Christmas is coming, I wonder whether all of us have taken a move and prepare gifts for our friends. And have you ever receive a gift from the senior at Christmas? As is known to all, though we hardly do this in China, children in European countries always choose to hang a Christmas stocking before Christmas so that parents could fill it with presents, pretending those are from Santa Claus. And parents often decorate their house with a Christmas tree, under which Santa can also place gifts.
圣诞节将至，不知大家是否已经行动起来给小伙伴们准备节日礼物了呢？你们又是否在这样一个节日里收到过来自长辈的馈赠呢？众所周知，即使我们在中国没有这种习惯，但在欧美国家，孩子们总会在圣诞节前夕在自己床头前悬挂圣诞袜，以便父母于平安夜里将给孩子们的礼物悄悄放于袜中，并假装这是“来自圣诞老人的礼物”。而父母们也会在家中装饰圣诞树，使得“圣诞老人”也能够把礼物置于树下。
Santa Claus, also called Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, Father Christmas or Santa, is a mystery man who specially prepare gifts for children in silence on Christmas Eve. He is one of the main characters of western festivals, whose origin is always regarded as Saint Nicholas in Christianism. It is said that Santa travels through the air in a sleigh pulled by nine reindeers on the night of December 24th every year. He enters each house from the top by sliding down the hole in the fireplace and fills presents into Christmas stocking hanging in front of good kids bed, or just places them behind the Christmas tree. Although no one has really seen what the man looks like, people usually dress up like him to distribute presents. He is always described as an old man with a red hat, a red coat and a pair of red boots, wearing big white beards and taking a large bag of presents for children.
圣诞老人，又称Saint Nick，Kris Kringle，Father Christmas或Santa，是一位专门在圣诞节前夜时悄悄赠送礼物给小孩子的神秘人物，是西方节日主题的代表角色之一。他普遍被认为是基督教的圣人圣尼古拉斯（Saint Nicholas）的衍生形象。传说每到平安夜，圣诞老人都会乘坐九只驯鹿拉的雪橇从空中而来，从壁炉的烟囱进入每家每户，偷偷把礼物放在好孩子床头的袜子里，或者堆在壁炉旁的圣诞树下。尽管没人真正见过神秘人的样子，但人们通常会装扮成他的样子来给孩子送礼物。他通常被描述成一位头戴红色帽子、一身红色棉袄、脚穿红色靴子的老人，有着大大的白色胡子，拿着装礼物的大袋子。
An interesting fact is that Santa's nine reindeers are not just regular animals, they have their own unique names! The leader with a red nose is named Rudolph and his job is to find the way. The other eight reindeers' names are: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Donner (which means thunder in Dutch ), Blitzen(which means lightning in Dutch, and he is also thought as Rudolph's daddy), Cupid and Comet. It's so cute, isn't it?
还有一个十分有趣的传说就是，圣诞老人的九只麋鹿也并不只是打酱油的NPC，他们甚至也有各自的名字！领头的红鼻子鹿叫做鲁道夫，负责开路。剩下的八只名字分别为：猛冲者，跳舞家，欢腾，雌狐，多纳（即荷兰语中的雷），布利策（即荷兰语中的闪电，传说他也是鲁道夫的父亲），丘比特，以及彗星。这是不是很好玩？
Writter: Xu Jinghan
Time: 2018-12-23
