To hate the now common usage of "santa"

[Creambun2]

Just this really. Santa is a vulgar Americanism.

What was wrong with father Christmas ffs.

I’ve never in my life seen or heard Santy.
Agree that Santa (no Claus) has almost totally replaced Father Christmas in England.

Father Christmas really isn't a middle class thing.

I love this idea that some classes are so easy to access that you're part of them just by saying certain words 😭

I know bashing anything seen as an "Americanism" is practically de rigueur but you're just coming off as a goady twat, OP.

When I was growing up (NW, 1970s), Santa was someone who sat in a glittery, neon-lit department store dispensing cheap plasticky presents that broke before you got out of the grotto. He wore a bright red, bobbly felt suit and a cotton wool beard. He was actually quite depressing although some kids seemed to get very excited about him. He had elves who looked like middle-aged women in costumes and they gave out chewy sweets that I didn't like, and they talked to each other about things like dinnertime and KwikSave. I knew he was Santa because the sign said so.

Father Christmas was the old man in the deep red coat who loaded up his creaky, old sleigh in the frozen North and flew through the frosty night to my house. It was definitely Father Christmas who came down my chimney on Christmas Eve. His reindeer had bells you could almost hear and his white beard was real. He was the man who ate my mince pie and took my carrot for his reindeer. He left presents that I'd waited all year for, and he lit the fire and made the Christmas tree twinkle on his way out. He once swapped my old pedal car for a bike just like the one my cousin used to have, which I'd wanted for years. He was truly old and truly magical.

It's Father Christmas who visits my children now. Santa stays in the town centre with his stick-on beard and the long queue.

Strictly speaking Father Christmas wasn't a bringer of gifts. So any letters should probably be forwarded to Santa Claus. He's coming to town next month.

biggreygoose

Now i have him in my head in a captain America type costume

Or piratical...or captain jack harkness!!!

Agreed! It's Father Christmas!

Have the 'it's all nicked from paganism' crowd arrived yet?

Fekko, I think they have got into a punch up with the...'but it's very name is CHRISTmas gang'

Who really gives a fuck?

But FWIW if anyone where I lived called Santa "Father Christmas", they'd sound very Hyacinth Bucket.

The oracle that is Wikipedia agrees that Santa Claus is American (taken from the Dutch immigrants) and that Father Christmas is English and that they were not originally the same person. It reckons that 'Santa Claus' arrived in England in the 1850s. I'm saying 'England' because it does, by the way, not because I think Scotland is the same thing... It's quite interesting, actually!

Have the 'it's all nicked from paganism' crowd arrived yet?

Yup - RTFT

I posted on the first page

I noticed today that the mad creationist play zoo near me is having a 'meet old saint nick' attraction instead of 'meet santa' so thought it was a Christian thing, like they had a 'pumpkin festival ' instead of Halloween.

It's always been Santa Claus to me but I like father Christmas too.

I really cannot stand how snobbish people are about what they perceive as "americanisms". America is huge and encompasses so many different cultures... to claim that everything American is vulgar is in itself incredibly vulgar and ignorant imo.

I love this idea that some classes are so easy to access that you're part of them just by saying certain words 😭

Well obviously it doesn't work like that.

Using FC won't make you MC if you're not but if you're MC you probably do use it.

Bloody Americans eh? What have they ever done for us.

Harriet - honestly Woolco was as much Father Christmas as the bucolic Father Christmas you describe

It's a name. That's all.

St Nicholas was originally from Turkey.
His red coat ‘may’ have been changed due to Coke advertising (not sure how acurate that info is?), his original robes were white.

widdgypudding it may well be an English middle class signifier but it absolutely isn’t in Scotland.

I’m middle class, living in a deeply middle class area. No one says Father Christmas here (unless they are English)

Oh, and if you’re naught Krumpus will pay you a visit 😂 was threatened with this as a child.

And to annoy you further OP, Halloween is a thing here too, not an US import. Guising, and performing, not trick or treating. Suspect we, and the Irish took it there actually.
Yep, pumpkins were just hellovalot easier to carve than turnips (or your local name for turnips.) There's a bloody terrifying old jack o'lantern in the Irish Museum of Country Life.
But I think Santy does come from the American but naysayers can get over themselves imo.

How are you so sure of this

I can't be sure. But I did read a long, exhaustive and quite boring academic analysis of the term years ago.

My feeling is that if it came straight from Holland via, say William of Orange, it would have been anglicised as St Nick or St Claus, as St Nicholas already exists in the UK.

In the US Sinter Klaas went into common parlance wholesale because of all the native Dutch speakers there, which we have never had.

Just as there are many settlers in the UK from Ireland, many Irish and Scots migrated to the US, so it may have come unto common useage that way.

Can I ask an honest question gerkin? Does that mean someone like me wouldn't really be able to move to your town? Would I get the piss taken out of me or would I just be ignored as the weird southerner? Could I ever make a life there?

I'm just really surprised by these places where newcomers aren't welcome. I consider myself quite upwardly mobile and it always surprises me there are probably places you can't really move to

I think Father Christmas is preferred by uptight middle class try-hards

Ha! I happen to know one uptight, middle class try hard who uses Father Christmas actually... It sounds really forced and silly when she says it tbh. Like when some people say serviette instead of napkin. It’s all a bit hyacinth bucket to me.

Tbf though, I’ve just remembered that my northern granny says Father Christmas. She is very working class indeed . Takes all sorts I suppose.

I think the ridiculous people aren’t the ones who just say FC, like my granny, but the ones who think they are being ‘dead classy’ in doing so. There’s a Jilly Cooper character, (not that I read Jilly Cooper of course ), called Valerie Jones who does something like this in one of her novels and it’s quite comical.

long

I read (will see if i can find it) that his coat was red long before Coca Cola

But the short red and white jacket is heavily influenced by the adverts...i think