Beneath some of the great Christmas classics runs a current of darker, older beliefs underlying the cosy festivities It could be worse, I could be an NHS Equality and Diversity manager appointed to ensure compliance with equal pay, gender pay gap, social mobility and ethnic diversity targets invented by central government who awoke this week to find cabinet ministers using me as a right-wing meme for what is wrong with the NHS ignoring the fact that my role is a symptom of their over-regulation of the NHS after 12 years of their control.

Darkest Christmas: December 1942 and a World at War

Anyway, I tell her and watch as she reacts with a mixture of horror and sympathy. I resolve there and then to quit medicine or at least try something more humane, say, psychiatry, maybe. Maybe regain my humanity. Burnt out. Nativity scenes seem like a pretty standard Christmas tradition, but in Catalonia they’re a little… different. Specifically, they feature a character called a caganer. There’s no good way to say this: caganer means “defecator,” and in the scenes they’re squatting, with their pants down, with a pile of poop on the ground beneath them. Seriously. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" has been covered by everyone from Amy Grant to Barry Manilow, but it was originally written for the 1944 movie Meet Me in Saint Louis and sung by Judy Garland. Hugh Martin was given the task of creating a song that could show the family's sadness over celebrating the last Christmas in a home they were soon moving from. With lyrics like "Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last," Martin did such a good job of writing a melancholy tune that Garland complained it was too depressing. To this day, next to people who dress as Santa, you can find others dressed as Le Père Fouettard, complete with the whip, threatening French and Belgian children.It feels ever more relevant in a time when the dark really does seem to be rising,” Macfarlane says. For anyone weary of the cheap sentiment and tinselly glitz of so many Christmas offerings, and wanting a taste of deep midwinter mystery, these novels are the best place to start, and these new ways of sharing them are part of the magic. Poor UX of Electronic Patient Records is often cited as a major cause of burn out in the USA but not something we often talk about here, and yet last year’ s national usability survey commissioned by NHSX (R.I.P.) revealed the NHS to have some of the worst IT UX in the civilised world and it is causing burn out. Despite what Hallmark has led you to believe, the history of Christmas is filled with terrifying figures. Even modern Christmas traditions, such as watching holiday-themed movies, can prove unnerving to a child. Consider the time-tested film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which features a terrifying carnivorous snow monster as the primary antagonist.

We need the darkest Christmas stories. These are dark times

Forget turkey… in South Africa, many people enjoy the deep-fried caterpillars of the Emperor Moth on Christmas Day! Christmas 1986, the snow fell silently in the ambulance reception area of the Ingham Infirmary, South Shields. I was half an hour in from the end of my day shift when the Ambulance Service hotline rang and we were told to expect a road traffic accident (RTA). Football fans often say “It’s the hope that kills you in the end” and so it is with digital health. And yet…. And yet…… As I write, I see the great lava lamp of NHS organisational churn begin to glow with a faint hope once more.

28. Like Caroling, But With A Scary Horse Figure

It was shattering and dehumanising, after a number of months of chronic sleep deprivation, I’m seeing things no 24-year-old should ever see. I was a burned-out husk of my former self. I’d come to regard the public as the enemy. People became acronyms. On the small white cards which served as the record of a visit to A&E I’d record the history: They know from my demeanour what I’m gonna tell them. I tell them and they dissolve in tears, “no it can’t be true” they say, like they always do. “I’m so sorry, there was nothing we could do, he didn’t suffer”. I look at my watch, 8.55pm. How long is this going to take, I’m late for my hot date.

Dark Christmas Movies to Watch Over the Holidays | Time

A newspaper today advised people to phone a taxi instead of 999 as if that were unusual. A paramedic friend gave me the same advice before Covid and the situation has worsened since then. The author Piers Torday had been similarly obsessed with the story as a child. He wanted to stage an adaptation while at university with two friends who shared his passion for it, but the rights were not available, and the project was forgotten. Twenty-five years on, the stars aligned: the same friends were now a theatre executive and a producer, and Torday’s new adaptation of The Box of Delights has just opened at Wilton’s Music Hall in east London. For years, people have dressed up as Santa to delight little children around Christmas time, but SantaCon has somewhat tainted the tradition. An infamous pub crawl that started in New York City and has now spread to many other cities, and not only does having hundreds of people dress up as Santa spoil the illusion for the kids that witness the event, but their drunken antics cause damage and public nuisance every year. Between 1966 and 1970, the Godfather of Soul made a string of Christmas records, some of them funky (“Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto”), some of them deep (a spectacular soul version of “The Christmas Song”), and some of them totally bizarre. This one is the weirdest: a churning, overwrought orchestral groove, over which JB apparently improvises a totally incoherent rant about Christmas, peace protesters, God, partying, and (tellingly) wine. By the end, he’s quoting “Hava Nagila” and “Volaré.” The original single included an instrumental version labeled “Sing Along With James,” as if that were possible. D.W. Crass –“Merry Crassmas” (1981) Released as just a song before it was a hit TV special, Frosty the Snowman has become a beloved Christmas character. Unfortunately, Frosty the Snowman comes along with the idea that Snowmen are actually alive, and children still have to watch them all melt every spring.I understand how hard it is for NHS staff this Christmas. We have 3 kids and 2 of them are junior doctors on the front line. Their workloads are overwhelming, and I can see them developing the character-armour and detachment from people required to survive.

Christmas Is a Way Darker Holiday Than You Realize 12 Ways Christmas Is a Way Darker Holiday Than You Realize

The Germans can’t get enough of creepy characters designed to scare children. Knecht Ruprecht is a sort of counterpart to Santa. He wears a dark robe, has a long, dark beard, and carries a bag of ashes, switches, treats, and a long staff. Some people still dress up as Knecht Ruprecht, giving the treats to nice children while giving the naughty ones switches and ash. There’s a reason the NHS invested in Microsoft office. It works. Even if you’re not an excel whizz, & you only scratch the surface of pivot tables, someone who is can send you their work, and you can open it, and embed it in Word, forward it via Outlook and discuss over Teams. The Dark is Rising is a disturbing book, in a way that children’s stories rarely are now. At the beginning, Cooper describes Will’s fear of the dark in a way that makes the hairs stand up on your arms; she draws out echoes of the old powers of the English landscape – now hostile, now beguiling – in a way that recalls the Gawain poet.Eartha Kitt made the song “Santa Baby” famous in 1953, and it’s still a Christmas classic today. But if you take a closer look at the lyrics, the weird mixture of children’s traditions and the sexualization of Santa is more unsettling than charming. Gryla is a giant ogre who lives in a cave. During Christmas she emerges to hunt for children, which she kidnaps, takes to her cave, and cooks in a vat of stew.