NationStates Jolt Archive

From Der Speigel (http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,592677,00.html)

(S)catalonia's Fecal Christmas Festivities

Some of the world's most curious Christmas traditions can be found in Catalonia, where the idea of holiday cheer seems to involve some of life's more basic bodily functions.

Here are two factoids that one wouldn't necessarily expect to find in the same Wikipedia entry: "the infant Jesus is God in human form" and "everyone defecates."

But if you navigate to the entry attempting an explanation of the fecal-centric Catalonian tradition known as el caganer, that is exactly what you'll find. Indeed, the tradition is a much-loved element of the Christmas celebration in Catalonia, despite its somewhat obscure beginnings.

A caganer -- or "pooper" -- is a small figurine of a person squatting down with lowered pants (or raised skirt) to answer nature's call. They have been around since the 17th century and can often be found hiding in an obscure corner of a Nativity scene.

By far the most popular figure, Alos says, is the traditional farmer figure. Second place, however, is occupied by a squatting version of outgoing US President George W. Bush.

When asked why he thought Bush's figure was so popular, Alos preferred only to say: "We always sell most the people who are either loved or hated." Based on recent sales figures, Alos adds, it would appear that US President-elect Barack Obama fits into one of those categories as well.

So, two choices here:

Who's your (most or least) favorite pooper, and/or
What weird holiday traditions do you celebrate or find around you?

I think that this joke that hinges on Christmas should appear here:
A teacher gave her class of 11 year olds an assignment: To get their
parent to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it.
The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their
stories.

Ashley said, 'My father's a farmer and we have a lot of egg-laying
hens. One time we were taking our eggs to market in a basket on the
front seat of the car when we hit a big bump in the road and all the
eggs got broken.'

'What's the morale of that story?' asked the teacher.
'Don't put all your eggs in one basket!'
'Very good,' said the teacher.

Next little Sarah raised her hand and said, 'Our family are farmers
too. But we raise chickens for the meat market. One day we had a dozen
eggs, but when they hatched we only got ten live chicks, and the moral
to this story is,

'Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.'

'That was a fine story Sarah.'





Michael, do you have a story to share?'

'Yes. My daddy told me this story about my Aunty Karen. Aunty Karen was
a flight engineer on a plane in the Gulf War and her plane got hit.
She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a bottle of whisky, a machine gun and a machete.




She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn't break and then she landed right in the middle of 100 enemy troops.
She killed seventy of them with the machine gun until she ran out of bullets.
Then she killed twenty more with the machete until the blade broke.
And then she killed the last ten with her bare hands.'

'Good heavens,' said the horrified teacher, 'what kind of moral
did your daddy tell you from that horrible story?'



'Stay the f**k away from Aunty Karen when she's been
drinking.'

Eddie: Does the Pope shit in the woods?
Richie: I don't know, why?
Eddie: Because it smells like he shat in your mouth.

Or maybe you were thinking of something else.

Favourite poopie?
Wiener Poopie!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxkBYzkBnW8
Yup, that 'bout sums it up.

From Der Speigel (http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,592677,00.html)



So, two choices here:

Who's your (most or least) favorite pooper, and/or
What weird holiday traditions do you celebrate or find around you?


Hahahahaha! Fris, you found that one! Did you like the defecating figurines (caganers)? the Catalá have been selling them since the 18th. century.:D
Catalunya is, indeed, an odd corner of Spain.

Favorite pooper? George W. Bush, of course. He's closely followed by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, of course, and Wennie the Pooh, a close third.

Odd Chrismats traditions:
From Ukraine (sounds more like Halloween to me):
An artificial spider and web are often included in the decorations on Ukrainian Christmas trees. A spider web found on Christmas morning is believed to bring good luck.

From Venezuela:
In Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, it is customary for the streets to be blocked off on Christmas eve so that the people can roller-skate to church.

Holy Shit! :eek:

Holy Shit! :eek:

And LG wins the thread.

This is a "caganer" sold in the church of Santa Eulalia, in Catalunya.

Front view:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/11/Caganer_front.png/170px-Caganer_front.png

Back:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f5/Caganer_back.png/150px-Caganer_back.png

Images can be found in Wiki. Search for "caganer".

"What's brown, and sounds like a bell?"

"Excuse me?"

"What's brown...and sounds like a bell?"

"DUng"
:p

lol modthread is the shit man.

I really thought we were going to discuss whether the Pope shits in the woods.

Did this all come from the very first version of 2girls1cup?

my favorite pooper is this guy...

http://iacmusic.com/Uploads/11981_2_9_2008_10_43_00_PM_-_oh_shit-759720.jpg

I hope this displays right:
http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/yhst-11376516057916_2026_1197755
That's a penny he's poopin' there. That's where money comes from, you know. Out of marzipan kids' asses.

Only when his Holiness is camping.

I hope this displays right:
http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/yhst-11376516057916_2026_1197755
That's a penny he's poopin' there. That's where money comes from, you know. Out of marzipan kids' asses.

Mmmm... marzipán's so yummy!