SANTA'S JOURNEY THROUGH TIME by Teresa Inge

Any kid can tell you where Santa Claus is from—the North Pole. But his historical journey is even longer and more fantastic than his annual, one-night circumnavigation of the globe.

Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure who embodies the spirit of Christmas. His story is a blend of history, folklore, and popular culture, making him one of the most beloved characters during the holiday season.

Origins and Evolution

The origins of Santa Claus can be traced back to Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century Greek bishop known for his generosity and kindness. Saint Nicholas was famous for his secret gift-giving, which laid the foundation for the modern image of Santa Claus. Over the centuries, his legend evolved, incorporating elements from various cultures and traditions.

In the 19th century, the modern image of Santa Claus began to take shape. The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," commonly known as "The Night Before Christmas," written by Clement Clarke Moore in 1823, played a significant role in shaping the contemporary depiction of Santa. The poem described Santa as a jolly, plump figure with a white beard, dressed in a red suit trimmed with white fur, and driving a sleigh pulled by reindeer.

Washington Irving's 1809 book Knickerbocker's History of New York first portrayed a pipe-smoking Nicholas soaring over the rooftops in a flying wagon, delivering presents to good girls and boys and switches to bad ones.

Cultural Impact

Santa Claus has become a central figure in Christmas celebrations around the world. He is often depicted as a cheerful, benevolent character who brings joy and gifts to children on Christmas Eve. The tradition of Santa Claus visiting homes and leaving presents under the Christmas tree has become a cherished part of holiday festivities.

Santa's image has been popularized through various forms of media, including literature, films, and advertisements. The Coca-Cola Company's 1930s advertising campaign featuring Santa Claus in a red suit helped solidify his modern appearance and further embedded him in popular culture.

A modern Santa

Today, Santa can be tracked on Google Tracker alternating between traveling and handing out presents in cities on Christmas Eve. Numerous movies and books have been made about Santa. And television ads portray a modern Santa in the Capital One commercial with John Travolta strutting his stuff in a Santa suit to the Bee Gees ‘Staying’ Alive.’  While Target features a hunky Santa Claus depicting the jolly man as Kris K, a team member at the popular department store.

"ALWAYS WINTER, NEVER CHRISTMAS?" by Yvonne Saxon

 

"Always winter, never Christmas" is one of my favorite lines from C.S. Lewis's book The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. The line speaks volumes in just four words. Winter is a season, and yes, a very necessary one in the physical world for rest and restoration.  I believe Christmas is also a very necessary season whether it's celebrated culturally or metaphorically. Is winter or Christmas a condition of your heart?

In Lewis's story the world is gray, and bleak and cold. Winter in our world can be bleak, harsh, cold and dreary. Bareness is everywhere: brown, stubby, empty fields, leafless trees, empty parks devoid of people. Shorter grayer days and longer darker nights send us inside to huddle and isolate. Christmas calls us out.

Writing Characters You Don't Like

 I wonder if you are like me when you begin writing a new story. Because I’m such a nice person (tongue in cheek here) I want my characters to be nice too. Most of my real-life friends are nice and I tend to think of them when I’m creating a character, so my fictional characters tend to be nice also. See the problem? A story must have conflict. Without conflict there is no story.

Some writers like to create a really mean, ugly character to serve as the story’s villain. Like Crabby Appleton, “rotten to the core.” This was a cartoon character on TV a long time ago. You didn’t need to know why he was so rotten. He just was. You can sometimes find these villains-for-no-apparent-reason in mysteries, but they are not satisfying. I think they give the story a cartoonish feel.

We need to write characters that feel real and we need conflict or there is no story. Therefore, you just have to pull up your socks and develop some characters you don’t like. You need to understand why they act the way they do. You must accept that their actions and opinions are part of who they are. Why are they like this? I try to invent a childhood for my ornery or hateful characters that points to possible reasons why they are like they are. But this seldom happens in real life. We rarely figure out why a person is that way. People are much too complex to be explained by simple cause-and-effect theories.

Think of the recent presidential election. Regardless of which side you were on, did you really understand why others felt so differently from you? Were you tempted to get up on your soapbox and point out how those other folks were just wrong? Could you describe the election from someone else’s point of view? Do you understand that their point of view is really true for them?

As a writer you don’t have the option of using a soapbox. You have to dig deep within yourself and find understanding. You need to be able to write out, on paper, your offensive character’s thoughts on the conflict at hand. You don’t necessarily have to know why he feels as he does, but you do have to know that these are his real feelings. Remember, he sees the world through a different lens. Can you imagine how the world looks to him?

Does your character have any idiosyncrasies that reveal his true nature? She uses lots of air quotes? He overuses use of words like actually?  You can use these to enrich the picture and bring the conflict into sharper focus.

A lot of people subscribe to the idea that children are blank slates, and the adult is merely the result of what the world has written on the child’s mind. I’m not sure it’s that simple. But you should think about what has made your ornery character like he is, and it helps to think a bit about his childhood. You don’t have to include it in your story, but you may want to try writing it out just for yourself.

And while I’m thinking about it, give your main character some flaws and foibles as well. Perfect people are boring.

It's Almost Here! Coastal Crimes 2: Death Takes a Vacation Update by Michael Rigg

The wait's almost over. The finish line's in sight! We're in the final stages of coordinating the much-anticipated Mystery by the Sea anthology, Coastal Crimes 2: Death Takes a Vacation. We promise that you'll never look at a vacation the same way after you read the  anthology, which has fourteen short stories penned by the talented members of the Mystery by the Sea chapter of Sisters in Crime!

The authors have made their final edits. Our editor, Wildside Press, is pulling everything together. Next step is our cover reveal, which should be in January 2025. After that? Watch for news of our anthology launch party.  

THE SURPRISING POWER OF GRATITUDE by Penny Hutson

It’s November, and on the East Coast that means two things. The weather cools and the leaves turn to a beautiful red, gold, and orange. Across America we also celebrate one of my favorite holidays – Thanksgiving. Family and friends gather around the table for a wonderful meal in a meager attempt to honor the shared autumn feast between the Plymouth colonists and the Native American Wampanoag people back in 1621.

During the Thanksgiving holiday season, we often talk of being grateful or giving thanks for what we have. The word “thanks” is even in its name; but if you knew the true benefits of being grateful, you’d want to do it all year long.

In M.J Ryan’s Attitudes of Gratitude: How to Give and Receive Joy Every Day of Your Life, the author lists fifteen ways that being grateful is good for us. She calls them “the gifts of gratitude.”

While I won’t write about all fifteen, I will highlight a few that surprised or enlightened me. Of course, she included the more obvious results like feeling more joyful, kind and generous.

What I found interesting, however, was the medical evidence she cites showing that emotions such as gratitude and love strengthen and enhance our immune systems. When we harbor negative emotions like worry, anger, and hopelessness, we can reduce the number and slow down the movement of disease-fighting white cells in our bloodstreams. That’s not good.

However, the findings suggest that when we focus on being grateful, it reduces those negative emotions and instead releases endorphins into the blood stream. Endorphins are the body’s natural painkillers, and they stimulate the blood vessels. This leads to a relaxed heart and reduces the amount of adrenaline in our bodies which constrict blood vessels and raise blood pressure. In fact, too much adrenaline in our system can also damage arteries and even the heart itself.

So, while you may have known that being grateful is good for your health, you may not have known the specifics.

Ryan says that gratitude also keeps us current because “. . .when we experience a sense of gratefulness, we are usually contemplating some present circumstance.” We stop thinking about any past failures or future worries; thus, Ryan explains, “we are brought up to date with ourselves.”  In other words, we can’t harbor opposite emotions at the same time. We can’t be both happy and unhappy in the same moment. I suppose we could flip back and forth; but to Ryan’s point, if we’re practicing and truly focusing on being grateful, we won’t be focused on what’s wrong in our lives. She recommends we practice being grateful daily. I found all this information rather insightful.

Gratitude also cures perfectionism, according to Ryan. As a self-described perfectionist myself, I am particularly excited by this prospect. First, Ryan quotes Sarah Ban Breathnach who reminds us that after creating the earth, even God declared it “very good” not “perfect.” I don’t think she’s suggesting God is less than perfect. I believe her point is that He would not expect us to be.

Ryan points out that “. . . perfectionism is born of a sense of inadequacy, of lack,” and that “. . . gratitude counteracts it by tapping us into the experience of abundance.” Again, if we’re focused on what we’ve accomplished versus what’s yet to be done, we are less likely to feel inadequate and better able to resist the urge toward perfectionism.

Another surprising gift of gratitude is that it draws people to us and helps us keep them in our lives. “When we are grateful,” says Ryan, “we exude happiness and that makes us magnets that draw people toward us.” It’s true, I believe. Don’t we all prefer to be around upbeat, happy people? Of course, we all complain occasionally, but no one likes a constant whiner or an overly negative person.

And the last one I’ll mention is how gratitude can release us from the ‘gimmes.” According to Ryan, consumer debt and personal bankruptcies are “. . . at the highest level in U.S. history.” I didn’t research the accuracy of that fact, but I do know we are a culture of consumers and credit card debt. Rarely does a week go by at my house without at least one Amazon delivery. Ryan’s suggestion is to not buy anything new, except for food, for two weeks. During that time notice what you liked about that shirt or other items you already own. Focus on what you have. Ryan claims this gift can help us get “. . . off the consuming treadmill so many of us are caught on.”

The second half of Ryan’s book, which I did not discuss, details how to cultivate and create an attitude of gratitude all year, along with daily practices that will deepen your journey into a more joyous life.

May you have a wonderful, happy, and more grateful Thanksgiving.

Happy Birthday Mark Twain: November 30, 1835 by Michael Rigg

Samuel L. Clemens a/k/a Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known to most people by his pen name, Mark Twain, was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, the sixth of seven children. At the age of four, Clemens and his family moved to the small frontier town of Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi. According to documentarian Ken Burns, Twain “. . . rose from a hardscrabble boyhood in the backwoods of Missouri to become . . .  America’s best-known and best-loved author.” 

In his nearly seventy-five years, Clemens was a man of many titles and occupations, including: printer’s apprentice, newspaper reporter, riverboat pilot, Confederate soldier (for two weeks), silver prospector, travel commentator, essayist, editor, publisher, and lecturer. His most well-known occupation was as an author. He wrote several books and novels, including:

Innocents Abroad (1869)

Roughing It (1872)

The Gilded Age (1873)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

The Prince and the Pauper (1881)

Life on the Mississippi (1883)

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)

Following the Equator (1897)

Lapham’s Quarterly summed up Twain’s life thusly:

Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835—two weeks after the perihelion of Halley’s Comet. “I came in with Halley’s Comet,” Mark Twain commented in 1909. “It is coming again next year. The Almighty has said, no doubt, ‘Now there are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’” He died on April 21, 1910—one day after the comet had once again reached its perihelion.

(See, Mark Twain again follows Halley’s Comet. | Lapham’s Quarterly.)

Find a more detailed discussion of Twain’s life and legacy, see Biography - Mark Twain House. and Mark Twain - Ken Burns.

So, on November 30^th, raise a glass to Samuel Clemens and his writing alter ego, Mark Twain. As writers and readers, we owe much to him. For, as Ernest Hemingway is reported to have said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

MY PRODUCTIVITY HACKS, PART TWO: THESE ARE OUR TOOLS by Max Jason Peterson

I like to sit and admire the azaleas while
writing in a notebook. Photo and blog post
(c) copyright by Max Jason Peterson.

Everyone has their favorite writing tools—and learning how we relate to our tools helps us be more productive with them. For some, staring at a blank page is the hardest part of writing; for others, that clean, pristine page is an invitation for words to happen. Are you motivated by the online tools available to you as a writer, or distracted by research rabbit holes and social media (maybe both)? The tools themselves can help us accomplish so much—including providing the focus we need to accomplish our dreams.