Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 93 views

    The Birth of Santa: Match The Key Words With Their Definitions

    Uploaded by

    Gergana Danova
    Here are the matches between the key words and their definitions: 1. jolly - c 2. boost - e 3. fizz - a 4. twinkle - b 5. ash - g 6. soot - f 7. ambiguous - d 8. derive from - i 9. attributes - k 10. grip - h 11. sinister - j

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    The Birth of Santa: Match The Key Words With Their Definitions

    Uploaded by

    Gergana Danova
    93 views2 pages
    Here are the matches between the key words and their definitions: 1. jolly - c 2. boost - e 3. fizz - a 4. twinkle - b 5. ash - g 6. soot - f 7. ambiguous - d 8. derive from - i 9. attributes - k 10. grip - h 11. sinister - j

    Original Description:

    reading comprehension and vocabulary practice

    Original Title

    Lesson 47

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Here are the matches between the key words and their definitions: 1. jolly - c 2. boost - e 3. fizz - a 4. twinkle - b 5. ash - g 6. soot - f 7. ambiguous - d 8. derive from - i 9. attributes - k 10. grip - h 11. sinister - j

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    93 views2 pages

    The Birth of Santa: Match The Key Words With Their Definitions

    Uploaded by

    Gergana Danova
    Here are the matches between the key words and their definitions: 1. jolly - c 2. boost - e 3. fizz - a 4. twinkle - b 5. ash - g 6. soot - f 7. ambiguous - d 8. derive from - i 9. attributes - k 10. grip - h 11. sinister - j

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    The birth of Santa

    Some people question the very existence of Santa Claus. Quite frankly, this is foolish.
    Not only do we know he exists but we also know when he was born.
    He was born in 1931 when a Swedish commercial artist and illustrator working for Coca
    Cola - Haddon Sundblom - painted his first jolly Santa. The image was to be used as
    part of an advertising campaign aimed to boost sales in the winter months when
    consumption of the famous fizzy drink was at its lowest.
    At that time there was no firmly established image of Santa Claus. Some depicted him
    in furs, others in fairly normal contemporary clothes, while a popular poem of the
    nineteenth century described him as a little merry elf (a kind of magical dwarf) with
    twinkling eyes and clothes covered in ashes and soot.
    To create an unambiguously positive image for the advertising campaign Sundblom
    came up with the tall, plump, bearded, elderly but sprightly Santa we know today. And
    to match the colours of the Coke label there was no question that he had to be dressed
    in red and white.
    The names Santa Claus or Father Christmas also serve to distance the figure of the
    rotund man and his reindeer from his earlier identity: that of Saint Nicholas. Few British
    speakers hear any connection whatsoever between the name Santa Claus and that of
    Saint Nicholas, and yet these were once simply alternative names for the same
    historical figure.
    The man who perhaps has the greatest claim to being the real Santa Claus was a fourth
    century bishop who lived in what is now Turkey. Originally, after becoming a saint, he
    had no particular connection with children or Christmas, rather he was seen as a
    protective figure for many groups including bakers, merchants and sailors. The
    connection with children derives from a story of him finding three murdered boys and
    raising them from the dead.
    Some have argued that some north European groups - who were certainly not strict
    Christians - retold the story of Saint Nicholas in the Middle Ages and accorded him some
    of the attributes of older pagan figures. The habit of flying around the world may have
    been borrowed from the Norse god Woden (or Odin). In some parts of Northern Europe
    where Christianity had a very weak grip he was even depicted as a somewhat sinister
    figure with horns.
    Any conscious connection with these pagan and Christian traditions was lost when the
    Saint became Santa and he started selling Coke. His image was taken up by many other
    businesses and that soon became virtually the sole representation of the spirit of
    Christmas. Dissociated from all its pagan and Christian references the image was as
    shallow and meaningless as the adverts it appeared in.
    The history of Santa sums up perfectly the commercialisation of Christmas. That
    commercialisation is not just a matter of the obscene amount of shopping that goes on
    at this time of year. It is also the way in which commerce redefines the images of
    Christmas so that they fit in perfectly with some marketing strategy and then projects
    them on huge billboards in bright technicolour all across the country so that pretty soon
    little is left of the older images and stories that were once a meaningful part of society's
    cultural heritage.

    Match the key words with their definitions:


    1. jolly a. bubbles of carbon dioxide
    2. boost b. shine and flicker on and off like little lights
    3. fizz c. happy, merry
    4. twinkle d. with two possible interpretations
    5. ash e. increase
    6. soot f. black powder that collects in chimneys
    7. ambiguous g. grey remains of a fire
    8. derive from h. hold
    9. attributes i. come from
    10. grip j. disturbing, threatening
    11. sinister k. characteristics

    You might also like