Search: portable north pole

(Ha, I started writing this post and then remembered I’d written something similar. I dug around in the archives and found the one I was looking for, from 2009. I’m sure I haven’t looked at it since I published it three years ago, but I had taken exactly the same approach and even used some of the same wording in the original opening paragraph to this post that I used back then. I’m not sure if I’m plagiarizing myself or showing early signs of senility!)

Ahem. So, apparently back in 2009 I wrote this post about five ways to interact with Santa. The five ways were:

– the Portable North Pole
– letters and e-mails to Santa via Canada Post
– NORAD’s Santa Tracker
– follow Santa on Facebook
– follow Santa on Twitter

FWIW, the Portable North Pole is still my favourite, and NORAD’s Santa Tracker a close second. As far as I know, the magic of Christmas is intact in the imaginations of my offspring, and I credit the videos from PNP (and perhaps an unwillingness to jinx the appearance of presents on Christmas morning?) with their utter lack of skepticism.

Because they were so charmed by the PNP (and have even started wondering when their videos will ‘arrive’ this year in Mom’s inbox), I think they’ll be equally delighted with this: you can now make an appointment to Skype with Santa. How cute is that? You can reserve your child’s 10 minute Skype with Santa courtesy of the Toronto Eaton Centre now through December 23.

Although I’ve used Facetime, I am embarrassed to admit that this social media maven has never actually used Skype. Like making a Blurb book, this is another thing I’ve been meaning to conquer but never seemed to get around to, so it will be good practice. Feel free to share Skype tips!

I figure it’s only a matter of time before technology brings us a holographic Santa that pops out of the chimney on Christmas morning…

(Edited to add: and ha, again. Apparently I wrote about Christmas apps in 2010 too. Oy, I really am starting to repeat myself!!)

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Hmmm, something’s just not quite right. The tree is up, the stockings are hung, the malls are filled with frantic holiday shoppers and Magic 100 has switched to all-Christmas-music-all-the-time format. I’ve blogged about Santa parades and the Portable North Pole. I’ve got all my bloggy holiday traditions covered, but it feels like something is missing.

Oh riiiiiiiight. It’s time for the annual reindeer rant! 🙂 If I can educate one misinformed soul every year about the correct names of Santa’s reindeer, my mission will be a success.

“You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen;
Comet and Cupid and DONDER and Blitzen…”

As you might know, my last name is Donders. As such, it has been my lifelong quest to set the record straight and right the wrongs entrenched by Johnny Marks and Gene Autry.

Here’s a little history lesson for you. The poem “A Visit From St Nicholas”, commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas”, was written back in 1823 and is generally attributed to American poet Clement Clarke Moore (although there have been recent arguments that the poem was in fact written by his contemporary Henry Livingston Jr.) The original poem reads, in part:

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name.
“Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on Dunder and Blixem!

As explained on the Donder Home Page (no relation):

In the original publication of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” in 1823 in the Troy Sentinel, “Dunder and Blixem” are listed as the last two reindeer. These are very close to the Dutch words for thunder and lightning, “Donder and Bliksem”. Blixem is an alternative spelling for Bliksem, but Dunder is not an alternative spelling for Donder. It is likely that the word “Dunder” was a misprint. Blitzen’s true name, then, might actually have been “Bliksem”.

In 1994, the Washington Post delved into the matter by sending a reporter to the Library of Congress to reference the source material. (In past years, I’d been able to link to a Geocities site with the full text, but sadly, Geocities is no more.)

We were successful. In fact, Library of Congress reference librarian David Kresh described Donner/Donder as “a fairly open-and-shut case.” As we marshaled the evidence near Alcove 7 in the Library’s Main Reading Room a few days ago, it quickly became clear that Clement Clarke Moore, author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” wanted to call him (or her?) “Donder.” Never mind that editors didn’t always cooperate. […] Further confirmation came quickly. In “The Annotated Night Before Christmas,” which discusses the poem in an elegantly illustrated modern presentation, editor Martin Gardner notes that the “Troy Sentinel” used “Dunder”, but dismisses this as a typo. Gardner cites the 1844 spelling as definitive, but also found that Moore wrote “Donder” in a longhand rendering of the poem penned the year before he died: “That pretty well sews it up,” concluded Kresh.

So there you have it. This Christmas season, make sure you give proper credit to Santa’s seventh reindeer. On DONDER and Blitzen. It’s a matter of family pride.

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