{"id":31202,"date":"2010-12-24T14:51:55","date_gmt":"2010-12-24T19:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=31202"},"modified":"2013-11-23T03:43:18","modified_gmt":"2013-11-23T08:43:18","slug":"protestantizing-christmas-gift-giving-the-christkind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/12\/24\/protestantizing-christmas-gift-giving-the-christkind\/","title":{"rendered":"Protestantizing Christmas Gift Giving: The Christkind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katrin drew our attention to the Christmas character of the Christkind, found in regions as diverse as Austria, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Rebublic, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and, according to Wikipedia<\/a>, “…parts of Hispanic America, in certain areas of southern Brazil and in the Acadiana region of Louisiana.”<\/p>\n

The Christkind was introduced by the German Protestant priest Martin Luther (1483-1546). \u00a0At the time, tradition held that gifts were given by St. Nicholas. \u00a0Protestants, however, didn’t acknowledge saints, so they needed an alternative mythological gift giver. \u00a0The Christkind was originally depicted as baby Jesus, but in many places today is instead an angelic blond child or adult woman.<\/p>\n

In Nuremberg, Germany, a Christkind is chosen every two years in a pageant reminiscent of American beauty pageants (source<\/a>). \u00a0This year the Christkind is Rebekka Volland (source<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

More photographs of the Christkind:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(source<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(source<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(source<\/a>)<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Katrin drew our attention to the Christmas character of the Christkind, found in regions as diverse as Austria, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Rebublic, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and, according to Wikipedia, “…parts of Hispanic America, in certain areas of southern Brazil and in the Acadiana region of Louisiana.” The Christkind was introduced by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,253,254,1766,1813,8045,1815,1777,4127,1819,8089,8087,8088,1805,3920,42],"class_list":["post-31202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture","tag-history","tag-holidays","tag-nation-austria","tag-nation-brazil","tag-nation-croatia","tag-nation-czech-republic","tag-nation-germany","tag-nation-hungary","tag-nation-italy","tag-nation-liechtenstein","tag-nation-slovakia","tag-nation-slovenia","tag-nation-switzerland","tag-nation-united-states","tag-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31202"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59358,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31202\/revisions\/59358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}