24 Days Until Christmas 1 Day until Hanukkah
According to Mental Floss there's not a central reason why Santa Claus is said to give "bad kids" coal for the holiday. They do explain that idea of giving coal may predate Santa. There's nothing concrete about it. We don't have any tweets about someone creating the idea of giving their bad children coal then having to apologize because "everyone" was outraged. (Woah I'm trailing off)
The Italian tradition for Christmas is a witch (I kind of want a Christmas witch now) which I am going to have to talk about in a future post. She flies around near Epiphany (January 6th) and gives children gifts and the naughty ones get coal. Guess, that's better than being eaten. Here are some ideas on why maybe coal was the threat of choice.
1. Coal is easy to access, like I said before , when it was primary source of heat there's was some hanging around and children probably wouldn't to have it as gift though. It's part of the corrective thing that parents could use to say hey "stop cutting your sister's hair or punching your brother" or Santa will give you coal. Much easier than saying a giant cat will come eat you, and they play your bluff.
2. It also fits in a stocking easier. Not all my theories are like this impressive over thought thing. it's small enough to fit in a stocking and the bad kid wouldn't think until they get in there that they got coal.
3. Fireplaces, since the article I used up there mentions that many of the holiday figures used fire places as entry, (Don't you do that though) and fire places where the center of keeping the home warm you can put 2 and 2 together. (uggh math)
Maybe Santa was actually being benevolent and giving poor families a little bit of relief. You can recall how in "A Christmas Carol" how Scrooge was wealthy enough to pay for coal but didn't use it much because it cost money. Coal does have to be mined and etc. so it's not like it was cheap to get. I wish we knew more about why exactly where this idea came from. Then again, always nice to have a little mystery at Christmas.
Radio Station of the Day
I found this station a few days ago and think they are doing a great mix of commercial free Christmas music. You of course get the traditional songs but then they give you something more. One of my criteria that i like to say on these stations is something that fits that. I think this one fits well.
UCentral Radio from Edmund , Oklahoma run by the University of Central Oklahoma is today's station of the ay.
Station : U Central Radio
Where to Listen : KZUC 99.3 in Edmund, OK
Website: http://ucentralmedia.com/radioplayer.html
Streaming: http://ucentralmedia.com/radioplayer.html
apps: Listen on Tune in : Search for KZUC