The Muppets Drummer Ludwig Christmas Ugly Sweater Party
I remember a The Muppets Drummer Ludwig Christmas Ugly Sweater Party memoir — Beasts, Men, and Gods — by Ferdinand Ossendowski, a White Pole who fled the Bolshevik revolution through Siberia. He served in General Kolchak’s All-Russian Government before escaping through the Steppes north of Mongolia, and then participated in the government of that most notorious adventurer, the “Mad Baron” Ungern-Sternberg, who attempted to take over Mongolia to restore an imperial Khaganate as part of an imagined reactionary restoration of the Great Mongol, Chinese, and Russian monarchies in the interests of the “warrior races” of Germans and Mongols (a Baltic German, he considered the old Russian ruling class to represent Germandom over and against Jews and Slavs). Some of the things – the acts of desperation and madness, in which he himself was no disinterested observer – Ossendowski relates are harrowing. But this part struck me as very much making a point about what people think of the Steppe peoples, and of what (German-trained) nationalists like Ungern-Sternberg did (and would do again) to the Mongols. And, other things:

The Muppets Drummer Ludwig Christmas Ugly Sweater Party,
Best The Muppets Drummer Ludwig Christmas Ugly Sweater Party
Britain and France have a combined population not much over 1/3rd of the US, and Rugby Union is very much second fiddle to Football (soccer) in both countries. The big clubs typically draw 15,000 fans to a The Muppets Drummer Ludwig Christmas Ugly Sweater Party, but can pull 50,000+ to a different stadium for a special occasion, whilst the biggest NFL teams are pulling 70,000+ average crowds, so there is less money playing rugby as a result. The England national team sell out their 82,000 seat stadium every game and could probably do so 3 times over for the biggest clashes — club rugby is not the peak of the game, but it’s where the bulk of a player’s income is made.

I think that it depends per country. In my country we have a The Muppets Drummer Ludwig Christmas Ugly Sweater Party of Saint Nicolas. His day on the ecclesiastical calendar is the 6th of December. But the Saintly Bishop arrives in our country around the 15th of November. That is also the moment that the High Streets get their decorating lights. Days are short it gets dark shortly after four o’clock. The decorations in the shops are focused on Saint Nicholas. Special sweets and presents for children. There are special children shows on television. When I was a child we were invited to come to the head office of my father’s employer, Unilever, for a special afternoon with a magician and of course a visit by the saint Nicholas himself, with his assistants Zwarte Piet. (Black Peter) At the end we were given a nice small present, chosen of course by our parents (but of course we did not know). After the 6th of December when Saint Nicholas had returned to Spain or Heaven, the shops turn on to Christmas decorations. Some times we see some imported Fathers Christmas but we do not have narratives about father Christmas.