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flyingoctopus
· 5 years ago
· FIRST
Santa died for our sins
5
abhinnav
· 5 years ago
Santa Cause
cheesecrackers
· 5 years ago
This scene from boondocks is fitting https://youtu.be/t16OUuwZlb0
granlobomalo
· 5 years ago
If you liked Elf on a Shelf then you’ll love Santa’s Wrists on a Crucifix.
10
guest_
· 5 years ago
By western or Christian standards they largely don’t. Christians are a minority in Japan, and there is a history of taboo, persecution, and occultism often associated with Christianity. The roots of the holiday in Japan as it is today comes less from ancient Japanese Christians who had to practice their religion in secret, but largely from more modern sources such as Western post war occupation, and the cultural fascination and exchanges that occurred afterwards, with the holiday not really becoming popular or what it is today until within the last several decades. Just as westerners oftens struggle to understand or even imitate Eastern iconography or cultural moors, the Japanese have evolved their own interpretations of Christmas and their own emotional and traditional responses to the imagery and concepts. Christmas isn’t a religious holiday there, but more of a time to bring joy. Christmas Eve is more celebrated than Christmas Day and is closer to Valentine’s Day than western....
5
guest_
· 5 years ago
.... Christmas. It also doesn’t hurt that the emperors birthday is a national holiday and falls on the 23rd of December, which lines up well with Christmas. So think of Japanese Christmas more like you might a “Japan” or “China town” or “Asian themed” business elsewhere. It is an offshoot of the original without the context or history to guide it. It is essentially an “outsiders” take from their perspective of what something seems to be to them, but without the innate background to intuitively and natively assimilate the whole of the thing. Taking the parts they like or relate to most, the parts they most associate with the idea, and then filtering them through a non native perspective to create something that bears little similarity to the original and may well lack the “spirit” But was still meant to emulate the original as best as able before evolving into its own unique cultural object. Also- Japanese society doesn’t have an inherent concept of cultural appropriation.
4
spiderwoman
· 5 years ago
Christimas falls around a general winter solstice holiday for basically every civilization. That's what makes it so easy to "just slide into those celebrations". In fact, (if I recall correctly) Christmas became more Christian centric because it adopted it from older religions in order to seem more friendly to outsiders.
3
guest_
· 5 years ago
That’s about right more or less. Many holidays- Druid, Pagan, Zoroastrian, etc. have been “co opted” into other holidays including Christian ones. Politics reasons like changes of theology often factor in- Renaming Stalingrad to Volgograd and vice versa- one might want to sever uncomfortable ties to history, or help transition ideologies by writing over the past. It is also a tool of conversion over generations as people get used to celebrating the new holiday- but by keeping the same dates and many of the traditions of the original holiday it helped with early adoption, and then those artifacts themselves became associated with tradition for the new Holiday and so endured. When time converted was when a great deal of other religious holidays were rolled into Christian holidays and “rebranded.” But over time it is a common tale. It’s easier to get people to adopt new things if you dont make them completely alien to them.
tlbomb
· 5 years ago
i think it just may be some art
