https://p.eertu.be/videos/watch/cd571d80-72ef-4c1b-9c93-071fd410ed74 Hello my friends! Here are to Christmas Songs that are popular in America. I don't like either of them. (I am more of a conventry carol type of guy) Let's talk about Jingle Bells, and then let's talk about Santa. In American history, there were a group of folks called "the Pilgrims" who decided to leave Europe and come to America, some for religious freedom, and some because going to the "new World" was like the prehistoric version of bitcoin mining. American;s know a little bit more than that, and it is a very significant event in American history. (Since most of my viewers are not American, I am giving an oversimplified version.) The pilgrim's were split between going up to North America, where the climate matched their own, or going down to South America where the climate was nicer. They eventually decided on North America but had they decided on South America, we wouldn't have Jingle Bells. They had a rough go in New England but did manage to make friends with the local indians. They were thankful to God that they were still alive after all they went through so they had a feast of Thanksgiving, which is where thanksgiving comes from (as I understand) Jingle Bells was written for Thanksgiving not Christmas, so had the Pilgrims decided to go to South America, it would be "hacking through the jungle" instead of "Dashing through the snow" And now for the fun part! Where I crush your beliefs about Santa Claus. First, Santa Claus was a real person, as a matter of fact, we still have his bones. He did not live at the North Pole (as American's believe), nor did he live in Lapland (Sorry), he lived in Turkey. He was a Christian bishop, who helped fight the heretic Arius. in response to Arius' teachings, St. Nicholas declared that the Son was "homoousious" (that is of the same substance, consubstantial) with the Father. He did many good deeds, like rescuing people who were unjustly condemned to death. One of the more famous St. Nicholas stories is that there were three daughters who did not have a dowry (which meant good luck getting married in their society) and were going to be sold into slavery. The story goes that over three nights he secretly threw three bags of Gold coins through the window (don't worry, I doubt it was a glass window), so they had their dowry and did not have to get sold into slavery. The more embellished version of the story is that they landed in peoples shoes. For the first two bags the window was unlocked, but the father locked the window so st. Nick had no choice but to climb on the roof and drop it through the chimney, and that is where stockings and coming down the chimney came from. That is the embellished version of course. It became traditional to give gifts on St. Nicholas Day, but Martin Luther thought it would be better to give gifts on Christ's day (after all why should we honour St. Nicholas? he thought) and so he encouraged giving gifts on Christmas instead. But Luther didn't win, and neither did St. Nicholas. The gifts were given on Christmas from St. Nicholas, who morphed into Santa Claus, the god of materialistic accumulation, a far cry from the man who sold all he had to give to the poor. I don't know where the elves came from, but if you come across a santa imp[ersonator (we have several in the USA) just ask him "Homoosious or homoiosious?" and that is how you can tell is he is real or fake. Mon, 06 Jul 2026 22:47:20 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://p.eertu.be https://p.eertu.be/client/assets/images/icons/icon-1500x1500.png https://p.eertu.be/videos/watch/cd571d80-72ef-4c1b-9c93-071fd410ed74 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://p.eertu.be/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.