christmas
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A Very Ghostly Christmas: St Nicholas, the Slaughtered Students and the Murdered Merchant, by Professor Anne Lawrence-Mathers
On the feast day of St Nicholas of Myra, we find out if the ‘Wondeworker’ Saint is a modern day Santa Claus or an early version of Sweeny Todd in these stories of ghostly apparitions, murder, and magic. Will there… Continue reading
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When should we start putting up decorations and celebrating Christmas festivities? Are you team Nov 1st? Dec 1st? A week before? Professor Helen Parish takes a look…
Our own Professor @HelenLParish takes a historical view of this question and how this debate has raged for centuries! In the words of Perry Como’s classic, “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas”. The pandemic has got many yearning… Continue reading
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Midnight Mass, the Stone Roses, and ‘cuddling boys’: Recollections of Christmastime and New Year’s Eve in teenage girls’ diaries, 1970-1998
by Amy Gower, PhD student. Christmas evokes a sense of nostalgia in many of us, as a holiday wrapped up in tradition, family, and the home. Through my research into the diaries of teenage girls from the 1970s, 80s and… Continue reading
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25th December 1914: Christmas Day on board HMS Talbot
by Dr Ruth Salter [1] I know that it’s not 25th of December today, but what could be more fitting for the final blog post of the series, and for the final entry taken from my great-grandfather, Arthur John Pidgeon’s… Continue reading
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23rd December 1888: The Van Gogh story everyone wants to hear…
by Donna Yamani On the night before Christmas Eve in 1888 — a cold Sunday evening in the French city of Arles — Vincent Van Gogh took the razor he kept on his small dressing table and slashed off his… Continue reading
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