Santa Claus rituals
Several rituals have developed around the Santa Claus figure that are normally performed by children hoping to receive gifts from him.
Ho, ho, ho
Ho ho ho is the way that many languages write out how Santa Claus laughs. “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!”
The laughter of Santa Claus has long been an important attribute by which the character is identified, but it also does not appear in many non-English-speaking countries. The traditional Christmas poem A Visit from St. Nicholas relates that Santa has:
- . . . a little round belly
That shook when he laugh’d, like a bowl full of jelly
Ho ho ho represents an attempt to write the deep belly-laugh of Santa Claus, as opposed to the conventional, higher-pitched ha ha that represents the laughter of thinner characters, or the snickering, cynical bwa ha ha! associated with the villains of melodrama.
Jacob Grimm asserts that “Ho ho ho” was the hunting cry of Odin during The Furious Host. Odin being attributal to Santa Claus.
“H0H 0H0” is a postal code used by Canada Post for routing letters sent in Canada to Santa Claus at the North Pole. The alphanumeric sequence falls within a grouping associated with the Montreal, Quebec area.
Santa Claus reindeers’ name
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen are the most commonly cited names of Santa’s eight reindeer. In the original Clement C. Moore poem “The Night Before Christmas”, from which the names of the reindeer came, the reindeer known today as Donner and Blitzen were originally Dunder and Blixem. Dunder was later reprinted as Donder, which developed into Donner; while Blixem quickly became Blixen and then Blitzen.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created for Montgomery Ward in 1939, and has since entered the public consciousness as Santa’s ninth reindeer.
Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses materials from the Wikipedia.
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