ASLaN

ASLAN is back on the warpath

2009-10-30T06:52:00.000-07:00

As the "holiday" where folks in the USA spend second only to Christmas...that would be Halloween....is almost here and gone, Santa Inc. is going to start racheting-up the perverts (that is a perverted advertisement, in the sense of continuing the perversion of Advent). This means that ASLAN is on the move again, protecting kiddies and their parents from the crush of the Santa Machine.

Vote for Me! Santa Loves Me!

2009-10-30T06:48:00.000-07:00

This from a San Francisco Examiner (USA) blog. Santa corrupting politics?

Ann Keighran in Burlingame has a prominent photo with Santa Claus. How can you feel negative about someone who pals around with Saint Nick? Not to be outdone, George Muteff (Half Moon Bay) can be found with his arm around Kermit The Frog, although one wonders how many four year olds will make their way to the ballot box in November.

ASLAN & Dead Poets

2009-05-29T19:22:00.001-07:00

ASLAN founder is taking a three-month hiatus on his search for Dead Poets.

Henry Livingston is on the list of the Dead Poets Society of America Grand Tour 2009.

Here is the map of the 6,000 + mile journey. Follow along and come for a visit if we swing by your neighborhood.

Washington Irving is on the B-list, as he wasn't exactly a poet, but he is culpable in helping to introduce the Santa Cult into American culture.

James Pierpont, the author of Jingle Bells is also one grave we wish to visit.

A Slew of Santas Descendingon Demre in December

2009-05-07T06:31:00.000-07:00

ANTALYA - Demre will welcome 15,000 people dressed as Santa Claus in December with a project titled "Santa Back to His Homeland," a local travel agency has said.

According to the project created by Recep Yavuz, the general manager of Öger Tour, 15,000 people will be walking in the Antalya district on Dec. 6, the assumed birth date of Santa Claus.

Demre is famous for its St. Nicholas Church, named after the saint who is believed to be Santa Claus.

"St. Nicholas spread the feeling of helping people, and the tradition of giving and taking presents," said Yavuz. "He lived for 75 years in Demre and became a symbol of being good to people."

Yavuz added that similar projects were held abroad. In 2005, there was a similar parade in Hungary, where 4,300 people participated, while the following year it was held in Las Vegas with 8,000 people. A total of 12,000 people dressed as Santa Claus walked in Ireland in 2007, and 14,000 were present in a similar parade in Portugal last year.

If the project comes to life, a predicted 15,000 people will walk for one and a half kilometers in Demre in next December.

Joyous Noel

2008-12-24T15:00:00.001-08:00

Joyous Noel to all the world,
from the folks at ASLAN.

Kick Santa's Butt!

2008-12-20T14:49:00.000-08:00

This testimonial from an excited Mother. Capture the Magic has captured her 10 bucks for a picture of Santa's BUTT.

Carol M., Boise, ID:

My kids are going to do backflips. Ever since they’ve heard about Santa they’ve asked us to take a picture of him. I really like the fact that I can create a photo that doesn't show Santa's face, so we can leave something to the imagination. They will love this, and so will my husband. I’m not going to tell him I’m doing this! It will be such a big surprise for him too!

Capture the Thief

2008-12-20T14:44:00.000-08:00

Yo, Dude! Come back with the loot!

$9.99 for a fat red lie

2008-12-20T14:31:00.000-08:00

Santa Inc. rolls on, in big and small ways.
Noted in the Chicago Tribune:

A new website, www.CaptureTheMagic.com, allows you to create photos that prove beyond a doubt that jolly old St. Nick really did visit your home on Christmas Eve.

The process is simple. The result, says company spokesman Rob Weingarten, is magical.

Until I actually saw this, I was skeptical myself," he says. "But if you can upload a picture, you can produce a photo of Santa putting presents under the tree in your family room or eating cookies or standing by your fireplace. You can put him in your driveway or on your deck or at your front door. As long as you have a picture of the space, you can put Santa into it. Kids are blown away, and adults are pretty impressed as well."

The website features Santa in more than 200 sizes and poses, including standing, sitting, kneeling and even as a blur in motion, and offers tips for achieving the best results. CaptureTheMagic.com charges $9.99 for the first picture and 99 cents for additional copies.

Once the Christmas holidays are over, the company plans to turn its lens on other childhood mythic figures.

Twain on Christmas Dread

2008-12-20T14:14:00.000-08:00

Like C.S. Lewis, Belschnickle, and many other writers, Mark Twain noted the wrongs of the annual Christmas rites. As the article in the Hartford Courants points out,

"Twain himself was of two minds on the holiday. On one hand, he wrote long letters to his daughters in the persona of St. Nick and spoke of a season of joy and peace in a letter to his wife.:

Though his wealthy family seems to have enjoyed Christmas very much, the sarcastic writer had this to say of the holiday:

"The approach of Christmas brings harassment and dread to many excellent people," he wrote. "They have to buy a cart-load of presents, and they never know what to buy to hit the various tastes; they put in three weeks of hard and anxious work, and when Christmas morning comes they are so dissatisfied with the result, and so disappointed that they want to sit down and cry. Then they give thanks that Christmas comes but once a year."

A Twain House Christmas

2008-12-20T14:05:00.000-08:00

Mark Twain House dining room
(RICHARD MESSINA / HARTFORD COURANT / December 16, 2008)

Here is what the Twain family may have sat down to eat for a Christmas feast. It is part of an exhibit at the Twain House, in Hartford, CT. From the Twain House website:

Twains 19-room mansion, resplendent with Tiffany interiors, will be adorned as it was for holiday celebrations from 1874 to 1891, when the author, his wife and their three daughters lived in the house....
The curatorial staff of The Mark Twain House has extensively researched holiday traditions of the Victorian period to give visitors a true representation of the late 1800s and the family of Sam Clemens.
The house is decorated according to information gleaned from Clemens family letters and memorabilia, including receipts for everything from food and gifts to ribbons and wreaths, presenting not just a beautifully decorated Victorian house, but also a glimpse at how the family celebrated the season.
Children and adults alike will find reminders of Christmas past throughout the house. There are baskets overflowing with gifts for friends and neighbors, as prepared by Mrs. Clemens, who made up at least 50 such baskets for the poor each holiday season. The dining room table is set for a traditional Christmas dinner. In the entry hall, a "kissing ball" of mistletoe dangles overhead, and the homes massive staircase is wreathed in garlands and ribbons. Gifts in various stages of wrapping are placed in bedrooms and the children's schoolroom on the second floor.
"Traditionally Christmas trees in the late nineteenth-century were decorated with both store-bought and hand-made ornaments. The tree on display, complete with hand-strung popcorn and cranberries, reflects the true Christmas tree of that period," said Patti Philippon, Chief Curator. Gifts found beneath the tree are

Beautiful Nicholas Art - Icons

2008-12-10T17:49:00.000-08:00

Doing a Google image search brings up over 1 million St. Nicholas results (most of them churches) Here are some lovely images of the kind you will find if you search there.

Disbelivers?

2008-12-09T17:12:00.000-08:00

Here is a woman of faith with a good perspective on Santa. Obviously, anyone who has read this blog knows I would not place Santa a distant third in the hierarchy of Xmas players, but ASLaN has a big tent. If the media would only search, I believe they would find MANY more disbelievers in the Santa charade: Sue Metzger writes:

I did imagine occasionally that there might be a Santa. My mind would wander to spectacular gifts I wanted that realistically were never going to show up. Anyone can dream. However, even if Santa were real, he had responsibilities that extended far beyond me .

Other children needed him more - poor kids whose hopes seemed to hang on a miracle, seriously ill and dying children who needed something extra to believe in, youngsters who lived in households with physical and emotional abuse. Santa could keep very busy filling just those stockings.

If there really was a Santa and I was offending him with my disbelief, he surely would forgive. After all, I was just an average kid lucky to have a dad and mom to provide a pleasurable if modestly reasonable Christmas. What's wrong with that?

With my children, I followed my mother's lead, neither promoting Santa nor humbugging him. Having written about this in times past, I have been strongly criticized for being a Scrooge in the Santa department. I don't mind. I wish more young children could know who actually provides the joys of Christmas morning. St. Nick is not even the "second banana."

Behind Jesus Christ and loving parents, Santa runs a distant third.

Rooted in Nicholas

2008-12-08T17:28:00.000-08:00

From an article from Youngstown, Ohio. It is the last line in the excerpt that caught my attention :

The fifth annual event held Saturday included a shortened version of a regular service, a skit in which Bill Dick of Youngstown portrayed St. Nicholas, and a party for kids.

In keeping with Dutch tradition, the children in attendance left shoes or boots filled with carrots by the fireplace, in hopes that St. Nicholas would fill them with treats during the service. The carrots are for his horse.

They have wooden shoes they set out for St. Nicholas each year, said Sarah Durham, Canfield. She celebrated the day as a child and continues the tradition with her 6-year-old twins, Beth and Kate.

Beth said she got chocolate and a licorice pipe last year. Both girls were excited to see St. Nicholas at the event.

“It’s a great time,” the Rev. Mr. Marshall said. “It’s a very nice early advent alternative to what can become the craziness of this season and absolute rootlessness in relation to what is this Santa Claus figure. It’s nice to have roots.”

2008-12-07T18:00:00.000-08:00

Der Speigel has an article on Krampus:

In Austria, Santa keeps track of who's been naughty and nice -- and unleases a 7-foot-tall horned devil on the naughty. He's called the Krampus, and he's unlike any Christmas tradition you've ever seen.

Santa's all well and good, but darker things have always lurked in Austria's woods. Take the Krampus, a towering, hairy creature with a long, long tongue, goat's head and horns and cloven feet. Krampus is no dancing Greek satyr. Instead, he roams rural Austria clad in chains and carrying a stick, terrifying misbehaving children on Dec. 5, the night before St. Nicholas' Day.

Depending on who you believe, Krampus is very old indeed. Some say the tradition stems back to the pre-Christian era, and that the Krampus known and feared by Austrians today is a version of an ancient god incorporated into Christian holidays.

Why is Santa a Fraud?

2008-12-06T18:48:00.000-08:00

An ASLAN fan asks "Why is Santa a fraud?"

An editorial this week by Bob Beltz briefly surveys the history of St. Nicholas, and ends with this:

In malls and shopping centers across America, this is the caricature imitated by a small army of fat men, wearing fake beards and strange outfits, who in reality are guilty of falsely impersonating a fourth century Turkish Bishop. So, this Christmas, if you have children who ask the question, “Mom/Dad, is there really a Santa Claus?” Maybe you could answer the question by telling them the story of the real St. Nick.

It is not so much economic fraud (gift-giving is a Divine characteristic), but the historical and cultural fraud of the absurd species Santus Americanus. Even though folks who use Santa to promote good things for needy people have righteous intentions, Santa has turned into a charlatan and a deceiver.

Iffelen from Austria

2008-12-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

Villagers dance with their "iffelen", which are artfully designed giant mitres lit by candles from within, through the village of Kuessnacht am Rigi on the shores of Lake Lucerne during the traditional "Klausjagen" procession December 5, 2008. The ancient custom of "Klausjagen", or St. Nicholas hunt, where villagers accompany St. Nicholas through the village, is a cross between a Christian celebration and a pagan rite and goes back to the middle ages.

REUTERS/Michael Buholzer (SWITZERLAND)

KRAMPUS (is weird)

2008-12-06T14:09:00.000-08:00

A man dressed as a Krampus, the companion of St. Nicholas and one of Austria's unique Advent traditions, is seen during a traditional Krampus procession in the city of Unken in Salzburg province on Friday, Dec. 5, 2008.

(AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson)

Nick & Tannenbaum

2008-12-06T14:08:00.000-08:00

A man dressed as Saint Nicholas stands beside an illuminated Christmas tree in the city center of Hamburg December 6, 2008. REUTERS/Christian Charisius (GERMANY)

Joyous Saint Nicholas Day 2008

2008-12-06T07:35:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

St. Nicholas is being remembered and revered around the globe today.Like ASLAN, Nick is on the move!
Shalom,

Hope to post more this season. Belschnickle

Joyous St. Nicholas Day!

2007-12-05T16:56:00.001-08:00

Happy St. Nicholas Day.

Shalom, From ASLaN

(image from Der Nikolaus)

Anti-Claus Contest Submission Guidelines

2007-12-05T15:33:00.000-08:00

All you artists and photographers who have had it with Santa, go HERE to see the submission guidelines and great examples of previous anti-Claus artwork.

Great pictures like the one above, from Robert Cenedella, will be the kind of quality that we are looking for in submissions.

You can buy a print of this infamous 1989 painting at Mr. Cendella's website.

Anti-Claus Art Contest LaunchedOn St. Nicholas Day

2007-12-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

ASLaN announced the launching of the First Annual Anti-Claus Art and Photo Competition today. Here are excerpts from the Press Release:

December 6, AD 2007 -- 198 years to-the-day from when Washington Irving began the Americanization of St. Nicholas, the International ASLaN Society has launched an art competition that hopes to eventually knock Santa Claus from his cultural throne.

"We are calling on artists who are seriously sarcastic or sick of the Santamania that breaks out each year to step up and join the resistance in the War on Santa," said Walter Skold, the founder of the Anti-Santa Love Nicholas Society.

"Here is your chance to be the Thomas Nast of the growing anti-Claus movement," he said, referring to the 19^th Century German-American illustrator "whose work helped to convert St. Nicholas from a saint into someone who is now a fat red huckster from Hollywood."

It was almost 200 years ago that Washington Irving created so many of the modern myths associated with the Americanized Santa Claus, when he published Knickerbocker's History of New York, on St. Nicholas Day in 1809.

Submission details and examples of global anti-claus artwork can be found at http://www.aslansoc.org/AntiCPhot07-Details.html

"I Killed Jesus" Xmas Card

2007-12-03T08:35:00.001-08:00

For $30.00 you can buy a signed lithograph by Darren Cullen, the young atheist and anti-capitalist artist whose work was met with censorship in Scotland (See previous post).

Of course, since one of ASLaN's goals is to promote worship of the joyous Christ of the Nativity, we take issue with some of young Darren's sentiments. But, he does share ASLaN goal #1, which is derision and criticism of the Santa Cult.

He write on the website where you can buy his artwork:

“In these abundant and godless times of ours - Santa Claus fills the hole in our calendar once used to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. The 'Son of God' is little more than a footnote in this annual festival of greed. Not that I think we should all go to church and beg forgiveness; as an atheist and an anti-capitalist I believe both can go (Bleep). What I find interesting is the competition between these two gods and the way Western 'Christian' society still manages to maintain belief in one while being openly, orgasmically seduced by the other. Stroll around any of the urban hubs of our civilisation at Christmas and you will be bombarded with flashing signs, LCD screens and billboards declaring the glorious message of our times: Jesus is dead! Long live Santa!”
Darren Cullen, 2006.

Anti-Santa Artwork Censored

2007-12-03T08:16:00.001-08:00

OK, this story is two years old, but it is worth repeating, as this kind of thing happens to people who dare to challenge the Santa Industry.

An art student in Glasgow, Scotland, had his ad pulled because the message did not sit well with others.

Darren Cullen said:

Santa Claus is a lie that teaches kids that products will make them happy.
"Before they're old enough to think for themselves, the story of Santa has already got them hooked on consumerism.
"I think that's more immoral than this billboard."
The environmental art undergraduate said his work is influenced by a four-year stint on advertising courses in Leeds, his home city, and Glasgow.

Whoa, here is a great ASLaN quote from this young artist, now 24:

"But when those consumers were children, instead of Christmas being a celebration of Jesus, who was quite a vocal opponent of materialism and, therefore, a rubbish spokesman for Christmas - they were told about Santa Claus and all the amazing shiny products he was going to bring them, all for free.""But when those consumers were children, instead of Christmas being a celebration of Jesus, who was quite a vocal opponent of materialism and, therefore, a rubbish spokesman for Christmas - they were told about Santa Claus and all the amazing shiny products he was going to bring them, all for free."

St. Nicholas is Coming Soon

2007-12-03T04:35:00.000-08:00

As December 6th approaches, more and more news stories are describing how St. Nicholas is coming to churches and community gatherings all over the US -- and the world!

We'll update this page as the happy Feast Day approaches.

South Bend, IN
Cleveland
Oshkosh, Wisc.