Some homeowners in the USA deploy more Christmas ornamentation than other homeowners, a statistical fact explored in a study, published in 1987, about one of the statistical outliers. That study is: “It’s the Thought That Counts: A Case Study in Xmas Excesses“, Richard W. Pollay, Advances in Consumer Research, vol. 14, 1987, pp. 140-143. The […]
Tag: Christmas
The “Santa Claus Effect” – positive or negative? (two viewpoints)
Here’s the abstract of a 2017 study by Professor Brendan Kelly, Consultant Psychiatrist at Tallaght Hospital, School of Medicine, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Background: Christmas “is the season to be jolly” but, despite many recent studies of happiness and wellbeing, the population distribution of jollity is unknown. Aims: To assess levels of jollity across Europe, […]
Caroline’s Christmas, forgotten again
This Christmas we forgot, as we do every year, to publish Stephen Leacock’s “Caroline’s Christmas, or the Inexplicable Infant.” Here, three days late, is a snippet: “…The Old Homestead was mortgaged! Ten years ago, reckless with debt, crazed with remorse, mad with despair and persecuted with rheumatism, John Enderby had mortgaged his farmstead for twenty-four dollars […]
Improbable medical research about Christmas
A revisit to the medical literature: A Collection of Christmas Science, Part 1 and Part 2. (Thanks to investigator Ivan Oransky for reminding us about our own files, which we are all too prone to forget. There’s more buried in those files…)
Xmas code crackers
The ‘Santa Claus Problem’ (outlined above) was first described by Professor John A. Trono, (of Saint Michael’s College, VT, US) in his paper ‘A new exercise in concurrency’, SIGCSE Bulletin, Vol. 26, pp. 8-10, 1994. Despite its apparent first-glance simplicity, the problem presents robust concurrent programming complexities when using ‘traditional’ computer programming languages such as […]
Santa Claus Internet Jokes (a Latvian study)
Guntis Pakalns, who is senior researcher, Dr.philol. at the Archives of Latvian Folklore, Institute for Literature, Folklore and Art at University of Latvia, has collated a unique and very extensive collection of Christmas-related humorous images and video clips found on the Internet. Dr. Pakalns outlines his project thus: “The central part of the article is […]
“Towards a Theory of Santa”
Now that Christmas is approaching, there may be no better time to ask such questions as “Is Santa Claus under threat?” – maybe, say, from the ‘Audit Culture’, which involves an inversion of his benign characteristics in terms of suspicion and surveillance? And just such questions have been examined by Professor Ian Stronach (Liverpool John […]
Magnetic Alignment of Fish in a Barrel
If you put all your fish in one barrel, they might be inclined to align themselves, if they are not too far from the magnetic north pole or south pole, suggests this study: “Magnetic Alignment in Carps: Evidence from the Czech Christmas Fish Market,” Vlastimil Hart [pictured here with a non-magnetically aligned dog], Tomas Kusta, […]
Surgical Insight: How to truss a stuffed turkey
Veterinary surgeons offer their insight to anyone who plans to cook a Christmas (or Thanksgiving or other) turkey. Details are in this new study: “Investigation of the best suture pattern to close a stuffed Christmas turkey,” D. Verwilghen, V. Busoni, G. van Galen, M. Wilke, vol. 169, no. 26, Veterinary Record, 2011 pp. 685-6. The authors, […]
Paraffin wax in the Male Bladder (revisited)
From the British Medical Journal, Aug 27, 1949, where Dr. B.B. Rapackl describes a case he encountered in Poland in 1936. “The patient was admitted to hospital with acute cystitis. Cystoscopy confirmed this diagnosis, and to my great surprise revealed a blue-tinted twisted Christmas candle floating on top of the liquid (‘rivanol’) which had been injected into […]