© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

A gallery of Christmas postcards

Christmas cards used to baffle me somewhat, when I was a small child growing up in Australia. What was the story with the snow, let alone mysterious words like "Noël"? It took a while for me to grasp that I was part of a transplanted race still coming to terms with being a long way from its ancestral home. The "white Christmas", the songs about snow and sleighs and reindeer, the fake illuminated icicles hanging from fascia boards along the fronts of suburban houses were all part of the same thing: a settler colony far from…

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Read more about the article Santa, a gallery of amateurs
Gordon Sutherland with Santa in the 1960s. Photo from Ray Sutherland.

Santa, a gallery of amateurs

Not everybody has what it takes to be an amateur Santa. But sometimes not having what it takes is no obstacle, and hundreds of dads, grandpas, uncles and ring-ins of all stripes have been called to serve under the red and white banner of Father Christmas. When push comes to shove, after all, it's usually a matter of jumping out of a truck with a sack full of bags of lollies and handing them to crowds of excited children who probably aren't paying too much attention to the fine detail of your costume. Store Santas are…

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An argument in favour of Krampus

DOES Christmas feel like it's missing something? Maybe it's Krampus. A character from northern European folklore, Krampus is a sort of goat-legged devil with horns, a long sloppy tongue, a basket on his back and a bunch of birch rods in his hand. The basket is for carting off bad children and the birch rods are for giving them a bit of a smack, if required. Krampus is Santa Claus’s darker twin, although in countries where he is put to work most people regard him as a figure of fun. Edgy fun, but fun all the…

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