Template talk:Christmas

Notes

If anybody wants something to be added or taken away feel free to suggest it here. Remember 14:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I feel like the Folklore section is very strongly POV in favor of a few English-speaking Western countries... jengod 20:47, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Probably true. If you have any related pages that you think should be added that reflect the folklore of Christmas from other regions please suggest them. I don't really know of any so it is hard for me to suggest them myself. Remember 21:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Folklore vs Media

I don't think that Frosty the Snowman, the Grinch, Rudolph, and Ebeneezer Scrooge count as Folklore, as they are from specific fictional works with a known author and origin. I would place them under Media, give them a separate section, or remove them from the infobox altogether, as the individual works can be found in the various Media categories. Clement Cherlin 00:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I have removed them altogether since they are easily accessed through the "fiction" link in media. If someone feels they should be linked in this template, they certainly do not belong under folklore. I have also removed links to Lapland and Rovaniemi since they contain very little, if any, content relevant to Christmas. SlackerMom 14:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello

What about Joulupukki??--Spiby (talk) 19:07, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. He was hidden behind the "other characters"-section. ☺ Spiby ☻ 19:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Template image

Yes, Christmas tree is much better. VVVladimir (talk) 17:10, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

It's a nice photo but I just noticed, after seeing it 100s of times, that only the top two thirds of the tree are lit. Is this a candles thing?PurpleChez (talk) 16:05, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Christmas Tradition?

Although the 'NORAD Tracks Santa' is a cute program, I don't think that it has established a position as a Christmas tradition yet. Wkdwzd (talk) 13:06, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Tough, its staying.--EveryDayJoe45 (talk) 19:41, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Yea! I'd say it's a tradition and I'm glad it's staying. I'm not even a huge "Santa" person but I think it's a great true story, and after half a century I'd be comfortable calling it a traditions.PurpleChez (talk) 16:07, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Folklore

I will be adding some more related figures and locations. If you disagree with any, revert them and we'll discuss why here. --EveryDayJoe45 (talk) 22:28, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Should Literature and Film be included under their own section?

This seems to be an ongoing debate. We need consenus. Now, I will voice my personal opinion... I honestly see no reason why these shouldn't be included. People have pointed out to me that the template would be to large. Well, yes, but as I've said before, I've seen many other templates that are larger than average, and I've only seen one occasion where people say it is a problem, and that is the Stephen King template. Somebody said "why not add a porn movie?" Come on, seriously? You seriously believe that someone's going to add that? I think that most people here have enough common sense. Voice your reasoning here. -- Special:Contributions/68.76.156.20 16:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

There are more Christmas films then Stephen King books. So yes, it would make the template too large if every Christmas film, book or music would be included. A link to the categories or list pages is enough. Garion96 (talk) 17:13, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

'Why not...' is rhetorical. Your argument, 'I've seen many other templates...', is unvalid because of the Wiki rule of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS: just because other templates are like that doesn't mean this one should be. My two arguments are these: a) the template already has a link to both List of Christmas films and Category: Christmas fiction b) the works listed were random, that's why I named up a few Christmas-themed films at random too. --Soetermans | drop me a line | what I'd do now? 17:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

From Spain

I suggest some articles about Christmas in Spain like Spanish Christmas Lottery and Olentzero. --Error (talk) 19:50, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Annunciation to the Shepherds

A new article has been created, Annunciation to the Shepherds. Can this be included in the template? StAnselm (talk) 12:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Yule tree

Rather than the crass, contemptible, commercialized image of the pagan Christmas tree, I know, why don't we show something that's actually Christmasy, like, uh, a nativity scene? Something that's, you know, universal, like Baby frickin' Jesus perhaps, considering we are celebrating His birthday?
It's offensive having the WP Christmas template shoving anti-Christmas propaganda down our throats.
Varlaam (talk) 22:15, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Would you like to suggest a picture with the right shape? -- Radagast3 (talk) 23:29, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Prime Red

I am going to change the colour of the template from the current red "Red" to something that gives less contrast. I find the bright red distracting and the headings difficult to read.

--Boy.pockets (talk) 00:36, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Font color

I changed the title and the main section font color to red to make it more of a Christmacy feel. Sorry if it made it look like redlinks. 99.20.100.127 (talk) 18:25, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Construction technics

These cantilevered roof sections have in some instances collapsed beneath and fallen upon firefighters working at incidents. Never assume that they are as stable as the rest of the roof appears to be, since we probably will know neither the condition of the fasteners and connections, nor the condition of the structural members, nor the effects of fire in the concealed space upon both the connections and structural members. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.3.181.162 (talk) 00:00, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Origins of christmas subheadings

Shouldn't there be a link to the numerous Pagan traditions that helped to create modern christmas, e.g. Saturnalia --Andrew 12:38, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Rosca de reyes

Since this is now protected, please add Rosca de reyes to Food and drink section under "Deserts". --173.51.29.188 (talk) 00:02, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Wiki page says it is eaten on a Día de Reyes which is celebrated on Jan 6 - doesn't appear to be on Christmas. Ckruschke (talk) 16:57, 30 December 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

Zwarte Piet

Zwarte Piet has nothing to do with Christmas.

He is the companion of Saint Nicholas in the Dutch Sinterklaas tradition. Saint Nicholas himself has little to do with Christmas as he is patron saint of children, the city of Amsterdam and seafarers with his name day on December 6.

However, I can imagine that Saint Nicholas is included as much of the father Christmas tradition (the name Santa Claus) the red and white costume, handing gifts to children are derived from the Dutch Sinterklaas tradition (trhough early Dutch settlers in the US). However, the link to Sinterklaas is already tentative and that to Zwarte Piet is in my view at least one step too far. The associations chain would be Christmas - Santa Claus - Saint Nicholas - Sinterklaas - Zwarte Piet (5 steps). Compared to that many other symbols would be equally closely related (or even more closely). For example Christmas - Birth of Jesus - Death of Jesus - Easter - Easter Bunny makes the same number of associative steps, yet I do not see either easter or the easter bunny here.

In short inclusion of Zwarte Piet is in my view arbitrary and lack argumentation and reliable sources that indeed anyone considers this a mythical Christmas symbol. Arnoutf (talk) 20:34, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

He is a companion of St. Nicholas, and so is included for that reason. Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:28, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 November 2014

Santa Claus Bank Robbery 24.165.80.219 (talk) 03:02, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 03:11, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Duplicate call

ZSJUSA, something in your edits makes every article with this template to display the following error in edit mode: Warning: Template:Christmas (edit) is calling Template:Navbox with more than one value for the "above" parameter. Only the last value provided will be used. (Help) Please fix it or revert your edits. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:55, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Children's Day?

The template includes a link to Children's Day but I'm not sure why. A helpful editor noted that Children's Day is celebrated on 25 December in seven African countries, but it's not obvious whether this is more than coincidence. Addedentry (talk) 14:20, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

It was added here, without explanation, by an editor who is no longer active. The article doesn't explain anything about Christmas, so I would say we could safely remove it, but would like a bit more input from others before doing so. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:42, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

In the absence of any further evidence of connections to Children's Day, I've replaced it with Christmas Day. Addedentry (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

But that's a repeat of a link that is already present. I disagree that removing it is the best choice. It likely has some association with Christmas, but @Kcorilol: is no longer active and cannot give us any rationale for the addition. Perhaps you could ask on that article's talk page instead of assuming bad faith in its addition here. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:54, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Good idea. I've left a query on the Children's Day talk page. Addedentry (talk) 21:58, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! And by "already present" I mean that Christmas Day redirects to Christmas, and that is linked in the heading of the template. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:59, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 February 2022

• Bear guiding (rite) E961 (talk) 23:25, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Christmas isn't mentioned in the article. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:29, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Removed the link to Christmas in nazi Germany - here is my reasoning

I fully agree that Wikipedia should not shy away from having articles depicting how Christmas and other public holidays were abused by various totalitarian regimes and movements as part of their manipulative propaganda. It is very important to keep these historical facts alive and accessible to the broader public, so they will stay well-informed on how totalitarians can co-opt various holidays for their own propaganda goals, but I also think we need to be a bit sensitive in how we include content like this in a template dealing with an otherwise mild, relaxing holiday topic. With regards to the main article on how Germany celebrates Christmas, I think it's important to keep a link in the history section of that article, to the other article on how Christmas was exploited in the era of the nazi regime.

However, I do feel that the outright addition of the link to the article (on Christmas in the era of nazi Germany) to the Christmas template is... in very poor taste.

The inclusion of such a link in the Christmas template feels exploitative, in the same way all those sensationalist documentaries on TV outright gush and slobber about nazis, nazis, nazis, and ignore or gloss over the countless atrocities, the civilian victims and soldier victims of the second world war, in Europe alone. (Let's not forget that the second world war meant persecution and outright genocide for many nationalities and groups of people around the world, at the hands of nazis, fascists and other totalitarian regimes, with the European situation being one of the worst, along with the situation in East Asia.) Christmas has several facets as a holiday, but one of its main aspects all around the world is that it's a holiday of peace, a holiday of tolerance and respect, a holiday of togetherness and sharing. It certainly is not a holiday to be co-opted by fascists, any kind of supremacists and totalitarians. Or be presented as something integral to extremist movements - this runs the risk of normalizing those movement's views as "equally legitimate", when their views are certainly not like that and have also been historical exceptions, rather than the rule.

As a responsible Wikipedian, I do not want the template to come across as if it's endorsing a vile totalitarian regime's twisted vision of Christmas, when that vision has little to do with any sort of conventional religious or secular values associated with Christmas. Including such a link directly in the template does not feel historically responsible to me, but needlessly exploitative ("war porn", "totalitarian porn" á la those TV documentaries salivating over nazis, soviets, etc.), in a template that is otherwise dedicated to a mild and civil look at Christmas. Let's please not normalize or lionize an extremely fringe version of something as the standard version of something. People can click the link to Christmases in Germany in the template, and they can read the main German Christmas article, and then click from there on the link that leads them to the article on how the nazis abused Christmas for their own propaganda. I think it's far more sensible that way than including such a link directly in the template.

On a final note, the removal of the link also avoids the still common stereotype today - common especially among Americans - that "every single German citizen is a nazi or supporter of nazism". It sounds ridiculous, but many American citizens (shockingly) still believe in this, and I don't want a Wikipedia template to help ingraine that gross stereotype in more clueless people or one's with weaker historical education. The far-right exists in modrn day Germany, but they are not mainstream to any significant extent and German society is deeply averse to fascism. A historical or modern German Christmas has precious little to do with the nazi propaganda versions of Christmas. --ZemplinTemplar (talk) 09:09, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2022

Could someone make the "M" in the Christmas Music pothole (to Songs) lowercase? 2601:C7:C201:C640:3503:3C2A:6D2B:8DF8 (talk) 00:32, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: I cannot find "Christmas Music" on this template, and this is not clear X to Y. Lemonaka (talk) 12:18, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

 Done, the uppercase mistake was in the link to 'Songs'. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:39, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Color

This navbox has evidently gone through several iterations of color over the years (see #Prime Red and #Font color sections above as well). I suggest it use the default navbox color scheme, instead of the current red and white, as "Christmas colors" are culturally dependent and the default colors offer superior readability. Ibadibam (talk) 22:22, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. We should be using the default colour scheme here per WP:NAVCOLOR and we should be able to see which are links per MOS:COLOR. --woodensuperman 13:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

@Ibadibam: I have implemented change to default colour scheme (almost exactly a year later!!). --woodensuperman 10:55, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for not becoming aware of this discussion earlier. Red and green are traditional Christmas colors, and red has been a mainstay of this navbox for the last couple of years, since October 2022 (should the lettering be green?). NAVCOLOR asks for justification for the use of color, and traditional holiday colors seem to be justified. I don't think I even noticed when it changed as it seemed the natural way to go. Changing it back to the default at this point, and especially at this time of year (bah, humbug?) should have much more discussion and consensus. Have reverted the good faith edit back to red. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:23, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

"Traditional" colours are not universal as pointed out above. But the biggest concern is MOS:COLOR which states Links should clearly be identifiable as a link to our readers. WP:ACCESSIBILITY is not a trivial issue and should not be dismissed merely to give a template a seasonal flavour. Per WP:NAVDECOR, this festive flair alone is not a justification. --woodensuperman 11:53, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello, and Merry Christmas (and merry beyond Christmas too). Well, about as traditional colors as you can come across for a holiday (except maybe green if St. Patrick's Day has a navbox). Of course links should be identifiable, are links being white the problem? The decor page is an essay and not guideline or policy. Are there any other solutions for the link colors besides removing the red? Will check the navbox for link colors. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Can the non-used links be linked to existing pages, although a couple would go right to the Christmas page? Readers are probably savvy enough to know to click on the links, but your concern is valid when it comes to the unlinked white links. Can we make the links one of the green colors which would stand out enough from the red to be easily read (leaving the white for non-links or visa versa)? Randy Kryn (talk) 12:12, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

No, neither of these would be suitable. Readers need to know exactly which are valid links. If you redirect every white non-link to Christmas, then by the time they've found a valid link they may have given up. Or they still won't realise that they even are links. Green on red (or vice versa) is completely unacceptable. It's even given as an example in MOS:ACCESS. The solution is simple, we revert to default colours per guideline, rather than try to find a workaround to give the navbox a decorative Christmas "theme". --woodensuperman 12:41, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

"Bah, humbug. I may just as well change to green and let someone else work The Eve."

You may be right. Sadly. I've gotten so used to the Christmas cheer on this navbox that the standard colors look blah and mundane. I'll revert it and go have some holiday eggnog (or something) to try to forget (or remember!). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:48, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

• Woodensuperman and other editors, is there a way to make the visible title and the above section red and leave the rest the default blue? The title and above section all have clickable links. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:58, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

  Per the guidelines we should leave it as the default colour rather than try to find a solution to a problem that does not exist. --woodensuperman 13:43, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

  This isn't as much a problem as a styling preference. Making the initial two lines red would keep the semi-long-term colors which were removed because of non-compliance with link access, which this suggestion doesn't have (all links would work and be easily read). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:51, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

  Making it look festive is not a justification to deviate from the default. --woodensuperman 13:55, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Or we can just drape this over the navbox so Santa can find it! Randy Kryn (talk) 15:00, 21 December 2024 (UTC)