Merry Podcast #46 — Highlights from Tracking Santa

This special edition of the Merry Podcast is fully dedicated to the recapping of highlights from Santa tracking last Christmas Eve on Kringle Radio. 2014 was the 2nd year of tracking Santa as part of an ambitious live radio event that took more than 50 hours to broadcast. Beginning on early Christmas Eve morning in the far corners of the world the flip was switched at Kringle Radio to the Santa-dedicated broadcast that featured commercial-free music interrupted on the quarter hour with news updates exclusively from the North Pole. Broadcast in conjunction with the published efforts at Santa Update.com theseRead more

A Complete History of Tracking Santa Claus

Jeff Westover Christmas Features, Christmas History December 19, 2014Santa Claus, Santa Tracking 0 Comment

Some would call the tracking of Santa a fairly recent phenomenon. After all, you need technology to follow the Big Guy. The truth is that Santa has been anticipated and tracked for centuries. Ancient stories of La Befana (Italy), Baboushka (Russia) and Black Pete (Spain) all have elements of anticipating a gift bringer and tracking his location. Clement Moore’s poem A Visit from St. Nicholas likely did more to advance the image and anticipation of Santa Claus in the home than any other piece of literature in the 19th Century. The poem was reprinted year after year in newspapers acrossRead more

Merry Podcast #42 — Christmas from Italy

Jeff Westover Christmas Features, Merry Podcast October 25, 2014Black Friday, Christmas at Disney, Christmas in Italy, Christmas podcast, La Befana, Perry Como, Santa Tracking 0 Comment

The Christmas music contributions of Italian-American crooner Perry Como is explored from a career that spanned 60 years. The timeless classics such as There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays and It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas are just the beginning of what there is to know about Como’s Christmas music. He was an extraordinarily consistent entertainer, a man whose private life shunned controversy and whose broad appeal for generations through music and television now extends well beyond his time. Also hailing from Italy is the Christmas witch-like character and legend of La Befana. We tell herRead more