Albert the amber-assed antelope
Had a very shiny ass.
And if you ever saw it,
You would say it’s made of glass.

All of the other reindeer,
Used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Albert,
Play in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas Day
Santa came to say:
“Albert with your ass so bright,
Won’t you be my back up light?”

Then how the reindeer loved him,
As they shouted out with glee,
“Albert the amber-assed antelope,
You’ll go down in history.”

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Tagging Today
Saturday, December 22, 2018
My 254th consecutive posting, committed to 5,000.
Time is 12.01am.
On Saturday Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 53* but gusty wind will make it feel like 46*.
A couple of morning showers; otherwise, mostly cloudy; mild. * with less wind than , resulting in a feels-like temperature 32*, all in all substantially warmer than . With sun.

Dinner is Lasagna Packets: noodles stuffed individually and wrapped like flowers.

254 posts to date.
The 5.08% mark of my commitment.
A different way of looking at the passage of time.
5,000 so far away.

Tick Tock.

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Question of the Day:
Are St. Nicholas and Santa Claus the same person? 

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Answer to Question:
Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Kris Kringle, Father Christmas, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts to the homes of well-behaved ("good" or "nice") children on Christmas Eve (24 December) and the early morning hours of Christmas Day (25 December).
The modern Santa Claus grew out of traditions surrounding the historical Saint Nicholas (a fourth-century Greek bishop and gift-giver of Myra), the British figure of Father Christmas and the Dutch figure of Sinterklaas (himself also based on Saint Nicholas).
Some maintain Santa Claus also absorbed elements of the Germanic god Wodan, who was associated with the pagan midwinter event of Yule and led the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession through the sky.

Santa Claus is generally depicted as a portly, jolly, white-bearded man—sometimes with spectacles—wearing a red coat with white fur collar and cuffs, white-fur-cuffed red trousers, a red hat with white fur and black leather belt and boots and who carries a bag full of gifts for children.
This image became popular in the United States and Canada in the 19th century due to the significant influence of the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" and of caricaturist and political cartoonist Thomas Nast.
This image has been maintained and reinforced through song, radio, television, children's books, films, and advertising.

Santa Claus is said to make lists of children throughout the world, categorizing them according to their behavior ("good" and "bad", or "naughty" and "nice") and to deliver presents, including toys, and candy to all of the well-behaved children in the world, and coal to all the misbehaved children, on the single night of Christmas Eve.
He accomplishes this feat with the aid of his elves, who make the toys in his workshop at the North Pole, and his flying reindeer, who pull his sleigh.
He is commonly portrayed as living at the North Pole, and often laughing in a way that sounds like "ho ho ho".

Traditionally, Nicholas was born in the city of Patara (Lycia et Pamphylia), a port on the Mediterranean Sea, in Asia Minor in the Roman Empire, to a wealthy family of Greek Christians.

After his parents died, Nicholas is said to have distributed their wealth to the poor.
In his most famous exploit, which is first attested in Michael the Archimandrite's Life of Saint Nicholas, Nicholas heard of a devout man who once had been wealthy, but had lost all his money due to the "plotting and envy of Satan."
The man had three daughters, but could not afford a proper dowry for them.
This meant that they would remain unmarried and probably, in absence of any other possible employment, be forced to become prostitutes.
Hearing of the girls' plight, Nicholas decided to help them, but, being too modest to help the family in public (or to save them the humiliation of accepting charity), he went to the house under the cover of night and threw a purse filled with gold coins through the window opening into the house.
He did the same thing the next two nights, giving the man a total of three bags of gold, one for each of his three daughters.[

According to Michael the Archimandrite's version, on the third night, the father of the three girls stayed up and caught Saint Nicholas in the act of the charity.
The father fell on his knees, thanking him.
Nicholas ordered him not to tell anyone about the gift.

The scene of Nicholas's secret gift-giving is one of the most popular scenes in Christian devotional art, appearing in icons and frescoes from across Europe.
Although depictions vary depending on time and place, Nicholas is often shown wearing a cowl while the daughters are typically shown in bed, dressed in their nightclothes.
Many renderings contain a cypress tree or a cross-shaped cupola.

Michael the Archimandrite's expressly states that St. Nicholas is motivated by a desire to save the daughters from being sold into prostitution.
He argues that this desire to help women is most characteristic of fourth-century Christianity, due to the prominent role women played in the early Christian movement, rather than Greco-Roman paganism or the Christianity of Michael the Archimandrite's time in the ninth century, by which point the position of women had drastically declined.

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Good morning on this Saturday, December 22,
Christmas now only 3 days away
Getting very close.
Today we tweaked our thoughts on time.
We sang a song that doesn’t quite make every one’s list of approved carols.
And we read some on Santa Claus and St. Nicholas, and saw some pictures.

Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?

See you soon.

Love

Dom