akg-images Festive Watercooler
21 December 2022
It's the akg-images Virtual Watercooler with interesting little tidbits about the festive season to share with your family, friends, or colleagues if your work continues through Christmas and New Year. You can use these openers to spark conversation with someone you've just met, or steer it onto a safer course if needed!
Best wishes for the holidays.
Japan is a country rich in history, customs, and culture with cuisine that is famed for being nutritious and well-balanced. In a testament to the power of advertising, it is KFC that many Japanese families will tuck into at Christmas. It is believed that a marketing campaign that began in Japan in 1974 created a new Christmas food tradition that has thrived for almost five decades. In embracing a largely Western holiday (around 1% of Japanese people are Christian), they also embraced the idea of the whole family gathering around a bucket of fried chicken. Christmas sales account for a third of the total yearly sales for KFC Japan.
We all love a Christmas carol and astronauts are no exception. “Jingle Bells” became the first song to be played in space on 16 December 1965. It was played on a harmonica and bells by astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford during NASA's Gemini 6A space flight.
It seems the most common time to get engaged is between Christmas and New Year. There may be a number of reasons contributing to this phenomenon. One suggestion is that, for many, Christmas is the only time of year that extended family will come together, allowing the news to be celebrated by the whole family. Another suggestion is that it's symbolic and that the evaluation of the past year with the promise of new beginnings prompts people to move to the next chapter of their relationship.
When Kevin McCallister's family took off for a Parisian Christmas leaving him all alone to battle with burglars - hilarity ensued. Home Alone was the highest-grossing Christmas film from 1990 to 2018, when it was usurped by The Grinch. Robert De Niro turned down the role of burglar Harry Lime which was played by Joe Pesci.
The jolly man in red originated from Saint Nicholas, a patron saint famous for giving generous gifts to the poor. The pronunciation of Saint Nicholas in Dutch is Sinnterklaas, which is where the name Santa Claus came from. Around the world, the bringer-of-gifts comes in different guises. Hawaiians call him Kanakaloka, and he wears floral shirts rather than corporate red. Brazilians are visited by Papai Noel – sometimes called Bom Velhinho, which means “good old man”. Our friends in Finland welcome Joulupukki - the Yule Goat. Japan have a kind, gift-giving figure in an old Buddhist monk named Hoteiosho. Russia’s version of Santa Claus lives in a pine forest and is called Ded Moroz, meaning “grandfather frost.”
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