PRESIDENTIAL PARDON

Did you know... Supreme Court justices have considered the issue at least three times.

 

At the end of their term in office, U.S. presidents often issue pardons to people convicted of various offenses. Most recipients are grateful that their crimes are forgiven—but what would happen if the person being offered the pardon declined it altogether? Is such a thing even possible, or does the pardoned individual have no choice in the matter?

 

Presidential pardons are different from presidential commutations. Speaking with ABC News, Randy Barnett, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said that “pardon is an ‘executive forgiveness of crime’; commutation is an ‘executive lowering of the penalty.’” And whether a recipient can refuse a pardon depends on that distinction, as seen in three Supreme Court cases examining the issue.

 

United States v. Wilson
George Wilson and co-conspirator James Porter were both sentenced to death on May 27, 1830, after being convicted of robbing a U.S. postal worker and putting the carrier’s life in jeopardy. Porter was executed just over a month later, but President Andrew Jackson decided to pardon Wilson for the death penalty charge on the understanding that he had yet to be sentenced for other crimes (for which he was looking at a minimum of 20 years). For some reason, Wilson waived the pardon, possibly because of confusion about which case he was being tried for at the time and which cases the pardon was for.

 

The Supreme Court heard the case of the United States v. George Wilson in 1833. It ruled “a pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him.” Whether Wilson was eventually executed has been lost to time.

 

Burdick v. United States
The right to refuse a pardon was affirmed in 1915. George Burdick, city editor of the New York Tribune, refused to testify regarding sources for articles on alleged customs fraud by invoking his Fifth Amendment rights [PDF]. President Woodrow Wilson then gave a pardon to Burdick, protecting him from any charge with which he might incriminate himself during his testimony. The idea behind the pardon was to force Burdick to testify, under the theory that he could no longer be convicted for any acts he may reveal. But Burdick rejected the pardon because he believed acceptance entailed an implicit admission of guilt. He continued to invoke his rights and was found guilty of contempt.

 

The Supreme Court ruled in Burdick v. United States that the editor was within his rights to refuse the pardon, and therefore could assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

 

Biddle v. Perovich
Another ruling added a new wrinkle to the pardoning issue. In 1905, Vuco Perovich was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by hanging, which President William Howard Taft commuted to a sentence of life imprisonment a few years later. Perovich was then transferred from Alaska to Washington and later to Leavenworth. Perovich eventually filed an application for writ of habeas corpus, claiming that his commutation was issued without his consent. The Supreme Court ruled in 1927 that “a presidential commutation of a death sentence to life imprisonment was held effective without an inmate’s consent,” Fordham University law professor John D. Feerick wrote [PDF].

 

In the U.S. Constitution Annotated, legal scholars interpret the Perovich ruling as indicating “that by substituting a commutation order for a deed of pardon, a president can always have his way in such matters, provided the substituted penalty is authorized by law and does not in common understanding exceed the original penalty.”

 

In other words, you may be able to refuse a pardon, but not a commutation.

 

 

Source: Can a Person Refuse a Presidential Pardon?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - WINTER SOLSTICE

Did you know... Earth is unique among planets in our solar system in a number of ways — a habitable atmosphere being chief among them. But when it comes to solstices, Earth is just one in a crowd. The winter and summer solstices represent the shortest and longest days of the year, respectively. Because of the Earth’s 23.5-degree axial tilt, certain parts of the planet lean toward or away from the sun, which creates the seasons. It’s during the solstices (December 21 to 22 and June 20 to 22) that the planet reaches its maximum tilt away (or toward) the sun, depending on the hemisphere you call home. 

 

Solstices also take place on other planets, but not quite in the same way. Both Mercury and Venus have little axial tilt, so they don’t experience seasons as Earth does. Mars, however, has a very similar tilt to Earth at 25 degrees, and the planet’s ice cap will grow and recede according to the seasons. Although Jupiter has a minuscule axial tilt, Saturn’s axial tilt at 26.7 degrees means solstices there are truly something to behold — during the planet’s summer solstices, its rings become intensely illuminated as they reflect the sun’s light. 

 

However, Uranus is the true oddity. With an axial tilt of a whopping 98 degrees, the planet’s poles point directly toward the sun during its solstices. When Voyager 2 took images of the planet in 1986, Uranus was experiencing its southern hemisphere’s summer solstice, with that hemisphere bathed in continuous light while its northern hemisphere was trapped in frozen darkness. So although all planets have solstices, no two are exactly alike — and Earth’s remain something special.

 

Earth likely has an axial tilt because it smashed into an ancient planet.
When planets were forming in the early solar system some 4.6 billion years ago, things were a bit chaotic. Constant collisions with asteroids and protoplanets kept the rocky worlds in the inner solar system in a constant molten state. One theory suggests that during this period, a protoplanet the size of Mars (named Theia) smashed into Earth. This cataclysmic event likely formed the moon and also knocked the Earth into its current axial tilt. Despite this happening so long ago, possible evidence of the collision may lie in Earth’s geology. In 2021, scientists documented two continent-sized layers of rock in the Earth’s mantle that looked unlike surrounding rock layers; the researchers suggested this rock could be the ancient remains of the protoplanet Theia. So next time you’re enjoying a beautiful summer day or a dazzling moonlit night, give thanks to the 4.6 billion-year-old protoplanet that met its molten fate and created the Earth we know and love today.

 

 

Source: Every planet has a winter solstice.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CHRISTMAS TREE FLOCKING

Did you know..... Those evergreens didn’t get coated with all that white stuff for no reason—or by accident.

 

Of the many curious holiday traditions—figgy pudding and wassailing counted among them—one of the oddest has to be spraying down small trees with a mixture of adhesive and cellulose fibers to satisfy our longing for a white Christmas.

 

That’s what’s happening when you adorn a tree with artificial snow, otherwise known as flocking. And yet, when it’s decorated and lit up, there’s something beautiful and warmly nostalgic about a well-flocked Christmas tree. Here’s how professionals manufacture this Christmas miracle.  

 

The History of Flocking
We’ve been trying to get that snowy look on Christmas trees for longer than you might think, dating back to the 1800s using substances like flour or cotton. A 1929 issue of Popular Mechanics recommended varnish, corn starch, and flakes of the silicate mineral mica. 

 

But tree flocking as we know it really caught on in the late 1950s and 1960s, along with aluminum trees and other glitzy (if not natural-looking) decor of the post-war boom. General Mills marketed Sno-Flok home kits, to be applied using a gun that attached to a vacuum cleaner.

 

Such home kits are not so popular these days, according to Tom Leonard, owner of Peak Seasons, one of the country’s largest manufacturers of Christmas tree lot supplies and tree flock. Flocking itself, however, has retained a level of appeal. “Sunbelt states use a lot of it because there’s no snow there,” Leonard told Mental Floss in 2019. “It’s tremendously popular. The West Coast, the South, and the Southeast, the vast majority of it is sold in those zones.”

 

The Science Behind Flocking
So what exactly is flocking? At its core, flocking means attaching tiny fibers to a surface to create texture (the process is also used in fashion, home decor, and crafts). The Peak Seasons recipe includes paper pulp as fiber, corn starch as adhesive, and boron as a flame retardant—there’s a safety benefit to flocking.

 

 

And the company makes a lot of it. Leonard says they're the largest manufacturer of flock in the United States and Europe. “I don’t want to share , but we sell lots of flock. I mean truckloads and truckloads.”

 

Based in sunny Riverside, California, Peak Seasons starts with paper and a grinder. “It’s like a big roll of toilet paper and it weighs a ton and you feed it into a machine and it comes out a powder,” Leonard says. The exception is certain bright colors—flock comes in white, black, pink, ice blue, royal blue, red, green, gold, and purple—which require cotton fibers instead of paper to hold the dye. The final product is almost like baby powder, shipped all over the country in large, cement-bag-sized bags.

 

From there you need to affix the stuff in a nice even coat, which is where flock machines like the Mighty Sno-Blower come in. They’re basically big tanks that hold varying amounts of flock depending on the model, plus a mechanism at the bottom to fluff up the powder. The machine then pumps the powder through a hose, and a gun at the end mixes it with a mist of water.

 

And that’s how flock is born.

 

The Art of Flocking
You don’t have to go with a professional flocker, or even use manufactured flock. There are all sorts of DIY recipes that include things like soap flakes or even desiccated coconut flakes. But if you do go pro, you want to be in the hands of someone like Paul Iantosca, who flocked trees in the Boston area for over 20 years.

 

Flocking one tree in bright purple (white is still most popular), Iantosca first sprays it down with water. Then, in an area closed off with plastic sheeting, he fires up the blower and blasts the tree evenly with what looks like a purple fog. The stuff gets everywhere. He wears a mask to keep it out of his nose, but some high-volume flockers wear full protective coveralls.

 

The tricky part to flocking is that you can’t tell if you got it right until it dries. When it goes on, it’s cold and wet like paste. But as it dries, the Christmas magic kicks in and it puffs up, turning into fluffy white (or, in this case, purple) fuzz firmly affixed to the needles.

 

There are, of course, pitfalls. Not enough water, and the flocking falls off and makes a huge mess. A flocked tree can’t get wet a second time. “It won’t dry again. It’s disgusting actually,” Iantosca says. Also, when you flock a tree, the color highlights its flaws. A janky tree turns into a weird, uneven shrub.

 

But if you get it right and string it up with lights, you’ve got a real stunner on your hands. Iantosca flocked trees for his own home for 10 years and his kids won’t let him go back.

 

“When you plug that thing in, it absolutely glows inside," he says. “It’s unbelievable.”

 

Source: What Exactly is Christmas Tree Flocking?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - SNOWMEN

Did you know... Do you wanna (learn the history of why we like to) build a snowman?

 

As winter settles in, there’s one expected sight in places lucky enough to see snow—snowmen. From children decorating them with hats and carrot noses to giant sculptures of fan-favorite characters, where there is snow, there will be snowmen. There’s even a competition show based around building the most impressive frosty structures. 

 

But why do we build snowmen specifically? (Or snowwomen, if that’s more to your taste.) What compels us to mold snow into our image? The answer is more varied and steeped in history than you might think.

 

Snowmen as Self-Expression
“Man has always had that primal instinct to make selfies. We love ourselves!” Bob Eckstein, a writer and cartoonist who spent seven years searching for the earliest depiction of a snowman, told the BBC. In his book The History of the Snowman, he shares details of a sketch found in the margins of a Christian prayer book from 1380. He theorizes that the reasons behind snow art may be narcissistic in nature: “Centuries ago, building snowmen was a chance for people to express themselves, with free art supplies dropping from the sky in front of their doorstep… It may be the only chance for someone to make a life-size statue of themselves,” he said.

 

As this is a doodle in an unrelated book rather than a diagram in a snowman-specific text, it suggests that snowmen may have been created even further back than 1380, as they were well-known enough for someone to draw one passively. However, with snow melting and snowmen disappearing in the spring, these ancient creations are lost to time.

 

From Protest to Whimsical Winter Tradition
Records of snowmen being used as tools in conflict, however, are more well documented. “The Miracle of 1511” was a retaliatory protest conducted by the peasants of Brussels against the ruling House of Habsburg. Social unrest, wealth gaps, and a “Winter of Death” in which temperatures remained below freezing for six straight weeks fueled the creation of approximately 110 lewd and satirical snowmen that littered the city. These acted both as a way to show the people’s true feelings and provided a spark of joy in an otherwise bleak and turbulent time. 

 

As time has passed, snowmen have taken on a much more whimsical nature and become part of many winter traditions. Zürich, for example, holds a spring festival called Sechseläuten every year. The festival, which dates back to the 16th century, acts as the Swiss version of Groundhog Day and ends with the burning of a snowman effigy known as the Böögg. (The term is believed to have its roots in the English word boogeyman.) When it burns, the head of the fake snowman eventually explodes, and it’s thought that the faster this happens, the better summer will be. Anything over 15 minutes is considered bad luck.

 

Snowmen have always been synonymous with humanity; they have acted as a reflection of us—our politics, our battles, our family, and our holidays—for as long as snow has fallen and will likely continue to for years to come.

 

 

Source: Why Do We Build Snowmen?

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - FAMOUS CHRISTMAS POEM

Did you know... Clement Clarke Moore is widely believed to be the author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas”—the world-famous poem beginning with the line, “‘Twas the night before Christmas.” But the Livingston family of New York begs to differ.

 

More than 200 years after “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was published in New York’s Troy Sentinel, we still don’t know who really wrote it.

 

When it first appeared in the newspaper on December 23, 1823, there was no author attached. It wasn't until 13 years later that Clement Clarke Moore, a professor at New York City’s General Theological Seminary, was named as the poet. A story emerged that a housekeeper, without Moore’s knowledge, had sent the piece—which he had written for his kids—to the newspaper, and in 1844, the poem was officially included in an anthology of Moore’s work.

 

The problem? The family of the poet Henry Livingston, Jr., claimed their father had been reciting “A Visit From St. Nicholas” to them for 15 years before it was published. Here's the view from both sides.

 

The Livingston Case
Henry Beekman Livingston’s Dutch ancestry is a key component in this mystery. His mother’s family was Dutch, and many references in the poem are as well. For example, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” gave the now-familiar names to Santa’s reindeer—there seems to be no reference to their names prior to the poem. A couple of the names have changed slightly over the years; instead of Donner and Blitzen, the final two reindeer were called Dunder and Blixem, Dutch for “thunder” and “lightning.” (In modern Dutch the words are spelled donder and bliksem).

 

According to this hypothesis, Blixem became Blixen to better rhyme with Vixen, and then, in 1844, Moore changed it to the German-esque Blitzen (the actual German word for “lightning” is blitz). Dunder morphed into Donder and then, in the early 20th century, to Donner (German for ”thunder”). Moore’s proponents suggest that the original editor of the poem may have altered the names to better fit a pseudo-Dutch framework, and that Moore simply changed them back to the original German spellings.

 

Another piece of evidence against Moore’s authorship is that at least four of Livingston’s children and even a young neighbor said they remembered Livingston telling them the tale of St. Nick as early as 1807. They even produced a dated, handwritten copy of the original poem with revisions and scratch marks throughout. Unfortunately, the house containing the manuscript burned down, taking the Livingston family’s proof with it.

 

When a professor from Vassar College analyzed poetry by both authors, he declared that there was virtually no way Moore could have written “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” The professor alleged the style of the Christmas favorite was completely different, both structurally and in content, from anything else Moore had ever written. But the anapestic meter—a style of verse that stresses every third syllable—of the poem matched up with Livingston’s other work perfectly.

 

In 2016, former University of Auckland professor MacDonald P. Jackson applied complex statistical analysis to works by both authors. He found that “if we did not know whether the poems in Moore’s manuscript notebook were by him or by Livingston, our full range of tests would, in combination, categorize every one of them as much more probably Moore’s. In this they contrast sharply with ‘The Night Before Christmas,’ which is consistently associated more closely with Livingston.”

 

The Moore camp often argues that these studies are constructed in ways that discount Moore, especially through ignoring his poems like “The Pig & The Rooster,” which has an anapestic meter.

 

The Moore Case
Aside from the fact that Moore stepped forward to take credit for the poem, another clue that may point to his authorship is his friendliness with the writer Washington Irving.

 

In Irving’s A History of New York, he referred to St. Nick as “riding over the tops of the trees in that self-same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children.” And, “when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe, he twisted it in his hatband, and laying his finger beside his nose,” he got in his wagon and disappeared.

 

Familiar, right? Moore’s relationship with Irving—author of Rip Van Winkle and the creator of the literary character Diedrich Knickerbocker, among other cultural contributions—may help explain some of the Dutch references in the poem.

 

To this day, however, it’s one family’s word against the other’s. Clement Clarke Moore usually gets the credit for the Christmas classic, and it will likely remain that way unless Livingston’s descendants can prove otherwise.

 

Source: The Mysterious Origins of the World’s Most Famous Christmas Poem

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - WRAPPING PAPER

Did you know.... Here’s how to handle that post-Christmas morning mess.

 

As the pile of wrapping paper grows on the living room floor, the annual holiday-morning question inevitably arises: What do we do with all this? Does it all have to go straight into the trash? Can wrapping paper be recycled? What about this sparkly stuff? Does it matter that it has tape on it? This year, your holiday doesn’t need to be interrupted by a disposal debate. We’re here with the answers.

 

It’s tempting to assume the answer to the recycling question is in the name itself: It’s wrapping paper, after all. Surely it can join the rest of your cardboard boxes and junk mail in the recycling bin? As you may have guessed, however, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

 

Paper vs. “Paper”
The truth is, a lot of wrapping “paper” on the market isn’t actually paper at all. Metallic, glittery, and see-through papers are all at least partially plastic, meaning they can’t be remade into other paper products. Even some wrapping paper that is pure paper isn’t worth putting in the bin. Super thin wrapping paper, for example, doesn’t contain enough of the quality fibers extracted during the recycling process.

 

But it’s not all bad news! Regular matte paper (even if it’s colorful) can be recycled, no problem. If you want to make sure your wrapping paper is recyclable, just put it through the scrunch test, which works just the way you’d think it would: Crumple a piece of the wrapping paper in question. If it stays scrunched, it’s good to recycle. If it springs back flat, it has to go in the trash.

 

Dealing With the Rest of it
What about the rest of the pile of discarded wrapping materials? Tissue paper is best placed in the compost, while you can approach gift bags the same way you would paper (just make sure you take off the handles). Bows, ribbons, and tape should all stay out of the recycling bin. 

 

Reuse What You Can
The best thing to do with your discarded wrapping paper and assorted accoutrements is to reuse whatever you can! Sturdy wrapping paper that hasn’t been ripped can be folded up and used again next year. Bows and nice ribbons, too, are easily stowed and reused. Alternatively, you can turn to more sustainable wrapping alternatives like newspapers, fabric, boxes, and reusable bags.

 

When in Doubt, Throw it Out
Whatever you do, don’t fall into the trap of “wishcycling”—a.k.a. erring on the side of assuming things are recyclable because you figure it’s worth a try. Despite our best intentions, this kind of pitch-and-hope mentality can cause headaches for your recycling company and interfere with the process. Brent Bell, the VP of recycling operations at Waste Management, told Mother Jones in 2019 that a quarter of the material they receive is garbage that has to be extracted and thrown away. So, if you’re not sure whether a sheet of wrapping paper can be recycled, do the (admittedly counter-intuitive) ecologically safe thing: Put it in the trash.

 

 

Source: How to Properly Dispose of Wrapping Paper

Edited December 25, 2024 by DarkRavie