Christmas Penguins

Over the years Christmas traditions have changed. Santa Claus has gown into a jolly cross cultural icon with a wonderfully soft white beard and a belly like a bowl full of jelly. Donder became Donner, don’t ask about Blixem. We stand by as the corporate world turns Christmas into an orgy of packaging and spending.

In the face of all this my family is carving out a version of Christmas with our own symbols of peace, love, harmony and magic. And this is good.

But really, penguins?

When did penguins become a symbol of good will? How did they manage to infiltrate Christmas? Who is on their public relations team? Who are their stylists?

Did it start with Coca Cola and their advertisements showing polar bears and penguins frolicking together? Whose genius idea was that? Has climate changed pushed the North Pole right into the South Pole?

The whole Christmas experience is a northern one. Reindeer are a northern animal. There are no magical elves in the southern hemisphere. Santa Clause lives at the North Pole although there is debate around whether it is the geographic or magnetic North Pole. Recent evidence showing the magnetic North Pole is slipping from the top of the globe will present some logistical problems for Santa, but if you can get eight reindeer to fly you should be able to handle the inconvenience of polar relocation.

The thing is, no matter how much the North Pole has moved it is still not the South Pole and there are no penguins at the North Pole. They have not migrated, emigrated or otherwise been displaced.

Penguins have never made it into our popular mythology. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, while seemingly anatomically unlikely, did not join in the Reindeer Games. There is no mention of penguin games. Cupid and the Easter Bunny have completely shunned the lowly penguin.

They are not even the right colours. Christmas is about green and red. Penguins are black and white. True, they are both dichromatic, but Christmas incorporates so many more colours to underscore its meaning. Penguins ultimately do not. Sure there is some shading and highlights, but penguins are still black and white.

Look at who they are displacing. When was the last time you heard anything about the Christmas seal? It has been a while! Seals are cute, at least when they are babies and before they are clubbed. The arctic fox is beautiful, all white and sly. Sure they have the carnivore thing to overcome but penguins aren’t strictly vegetarian either. The polar bears that the penguins are supposedly cavorting with have more than a little gristle stuck in their teeth. And who ever considers the walrus.

I don’t want it to seem like I have an anti-penguin bias. They have their place in the world; it is just not here, at Christmas. I am sure there is some strange holiday that incorporates penguins although I cannot image what a flightless waddling bird might symbolize.

So please, let’s set aside the nasty penguin and keep the mammal in Christmas!

Teenager

The word itself is not evil. Some view teenagers as evil but that is a generalization that generally is not true. The word is seldom applied to anything that is not human, and again some will argue teenagers are not human but generally they are. I was of the opinion that teenagers were just intellectually challenged adults until I started to really look at some of the adults I have known. Either I didn’t give teenagers enough credit or a lot of adults never matured beyond their teenage years.

Despite anyone’s feelings about them, the word ‘teenager’ has been my word for the last week. Not my word exclusively although I can’t say I heard anyone else using it, but a word that was randomly selected for my weekly photographic exercise.

I failed. Trying to photograph something that meant ‘teenager’ to me was difficult. I didn’t want to use anyone in the photograph. I don’t know that many teenagers and using a stranger would have meant release forms, parents and possible stalker accusations. I don’t relish being a creepy old man, at least not yet. For this single picture I wasn’t going to enter that arena. And I also found it is difficult to photograph a school and have the picture mean anything.


So the picture you see here is what resulted. Not very good, not very symbolic and certainly not satisfying to me but a picture none the less. Next week will be better, I hope!