Posts of Christmas Past

Illustrated London News, 1848

Even in mid-November I was starting to see people searching for "Nutcracker" and other Christmas-related posts in my archives, so I thought I could put together links to some of the most popular/pertinent Christmas posts. You can also use the Christmas tag at the right for a thorough list, but it can be frustrating to sift through old archives, so here's a more organized guide to posts that may be of interest:

Cherry Blossom Girl

Nutcracker:
History of Nutcracker Ballet-A video that discusses the history of the ballet
E.T.A. Hoffman's The Nutcracker-A summary of the original story that inspired the ballet
Dumas' Nutcracker-A discussion of Alexandre Dumas' revision of E.T.A. Hoffman's "Nutcracker" story

1904 German Postcard

Santa Claus:
Scary Night Visitors-A link to a BBC article that describes some more fearsome versions of Santa Claus throughout the world
Yes, Virginia-A discussion of the true response to a little girl in the paper who asked if Santa Claus existed, and the cultural myth of telling children about Santa Claus
St. Nicholas' Day-History of St. Nick through Santa Claus, from Martin Ebon's book Saint Nicholas: Life and Legend
Legends of St. Nicholas-Including the legend of the origin of hanging Christmas stockings
Jultomten-The Swedish Christmas elf and other Christmas folklore

Jenny Nystrom

Christmas-related folklore:
Hildur the Fairy Queen-an Icelandic version of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", set at Christmas time
Spinning Straw into Gold on Little Match Girl-a guest post from Christie of the blog Spinning Straw into Gold, discussing Andersen's "The Little Match Girl"
Little Match Girl-full text of the fairy tale
December Liturgy of the Dead-a haunting Christmas tale

Arthur Rackham

Other:
Fairy Tales in Christmas History: See how fairy tales were an important part of Christmas traditions
Charles Dickens: A Christmas Tree-Includes the famous quote in which Dickens admits he wanted to marry Little Red Riding Hood as a child; as well as the surrounding context in which he also discusses other fairy tale memories related to Christmas

Paul Woodroffe

Stay tuned for more Christmas posts this month, as well as general fairy tale programming!