James Cooper
speaker
360 appearances
4 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2020
last heard Dec 2024
James Cooper’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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For most people, the late Victorian period. For the rich, throughout history. Back in pre-Christian times in the Saturnalia festivals, there was an element of gift-giving, but that's sometimes claimed as that's where we get gift-giving from, but it was very different to what we'd think of as gift-giving.
It was more that you would actually give a bit of greenery to someone, which I think if you rocked up with a branch of holly in your hand at someone's house this Christmas, I don't think they'd be particularly happy with it.
um so but i mean certainly royalty um wanted gifts throughout history you know it was a sign of um often your the actual your actual prosperity that you would give gifts to the royals and to people above you to try and win favor that was you you gave gifts to get something in return um you know royal favor and prestige and things it was only when um
commercial printing and commercial goods and toys especially became more widely made in the late Victorian period, that it became a holiday for everyone to exchange presents.
Yeah, well, I mean, the Christmas Carol was published in 1843. So that's five years before the Christmas tree became popular in the UK. So that's why there's no tree mentioned in the book. There is greenery, but it's just hanging around the house and being decorated on top of things like paintings and mirrors and things like that, rather than a big...
sort of centerpiece yeah and there is no gift giving it was a much more quiet celebration and it lasted it started on december the 25th and your christmas celebrations lasted until december the 5th sorry january the 5th which was epiphany eve for the 12 days of christmas that was when you had your christmas
feasting and christmas holidays you had advent before christmas which was a much quieter time and a religious time after the industrial revolution when people were working in factories rather than in out in farms in towns and villages you generally had christmas off but then the bosses wanted you back at work as soon as christmas holiday was over so
You also then started to get what we associate with Christmas now happening in December. But before the sort of mid-1800s, it all happened after Christmas, between Christmas and the start of January.
Sure. Well, the original Santa was a man called Nicholas, and he became St. Nicholas. And that's where we get the name Santa Claus for. That went through a few changes in its own. First of all, Nicholas...
was a bishop who lived in the fourth century in a place called myra in asia minor which is now in turkey back then it was part of greece he was a christian and he was orphaned at a fairly young age but he was very rich and he was known for his generosity and gift giving
And one of the most famous stories about Nicholas is that there was a family in the village that he lived that had three daughters and they were a very poor family and the daughters couldn't afford dowries. So that would basically mean that they couldn't get married. So the daughters would have had to go into prostitution.
So as he was a kind man, Nicholas dropped a bag full of gold either down the chimney or through the window. And if it went down the chimney, it fell into a stocking. And if it goes through the window, it fell into a pair of shoes. And you either get presents now in stockings or shoes, depending on what part of the world you live in. And he did this for the first two daughters.
And the father wondered who was given these kind gifts. And he finally caught up with St. Nicholas and told everybody about his generosity. And the story of St. Nicholas's generosity traveled around Europe, especially northern Europe, into parts of Germany, France, and especially in the Netherlands and Belgium. And St. Nicholas became known as Sinterklaas.
And in the Netherlands and Belgium and other parts of Europe, Sinterklaas is still separate from Santa, even though his name is derived from Sinterklaas, because Sinterklaas came with American settlers and Dutch American settlers over to America and Sinterklaas. English and Irish and other American settlers couldn't pronounce Sinterklaas, so they turned it into Santa Claus.
And then it came back into the rest of the world from America. So it's a very convoluted way that we get the name from St. Nicholas to Santa Claus. But yeah, on the 16th of November this year, Sinterklaas arrived on the Netherlands in his steamboat from Madrid, because Sinterklaas and Santa Claus are two very different people. And kids in
The Netherlands get their big presence on Nicholas Eve, which is the 5th of December. And yes, they believe that Sinterklaas lives in Madrid, not the North Pole.
To less extent than people would think. The modern Santa is American invention. In the early 1800s, There was a poem called And Old Santa Claus with Much Delight was published in a poetry book for children in 1821 in New York. And that had the first illustrations of Santa and a reindeer. And then a couple of years later, in 1823, we have the famous poem, The Visit from St.
Nicholas, or Twas the Night Before Christmas. And that's when we learned about the reindeer. And he was described in that as a jolly old elf. When printing and magazines came along in the later 1800s, especially Harper Collins and things like that, we got the illustrations from Thomas Nast, which developed him into the much chubbier, tubbier, plumpy one that we think of as Santa today.
And back then he wore lots of different colours. But red and white was a good color for printing. It showed out well on magazine stands, which is one of the reasons why we get red and white. And also St. Nicholas wore red and white bishop's robes. So that's the connection goes all the way back to there. Coke picked up that he was already red and white and so used it.
But he was red and white long before Coke came along in the 20s and 30s.
Showing 21–40 of 360 · page 2 of 18
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