Santa Claus Collection '09

Here are a few photos of the Santa Claus collection for Christmas 2009:

These Guys Must Believe!

A few days ago I heard a brief news item about the 51st Annual World Santa Claus Congress. This is an international gathering of the representatives of Santa Claus from a number of countries around the world. They have been meeting annually for more than 50 years. Why that's almost as many years as I have seen! Why haven't I heard about this yet? It seems Santa Claus is gathering his representatives from around the world at an amusement park in Copenhagen, Denmark. This 3 day event attracts Santas from countries as far away from Denmark as Russia, the United States, and Japan. As this event seems to have grown from a local Summer Festival, most of these Santas have come from a number of the Scandinavian Countries. Most of the news stories covering this event were dated Monday, July 21, 2008 and the festival went through Wednesday. Santa took this opportunity to practice some of his Christmas Holiday skills such as belly shaking chuckles and Christmas tree decorating. The Santas were also able to discuss some of the more important issues facing Santa Claus today like “How do we get into people’s homes when there are no chimneys?" asks Fred Rootveld, a Dutch Sinterklaas. For more information about Santa Claus and this important news item you may follow some of the following links:

Reuters India

ABC News

Washington Post

USA Today

For more information about Scandinavia you may follow this link:

Scandinavian Tourist Boards

Now you know how Santa Claus spends his summer vacation! Please remember that Santa has given at least a portion of his summer vacation time to help prepare himself for making your Christmas Holiday a more cheerful and memorable occasion.

Santa, I Believe

Santa Claus goes by numerous names in popular western culture. Some know this popular historical and legendary figure as Saint Nicholas or more simply as Saint Nick. For others he goes by the name of Kris Kringle. Some people refer to him as Father Christmas. Still more prefer to use the simplest title of Santa. Whichever name or title you prefer; he is the same bringer of gifts to all at the Christmas Holiday Season. Some traditions have him bringing the Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve while some have the traditional delivery of gifts on Christmas Day, December 25th. For a few the gift delivery day is December 6th, his feast day. December 6th is the date of the death of Saint Nicholas in 343. The early roots of the Santa Claus legend stems from the story of Saint Nicholas. I will return to cover the topic of Hagiography (the study of Saints) for Saint Nicholas in a future blog post.

Santa Claus is popularly depicted as a jolly, fat man wearing a red suit and hat with white fur trim and a black leather belt and boots. He lives at the North Pole and flies out around the world in a sleigh pulled by reindeer and delivering gifts to all of the world’s children and to all who are young at heart and Believe!

I Believe, Do You?