Tuesday Coffee Chat: Which List?

Rory Bore at Ink Interrupted hosts the Tuesday Coffee Chat, and this week she asks the question, Naughty or Nice?

What do you do when you want to know something really important?  Ask Mr. Google, of course.  He didn't disappoint this time, coming up with a ton of fun sights where you can find out if you are naughty or nice.  Some of them just tell you so when you enter your name, and some of them ask you to take a quiz.

emailsanta.com asks if you've cleaned your room and played nicely, and has a "Santa Snooper" so you can see what he's up to right now at the workshop. 

claus.com says i'm doing okay, but neatness needs improvement (like i don't know that already!).

allthetests.com has a really odd quiz that i didn't take, but you are more than welcome if you want. 

nerdtests.com asks what you would do if you found Santa stuck in the chimney!  

At santarules.com, they seem to already have all the info they need, as you just input your name.  Although i'm really not so sure about this one as they told me to help around the house more instead of watching so much TV, and we don't have a TV and i gave up watching 15 years ago anyway.

quizony.com asked several questions, including what's the nicest thing you've ever done.  On that question, i was truly able to say it's asking a homeless acquaintance to live with us (actually, more than one!).      

If you are on Twitter (i'm not, no time), you can go to socialsanta.co and they will determine your naughty or nice rating based on the language you use when you tweet. 

northpoletimes.com was another that said i need to work on cleaning up more.  

followingsanta.com put me on the nice list, but didn't say why. 

proprofs.com has a quiz that misspells coal as "coil" and simply wasn't as much fun as some of the others.  That site is just too picky about the answers, at least to me. 

After consulting the internet, i asked the family.  Their consensus is that they will not answer on the grounds that it could be used against them.  Sweetie ignored the question and instead asked me what mail we had gotten after i had already told him.

The cats know i'm bad, because i am the dispenser of all medicines, and i don't give in to their every whim, so i didn't bother to ask them.

At work, i guess i'm doing okay, they keep me on the schedule!

Where do you think you fall on Santa's list?

Today is:

Alcyone -- Ancient Greek Calendar (kingfisher goddess; date approximate, but during the Halcyon Days)

Bill of Rights Day -- US

Cat Herders Day -- for those whose job or life is like trying to herd cats; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

Centipede Boot-Making and Shoe-Repair Season begins -- Fairy Calendar

Consualia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Festival for Consus, god of graineries, with games and races in the Circus Maximus in his honor)

Coonskin Cap Day -- debut of "Davy Crocket" on TV's "Disneyland" in 1954 (and the original Davy Crockett hated the things, by the way)

Homecoming Day -- Alderney, UK

Icelandic Yuletide Lad of the Day, Pvorusleikier -- Spoon-licker, who tries to steal all the wooden spoons he can find

Kasuga Wakamiya on-Matsuri -- Nara Prefecture, Japan (dates to the 12th century, to pray against plague and for a good harvest; through the 18th)

Koninkrijksdag -- Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba; Sint Maarten (Kingdom Day)

National Lemon Cupcake Day

National Regifting Day -- be careful here!

Navidades begin -- Puerto Rico (traditional Christmas celebrations that last through Three Kings Day)

Setagaya no Bori Ichi -- Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Japan (a two day flea market that dates back to 1578)

St. Nino's Day (Patron of Georgia)

Trivial Pursuit Day -- honoring Canadians Chris Haney and Scott Abbott, who created the game on this date in 1979

Zamenhof Day -- International Esperanto Community


Anniversary Today:

Sylvester Stallone marries Brigitte Nielson, 1985


Birthdays Today:

Adam Brody, 1979
Garrett Wang, 1968
Helen Slater, 1963
Nick Beggs, 1961
Don Johnson, 1949
Dave Clark, 1942
Tim Conway, 1933
Edna O'Brien, 1931
Friedensreich Hundertwasser, 1928
Uziel "Uzi" Gal, 1923
Jeff Chandler, 1918
Stan Kenton, 1911
J. Paul Getty, 1892
Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, 1859
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel,1832


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Charlie Girl"(Musical), 1965

"Song of the Forests"(Shostakovich Op. 81), 1949
Gone With the Wind(Film), 1939 (Atlanta only, general release Jan. 1, 1940)


Today in History:

Byzantine general Belisarius defeats the Vandals, commanded by King Gelimer, at the Battle of Ticameron, 533
Hulagu Khan captures and destroys the Hashshashin stronghold at Alamut in present-day Iran as part of the Mongol offensive on Islamic southwest Asia, 1265
Bartholomeus Diaz returns to Portugal after sailing round Cape of Good Hope, 1488
The State of Holland grants patent on a windmill with crankshaft, 1593
The first US law school is established at University of Pennsylvania, 1791
The first Irish magazine in US, Shamrock, is published, 1810
The first street-cleaning machine in US is used in Philadelphia, 1854
The King of Hawaii becomes the first reigning king to visit the Us, and is received by President Grant, 1874
The London Underground's Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway opens, 1906
Bandleader, Major Glenn Miller, is lost over English Channel, 1944
Gemini 6A, crewed by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida; four orbits later, it achieves the first space rendezvous, with Gemini 7, 1965
Samoa becomes a member of the United Nations, 1976
U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will recognize the People's Republic of China and cut off all relations with Taiwan, 1978
The 3rd reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is shut down, 2000
The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 to fortify it, without fixing its famous lean, 2001
Boeing's new Boeing 787 Dreamliner makes its maiden flight from Seattle, Washi

Can They Really Compare?

Are children getting greedier?  Or are children just children, no matter the century?

That's the question i asked myself when i saw the story comparing the list of what children asked for back in 1913, as compared to 2013.

The lists were as follows:

1913

Candy
Nuts
Rocking horse
Doll
Mittens/gloves
Toy Train
Oranges
Books
Handkerchiefs
Skates


2013

Furby Boom 
Teksta Robotic puppy
LeapPad Ultra
Flying Fairy
Big Hugs Elmo
Barbie Dream House
Giggle Monkey
Nerf Gun
Ninja Turtles
Lego

The stark contrasts between the lists, and the fact that kids letters to Santa a hundred years ago often included basic necessities, has led people to assume that kids today are much more greedy.

Is it that they are greedier, or is it much more complicated than that?

The fact is, most kids today in the part of the world where these lists were written have the majority of their needs met.  They get candy coming out of the wazoo, and oranges and nuts are available year 'round in the local grocery story instead of being an exotic treat.  A hundred or more years ago, books could be a treasure (just ask Abe Lincoln) and most kids asked for toys that their friends had, which included dolls and toy trains.

When i read the Little House books, i was always intrigued by what the girls got in their stockings.  But if Laura and Mary were alive today, even if they were living on a farm in South Dakota, would they be content now with candy, and a penny, and a new tin cup each so they wouldn't have to share?  Or would they, being surfeited with candy after Halloween, and having enough dishes in the kitchen to make sharing a cup unnecessary, not to mention the fact that the pennies wouldn't do much for them, be asking for what their friends have and what they see on TV?

Is it really so different today?  Kids who don't need mittens because they not only have them, but ride to school in a bus or car instead of walking in the snow (uphill, both ways, as the stories go) are much more likely to opt for a toy than a piece of clothing.  Children who watch TV and see other kids with these toys are going to want them.  Have the kids become greedier because the price tags associated with the toys pitched to them have gone up?

Has the fact that you can hardly go into a store and buy a toy that isn't a tech gadget taught them to expect tech gadgets?  Especially when the parents have tech gadgets?  When i went to get a "learning toy" for one child, i gave up on finding something that wasn't a "push the buttons" toy.  Instead, i bought that toy and extra batteries, so the beleaguered mother wouldn't have to worry about running out for a while

Perhaps to a degree, and among children who get their every wish every year, there is more greed.  That might say more about the parents, though, who don't teach kids realistic limits than it says about children who are trained to expect things to be a certain way.  In C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, he points out that a child who sees a different type of fish knife at another person's house will think, comparing them to the fish knives at her own home, that "those aren't proper fish knives at all."  Children think what they are trained in until they get old enough to go out into the world and get more information for themselves, and a child trained to believe he should get what he asks for at Christmas is going to ask, and not see it as greed, but as normal.

A wish list in a country where children aren't as secure as most are in our part of the world would read very differently, which leads me to believe that kids are pretty much the same.  They are told to ask for something they would like, and they take cues from the environment, what others around them have or want, if their basic needs are already met.  If those are not met, they ask for those things.

Maybe greed is a relative term.


Today is:

Agonalia -- Ancient Roman Empire; also observed
     Festival for Diva Palatua -- guardian of Palatine Hill
     Septimonia -- to honor the Seven Hills of Rome

Feast of Sekhmet, Bast, and Ra -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (goddess of warfare, feline goddess, and sun god; date approximate)

Fourth Republic Day -- Madagascar

International Mountain Day -- UN

Jashan-e Sadeh / Adar-Jashen -- Zoroastrian/Parsi (a mid-winter fire ceremony for purification; date approximate)

National Day / Republic Day -- Burkina Faso

National Noodle Ring Day

Nose-Scrambling and Hair-Hiking Events -- Fairy Calendar

Pampanga Day -- Pampanga Province, Philippines

Remembrance Day of Llywelyn II -- Wales (death anniversary of Llywelyn the Last, the last native-born Prince of Wales, killed in battle in 1282)

St. Damasus' Day (Patron of archaeologists)

St. Pens' Day (Patron of Llanberis, Wales)

Tango Day -- Buenos Aires, Argentina (birth anniversary of both Julio de Caro and Carlos Gardel)


Anniversaries Today:

Unicef is established, 1946
Edward VIII abdicates, 1936
Indiana becomes the 19th US State, 1816


Birthdays Today:

Rider Strong, 1979
Gary Dourdan, 1966
Curtis Williams, 1962
Jermaine Jackson, 1954
Ken Wahl, 1953
Susan Seidelman, 1952
Teri Garr, 1949
Brenda Lee, 1944
John Kerry, 1943
Donna Mills, 1943
Rita Moreno, 1931
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1918
Carlo Ponti, 1913
Naguib Mahfouz, 1911
Marjorie H. Buell, 1904
Fiorello LaGuardia, 1882
Annie Jump Cannon, 1863
Robert Koch, 1843


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Magnum, PI"(TV), 1980


Today in History:

Honoratus, the first known Prefect of the City of Constantinople, takes office, 359
Llywelyn the Last (born c. 1228) the last native Prince of Wales, is killed at Cimeri, 1282
The Aurora Borealis is seen from New England by English settlers for the first time, 1719
The first newspaper on Curacao is published, the Curacao Gazette & Commercial Advertiser, 1812
Nitrous oxide is used in dental work for the first time in Hartford, Connecticut, 1844
Boston's Bijou Theatre becomes the first American theater lit exclusively by electricity, premiering Gilbert and Sullivan's "Iolanthe" as its first performance, 1882
The New Zealand Parliament Buildings are almost completely destroyed by fire, 1907
Color moving pictures are demonstrated in Madison Square Garden, 1909
The Boll Weevil Monument is dedicated in Enterprise, Alabama, 1919
The British Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster 1931, establishing legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Dominion of Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa, 1931
Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, takes his last drink and enters treatment for the last time, 1934
Arthur Lucas, convicted of murder, is the last person to be executed in Canada, 1962
Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon, 1972
The Kyoto Protocol opens for signature, 1997
The People's Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization, 2001