Yesterday, we delved into the seventeenth-century origins of Father Christmas as a figure associated with revelry and tradition. Here we could see the modern idea of Father Christmas beginning to emerge. But the red robes, the reindeer, and the sleigh had yet to materialise – partly because ‘Father Christmas’ and ‘Santa Claus’ were still viewed … Read more
Father Christmas, we revealed yesterday, was J. R. R. Tolkien. But he had also been knocking about for several centuries before the author of The Hobbit wrote down his adventures. Indeed, the merry fellow first turns up in literature in the age of Shakespeare, as a character in a play – and he is the … Read more
Yesterday’s advent calendar nugget, or interesting literature fact pertaining to Christmas, looked at what connects The Hobbit with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (and pondered that age-old philosophical question of whether Santa Claus is a jerk). Today’s interesting Christmas-themed literature-related fact continues this hobbity theme, but also continues the Santa theme. Did you know that J. R. … Read more
Yesterday, we looked at Jean-Paul Sartre’s first play, and what was unexpected and Christmassy about it. That yielded us a surprising Christmas-themed literature fact concerning Sartre. Sartre is famous for, among other things, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964 but refusing it. (Sartre said that ‘a writer should not allow himself to … Read more
Yesterday we had a Christmas nativity fact, concerning the curious origins of T. S. Eliot’s Christmas poem ‘Journey of the Magi’. Today, another nativity story, but this time, concerning a perhaps unlikely nativity play. For today’s pick of our favourite Christmas facts we’re moving forward from Eliot’s poem written in the 1920s, to the dark … Read more