We triple checked this. Actually we went further and just hovered over the publish button for a few hours before posting this.
But it appears to be real..
KFC has launched an innovative brand of wrapping paper: So good you can lick it.
And of course–it tastes like chicken! And a hint of sage and cranberry to add that extra holiday zeal.
The fast food chain has just launched its ‘first ever’ Lickable Wrapping Paper – and it’s perfect for the gifting season.
So if you want wrapping paper with a twist this year, you’ve come to the right place.
And with the holiday season right around the corner, you’ll need to move quickly if you want to nab it – but you’ll have to check the fine print.
xxx
Alongside the original chicken taste this festive find has “a refreshing hit of cranberry sauce and an aromatic pinch of sage from the sage and onion stuffing patty,“ according to the product description.
AT THIS POINT.. KFC’s Christmas collection appears to only be available on the website for the UK and Ireland, so fans in America will have to stick to traditional wrapping paper.
But keep in mind chicken lovers who want to consume your wrapping paper: Just lick! KFC warned that the wrapping paper is “not intended for human consumption.”
This is probably a brilliant move. Imagine the Spirit Halloween store closes down and immediately the spirit changes to Christmas.. a store opens up with ugly sweaters. A Santa Claus .. and maybe some Nightmare before Christmas socks and door nats?
It’s apparently going to happen. A few tests pop-up stores are coming.
Honestly, we’re hopeful of some form of a mixture of the scary and supernatural along with the bright and cuddly imagery of Christmas.
At this point, the spirit store may as well just keep ongoing with spirit, New Year’s and Easter, and then while we’re at it. Spirit, fourth of july?Let’s make this a year round thing
There’s plenty of retail space to house it and most likely at least with Christmas. A number of customers that can make it work.
Slurping eggnog spiked with rum and eating until you’re unable to move? That’s the American pasttime around the holiday season–and then the New Years guilt and resolutions to lose your new found weight is an annual tradition.
Kira Cochrane of the UK GUARDIAN wrote this to describe humanity’s long love of telling ghost stories around this time of year:
Christmas has long been associated with ghosts, says Roger Clarke, author of A Natural History of Ghosts: 500 Years of Hunting for Proof. Just before Christmas 1642, for instance, shepherds were said to have seen ghostly civil war soldiers battling in the skies. This connection continued in the Victorian era through Dickens’s story, and through the ghost stories he later published at Christmas in his periodical All the Year Round, with contributors including Wilkie Collins and Elizabeth Gaskell. It would also continue in the tradition started by MR James, the provost of King’s College, Cambridge, who would invite a select few students and friends to his rooms each year on Christmas Eve, where he’d read one of the ghost stories he had written, which are still popular today. They include Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book (1895), in which an ancient holy book brings forth a demonic presence, first announced by a hand covered in “coarse black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from the ends of the fingers and curving sharply down and forward, grey, horny and wrinkled”.The popularity of ghost stories was strongly related to economic changes. The industrial revolution had led people to migrate from rural villages into towns and cities, and created a new middle class. They moved into houses that often had servants, says Clarke, many taken on around October or November, when the nights were drawing in early – and new staff found themselves “in a completely foreign house, seeing things everywhere, jumping at every creak”. Robbins says servants were “expected to be seen and not heard – actually, probably not even seen, to be honest. If you go to a stately home like Harewood House, you see the concealed doorways and servant’s corridors. You would actually have people popping in and out without you really knowing they were there, which could be quite a freaky experience. You’ve got these ghostly figures who actually inhabit the house.”
We have lost so much with the disappearance of this tradition! I call for a renaissance!
Telling ghost stories around this time of year appears to be a lost tradition. These days, we trample each other at malls and break glass doors for expensive Air Jordans that we cannot afford. But that aside, it would be sacrilegious in modern times to tell such haunting tales around the Christmas dinner table.. 50% of us celebrate the birth of Christ (though it probably would not have even happened this time of year) and the other 50% celebrate the modern rituals of present buying and giving. Ghost stories aren’t found within that celebration.. No time for the paranormal with those numbers.
We did borrow the Christmas tree and SO MUCH MORE from the pagans.. but for some reason, we ended the tales of horror in our newer centuries..
There are books and websites describing jut how popular ghostly tales were this time of year..
But that was then.
MAY ALL YOUR GIFTS COME ALIVE ON CHRISTMAS MORNING!
Now it’s all about fun, joy, peace, and harmony. Little thrown in of scary or weird….paranormal or other-worldly. And it seems we miss out on so much with the absence of the paranormal..
While I do not contend my theories or ‘feelings’ are ever correct or a representation of anything but bizarre mental manifestations, I have long felt that two times of year were always filled with mystery: One being Halloween, and the other being Christmas. I recall nights when I was a child, especially Christmas Eve night, where I felt something mysterious in the air..something strange around me. Something like a presence–not necessarily a negative entity, but just another ‘element’ that I could not understand with my five senses. Did the pagans and others get it right.. does the veil thing? Those old ghost stories are not without purpose, they were just a way for people to express their fears of the darkness without shining light. You could argue that such ghost stories in the Victorian Age being popular was because they simply lived in scary times–gas lamps that lit the way for some with prestige and money, but darkness at night for the rest of the troubled lot.
Joy and love and peace could not be found on radio stations, and often so many younger children died from pestilence and disease, Santa Claus was not as busy as he is now.
But I still say there is something else to the story. I think there is a deeper and more profound reason that so many tall tales were expressed this time of year in centuries past. And maybe it’s because we, as humans, have a connection to a sixth sense.. maybe we have a deep affinity for the unexplained because we as humans are a PART of that unexplained. Why are we here? Ghost tales make sense of our existence in some way, because it gives credence to an afterlife. Yes, maybe spirits get trapped here, but at least we ‘go somewhere.’
Though we have an absence of the fireside chats during Victorian times, there are a few paranormal tales that withstood the test of time.
Charles Dickens’ classic A CHRISTMAS CAROL is one of them, with a series of ghosts coming back to haunt a living man to scare him into being nice.. Some of the past film adaptations of CHRISTMAS CAROL were downright scary, and even the black and white versions of the story haunted me as a child, such as SCROOGE from 1935.
Some other stories from my lifetime that still keep the ‘creepy’ in Christmas: The GREMLINS was able to successfully utilize horror and holiday music, grounding up gremlins while DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR played .. that scene shaped my childhood dreams.. There were also some other badly made seasonal horror flicks, like SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT, and CHRISTMAS EVIL.
Even IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE has a paranormal theme. An angel coming to save a suicidal man before he ends it all..
Even the GRINCH THAT STOLE CHRISTMAS was scary.. and the idea that an ever-knowing Santa watches children when they sleep doesn’t really give me a deep down calm feeling either.
And who could forget, we still do have Krampus at Christmas..
And finally, there could be something else scary about this time of year. Besides the ‘veil thinning’ and the pagan acknowledgement of death during winter, it’s just a scary time altogether! .. New years is coming–one calender year over, of course calenders are man made but that doesn’t make them any less foreboding. Aging is scary.. not knowing what the next year will bring is also scary. We become victims to our paranoia and fear…and maybe that is why the Victorian Age was filled with so much of it..
There is, after all, lots to be actually scared of. Yes, then it was sickness and darkness, but what really has changed? The news media informs us almost daily that a big accident may soon happen to our entire grid, leaving parts of the United States dark for ‘years.’ We are equally warned about diseases that are not being killed off anymore by antibiotics. While we don’t dress with Victorian attire, we can attest that our fears are often the same as they were during our past. That’s the common bond in the human race. We surely don’t all get happy about the same things but that’s not true about fear. Deep down, we all fear the same things.. and ghosts represent the mystery and high strangeness that humans cannot explain.
So I say we bring back ghost stories! Let’s get the fire warm, open some gifts..drink up some spirits, and tell some tales about weird creatures and sounds bumping in the night.
Keep the Christ in Christmas. And keep the creepy, too.
If not, Santa may not stop by this year, but instead give us the ghost of CHRISTMAS FUTURE–and if you recall that was the scariest spirit of them all..
The video, posted by Dr. Biden on Wednesday, shows members of a New York City-based dance troupe, Dorrance Dancers, doing a tapdancing ‘playful’ interpretation of The Nutcracker Suite through the halls of the White House.
The group are in a candy-themed hall leading into the main Christmas tree in the Blue Room, since 1961 the main tree has usually been housed there. The dancers show off how each room has been decorated for the celebrations.
The stories of a Christmas villain who punishes bad children and drags them to hell–a real holiday spirited fable–are worth mentioning each year
Krampus is someone who accompanies St. Nick on his quest around the world to give gifts to kids.
In more ancient lore, we see him in pre-Christian times .. Austria. France. Italy. Slovenia. He may have originated during Pagan times from a horned deity. Either way, as times beats on, he becomes more popular each year.
So let’s get to the basics. Who is the lovable Christmas demon?
Krampus was created as a counterpart to kindly St. Nicholas, who rewarded children with sweets. Krampus, in contrast, would swat “wicked” children and take them away to his lair.
According to folklore, Krampus purportedly shows up in towns the night before December 6, known as Krampusnacht, or Krampus Night. December 6 also happens to be Nikolaustag, or St. Nicholas Day, when German children look outside their door to see if the shoe or boot they’d left out the night before contains either presents (a reward for good behavior) or a rod (bad behavior).
A more modern take on the tradition in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic involves drunken men dressed as devils, who take over the streets for a Krampuslauf—a Krampus Run of sorts, when people are chased through the streets by the “devils.”
So being dragged off to hell by a goat monster is what we deserve?
What if–if–Krampus was exactly what we deserve this holiday season?
There are times when we all need to take a long hard look in a mirror. With those Christmas lights in the background.. with the shadows of our reality in the foreground.
What may give us fright, if really were honest in our self-assessment, is that we may really deserve to be on the naughty list. We could possibly even be needing a sinister and disturbing visit from Krampus this holiday season.
More than 90 million people are under winter weather alerts and more than 87 million are under wind chill alerts. The alerts stretch across 37 states, dipping as far south as the Texas/Mexico border.
The number of people under winter alerts and wind chill alerts has grown to over 100 million people, or roughly a third of the US population, according to the National Weather Service.
Here is your Krampus weekend crash course.. for those who still don’t know.. (And no, not the movie, but the real lure)
Krampusnacht. The Feast of St. Nicholas is celebrated in parts of Europe on 6 December.
On the preceding evening of 5 December, Krampus Night or Krampusnacht, the wicked hairy devil appears on the streets. Sometimes accompanying St. Nicholas and sometimes on his own, Krampus visits homes and businesses.
The paranormal should be kept in the season!!
St. Nick is the patron saint of kids. Krampus is a force children don’t want to deal with.. with whips and punishments!
The history of Krampus dates back much further than just modern Christianity and movie theater scripts.
The notion of a Christmas demon has been around for some time. And the parables of Christmas showcase how this time of year is a dark and bleak moment before the rebirth and rise of the sun, the solstice where the days begin to lengthen again.. When the ‘son’ is born.
Some believe Krampus is a pagan character who eventually transformed into the modern Christian version of the devil himself. Pagans today celebrate Krampus with runs, modern festivals, and homages to the night air as it descends over the land.
Krampus has been the subject of widespread European attention for centuries. Over the past few years he has regained some official authority as the pagan beast of the holiday season because of his reemergence in pop culture and movies that are named after him.
In some European lure, St. Nicholas and Krampus travel together, judging children as they meet them.
So today.. as Krampus looms after nightfall, lock up your house tight and hope you’ll hear the bells of St. Nick instead of the chains of the one..the only…Krampus.
We have been hearing some awful rumors lately. .Apparently children are ending their timeless belief in Santa Claus in some big numbers. .
Perhaps it is the loss of hope. The lack of love.. the dying of light during the darkness of seasons..
It is unfortunate that so many are losing their age-old eagerness to forgo the earthly credences. Magic used to be alive during this season! You recall, it right?
You were young once (or are now) ..
Those childhood moments when the chill in the air felt more like an zealous burst of energy to your soul! When first snowflakes would fall, it would be true seasonal enchantment in the air..
But we have been informed by sources that overall belief in Santa is hitting an all-time low. Officials report that children, most under 10 years of age, are still able to believe but doubt Santa at a much earlier age as time goes on.
By 11 or 12, they are completely done with leaving cookies and milk and instead think their parents or guardians leave gifts under the tree..
Kids even stop giving carrots for Rudolph at an earlier age..
Hopefully we can out some facts out there about this waning tradition.
TRADITIONS CHANGE
So we wrote the intro to this post with some fun.. We know the truth about Santa, as do you .. deep down, you know. You really know.
You know he is as real as the screen you are reading this on! After all, is anything real?
But all joking and jest aside, yes.. Santa is real.
Some facts you need to read
The USPS believes in Santa.. so he is real.
Operation Santa, according to the USPS’s site, originated in 1912. About 100 years ago, the USPS started receiving letters to Santa Claus and in 1912, Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock decided to allow USPS employees — along with volunteers — to respond to the children’s letters. Now, you don’t even have to physically be at one of these regional post offices to select a letter — you can “adopt” a letter online, write back, and even give children gifts.
You have to write out a formal address to Santa, which is 123 Elf Road, North Pole 88888. (And yes, you still need to use a stamp!)
The science
Let’s cut to the chase.. Back in 2016, a science video showcased the physics behind Santa and why he could exist.. it is great education!
Another video from 2014 gave us another very scientific answer as to whether Santa exists:
No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn’t (appear to) handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total – 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census)rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes. One presumes there’s at least one good child in each.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west(which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc.
This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second – a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that “flying reindeer” (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal anoint, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload – not even counting the weight of the sleigh – to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison – this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance – this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake.The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim)would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
The Santa Claus metaphor would mean nothing to most people but to me it struck me as rather odd considering a meeting I had with physicist Stephen Hawking. Hawking spoke to a crowd at the University of Utah in the 1990’s and I happened to know someone who knew his assistant while he was staying in Utah. Upon meeting Hawking I was a little nervous about telling him what I did for a living. I told him I worked in the media and that I was a talk show host and news reporter. He asked me what kind of topics I covered and I told him I talked about aliens and Conspiracy theories. He was not at all critical of my interest in such things and spoke to me about all kinds of possibilities in the Universe.
He brought up Santa Claus as a model for things that are credulous. However he did make it clear that he was very serious about the issue. He said that in the ether that both Santa and Mickey Mouse can be very real and to a child –the thought is a very powerful agent. Santa Claus is impossible using classical physics, but in a quantum sense Santa can be very real. I was completely beside myself, here I was in the presence of a genius and all we could discuss is possible proof of Santa Claus.
With the usage of paralleled processing it can be theorized Santa has the ability to do the job he is said to do simultaneously. It is done in the same manner as sending an e-mail to multiple recipients at the same time. Years ago this was unthinkable, today in a split second you can deliver an e-mail to millions of people simultaneously without even having to leave your chair. How can anyone track the speed of that? The possibility to us is limited to the technological practice we take for granted. There are fewer varieties of toys in the world than e-mail recipients and yet we can’t wrap our minds around the fact that in some future time line the simultaneous appearance of matter cannot be accomplished and yet an e-mail is a thought electronically sent and it is very possible that people in all time zones can receive it.
Fax machines a rarely used today, but there is an argument that can be made about one piece of paper being inserted in a machine in one place and having millions of copies coming out in offices all over the world received by people. Now, if the next logical leap of science is to take that knowledge of parallel processing and bring it out of the computer and into our material world we can now see that the old traditional Santa Claus model is flawed but the new scientific progress can make the new Santa hypothesis closer to reality
So yeah. All that.
When the idea of Santa not being real comes up to my now 11-year-old son, I answer honestly. As a matter of fact, just the other night in the car he began to press me hard on whether Santa was real and how he could be.
I told him the truth, as I know it from research and science: We live in a multiverse. All things are possible and likely. So Santa, in this multiverse, exists as well. Magic is real on Christmas and, even if we don’t see him or he does bring gifts this year, he is very real.
And by the way.. if he is real, so is Krampus. So be good.. or those ringing bells will bring coal and scorn from the Christmas demon.
So hear’s to keeping it real at Christmas! Magic exists if you believe. And since Santa is real, there is no reason magic can’t be either.
