The Sunday Collection

Beatings, postal, smells and brown.

From darkpictures.fandom.com/wiki/Krampus

Krampus Eve - Did you miss it? It’s also known as Krampusnacht, and is held on December 5th, the night before the feast of St. Nicholas. Krampus - hairy, horned, with a long tail - accompanies St. Nicholas on his visits to children, punishing the badly behaved ones by beating them with birch rods. Even worse, in some variations, Krampus also appears with a sack to carry away naughty children and throw them into the nearest stream. Back in my day, all we had was the vague threat that Santa was always watching us. Like God but with more immediate consequences. And Santa was taking notes, as according to the song,

He's making a list,
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty and nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town

Are Santa and Krampus both part of your traditions? Did you at least mail out some Krampuskarten to your friends?

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Canada Post -Speaking of sending Christmas cards, friendly or scary ones, that seems to be a fading tradition. Especially this year, what with the ongoing strike/lockout/impasse. CP has been losing hundreds of millions a year, and will continue it seems. Until they can’t borrow anymore and/or the government finally bails them out. They have a mandate to provide service to all of Canada, not just the profitable bits, and at fair and reasonable rates. While staying self-sustainable. This is with a drop of 1/3 in letter revenue, while still saddled with the infrastructure for the higher volume. And still while trying to compete with a growing package delivery market, but to raise rates it seems, or change their structure to use more temporary and part-time workers or automate more. The union CUPW is strongly against the necessary changes. Should the government step in and force binding arbitration? Should they also re-examine the role and mandate of Canada Post? The Liberals were quick to step in for the railway and dockworkers strikes, but those strikes had a big impact on the nation’s economy. This one? Mostly small businesses it seems. Charities. People with visas and passports in transit. And my Christmas cards. The Conservatives have not been prodding the Liberals at all on this in Question period either, as I think they are hoping to lure the labour vote away from the NDP. Both sides are sort of talking, but the backlog of over twelve million packages could take two months to clear. With added temporary workers I’m guessing. I may just save my dozen or so Christmas cards for next year.

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Fartblaster - Speaking of Christmas - Yes, the Fartblaster is a toy, from Despicable Me 4. Available from Amazon, of course, or wherever ‘quality’ toys are sold. It shoots out puffs of vapour, fog fart rings, with a choice from fifteen different sounds and two smells, stinky or banana. If you’ve been a good little boy Santa may bring you one. Only boys though, as girls don’t fart, right?

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Colour of the Year - Last week I talked about the Word of the Year 2024- Kakistocracy. There’s also a Colour of the Year proposed for 2025, according to Pantone. It’s called Mocha Mousse, a beautiful colour, with a visual depiction that melts in your mouth. According to the Pantone Color Institute, “We’re living in a time where there’s so much going on that is more serious, let’s say, and at the same time, we don’t want any heaviness. We want some peace. We want to feel content . . . So there’s an airiness and a light feeling to this color. Yeah, it’s a brown, but it’s not a heavy brown.” Apparently brown is no longer a drab colour, it’s now a mark of sophistication and craftsmanship.