@pieyedpiper — I think you win the most seniored member award for this forum. Congratulations! Out of curiosity, how long have you been smoking a pipe? I’ve been smoking a pipe since 1986 (32 years), but I know there are many others on TPL who’ve smoked a pipe much longer (I’m looking at you, @PappyJoe). I recently smoked a bowl with a gentleman in his early 80s who’d been smoking a pipe daily since he was 16! He was the pinnacle of health too.
Not to pour ice water on anyone’s righteous indignation, but no pipe was edited from that picture. It’s a cropped image from a Coca-cola ad created by Haddon Sundblom.
@motie2 A cursory perusal of the Internet shows Mr. Sunblom painted ads for Coke from 1931-1964. He did some great pinups (some clothed and some, ahhh, not clothed) and other subjects as well. Some of his artistic endeavors have pipes and some don’t. However, I could find no Santas with a pipe and no Cokes ads with pipes either. I did not look very hard because I don’t have much time for such shenanigans. (Lighthearted humor)
This is ABSURD! or as my avatar would say... "BILIOUS BLISTERING BLUE BARNACLES!!" Santa has a pipe. Get over it! We don't have to rewrite history just to appease these sheltered SJW's. Seeing Santa didn't make me want to smoke a pipe. Eating those awful tasting candy cigarettes didn't make me want to smoke. Neither did those bubble gum cigars. People who smoke want to, and it's not because of some line in a Christmas tale. These blatherskite liberals are so afraid of a pipe being seen by children, but then again they're pushing for weed to be legal everywhere because that apparently is a much better option [eyes rolling from Brownsville to Timbuktu] Nothing more than a bunch of egotist bathtub admirals thinking they need to save everyone from themselves, as if no one can make an intelligent choice in what they wish to do. They seem to only care about tobacco... seriously, check out the CDC website for tobacco and then for alcohol. The tobacco page immediately talks about death and quitting, while the alcohol page talks about "What is alcohol? and how it effects you?" As if ANYONE of legal drinking age is unaware of what alcohol is and what it will do to you. They brush over how many deaths actually occur from drunk driving, binge drinking, chronic alcoholism, etc... Nope, tobacco is the villain, drunk driving where an innocent person gets killed is ok and people just need to understand it better. Maybe that's too simplified or overstated, but I'm looking at a warning in the lower left portion of my screen telling me how bad tobacco is, it's even printed on tobacco tins that otherwise the art on it is sometimes beautiful; however, when I walk into a liquor store, I don't see huge black and white ugly signs saying don't drink too much and kill someone tonight on every can and bottle, I only see the ones at the front checkout that the booze company sent over as their obligation. Even those posters are always showing someone cool and hip having a drink. But wait, it's a little simpler than that I think; the tobacco industry represents a $35.1 Billion industry, while the alcohol industry is only $249.0 BILLION. It would seem that Santa can't have his pipe ever again because tobacco is bad and doesn't constitute a significant enough monetary reason to let him keep smoking while the libs are fine with youtube videos being preempted by a booze commercial showing something funny, hip or trendy. Showing Santa smoking a pipe endangers our kids, while youtube shows how cool it is to drink. I like a drink, I like my pipe, yet people are trying to make it impossible for me to do one of those things, and Santa gets cauhgt in the crossfire.
Just a thought, how far will this expunging of pipes and tobacco go? Santa and Frosty are early casualties, but are Bing and Gen. MacArthur in threat of having their lives changed post-facto as well? Trying to keep a jolly old guy from enjoying his pipe. They all deserve COAL.
@DerekJ, my friend, I agree with what you said. At the end all this is a BIG HYPOCRISY, but how I said somewhere, follow the money and you will find the answers. Who is making money with this? The Health insurance companies. They started this anti tobacco thing because they don't want pay. The Politicians don't care, what they want is votes, so if tomorrow people start smoking more, something like 25/30 years ago, they will change their minds and will start support tobacco.
@riobrusa - Stick a pipe in a politicians mouth to make 'em shut up. I live in Texas, and there's a big push coming for marijuana; I live in a college town so naturally the push is pretty strong here. I know there's hypocrisy, but they're so blatant about it. I'm sure glad I have a pipe to smoke to calm me down. Ha. It's not that a pipe smoking Santa is causing kids to smoke, it was someone who had a bone to pick and wanted to make a movement happen. Well they did, and we're all a little sadder knowing Santa wont pick up his pipe and blow a smoke wreath in the air. When will they get rid of Santa altogether? I mean, Santa is Spanish for Saint and you can't have anything Christian about Christmas. If more people smoked a pipe, more people would get along because they'd be less stressed and more thoughtful, kinda the way Christmas is supposed to be. A time of reflection and kindness, rather than WHINING, I say it sincerely, because I believe that is all this is; grousing about things the normal person couldn't care less about.
@Fozzie - Righteous indignation is correct, because as I have stated and others too, it's not just the picture and as you pointed out, it's not that picture. It is the fact that where do you stop? 'Twas the Night Before Christmas has already been re-written for fear that little ears might hear about a legendary character smoking a pipe. https://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/12/santa_loses_the_pipe_in_a_new.html Maybe a few years from now, there will be a new collective saying that Santa actually is frightening for children, because it talks about a secretive man who sneaks into your house at night. Too simple? I don't think so, to make his pipe evil and for people to feel the need to re-write 'Twas the Night Before Christmas all they had to do, was ignore everything else about the story and say this is the point of contention. Just ignore the fact he leaves gifts, is magic, and there you go, he's guilty of trespassing. The pipe issue is a depth marker showing how low people's minds have gone. THIS???? Making sure children for years to come won't be subjected to a snowman with a corn cob pipe, or Santa Claus puffing away at night. These troglodytes focus on an issue so small, thinking that the mere image or mention of pipe, not tobacco, but a pipe and smoking it will cause "untold numbers of smoking related deaths"? gimme a break. https://www.prlog.org/12259927-tell-all-the-kids-santa-has-quit-smoking.html
There are children going cold and hungry all over the world. And this...THIS is the cause that seems most important to these people.
Let me set the record straight, or at least explain a couple of things to you guys. 1. Santa doesn't have a pipe in the Coca Cola ads because he usually has a bottle of Coca Cola in his hand. He's either holding the bottle or drinking from it. It would look strange trying to drink a Coke with a pipe in your mouth. Coca Cola was trying to sell their product and not pipes.
2. In the image posted previously which looks like the pipe has been edited from it, you are incorrectly assuming the pipe was edited out. What Santa is doing is standing outside of a room with a Coca Cola bottle on a table. He is looking at the camera or artist and pointing back at the bottle with his thumb. Sort of a "Got a look at this" moment.
Well, time for some nice Santa Claus thoughts, from our friends at AlPascia.com
<< SANTA CLAUS PIPES AND MEMORIES https://www.alpascia.com/moments/en/detail/71/santa-claus For Christmas this year we’ve decided to banish life’s daily greyness and wrap ourselves in colour. Besides, Christmas time is a good excuse to become young once again and believe that anything is possible, whether it’s wishing on a falling star, believing that the kid who lent you the ball will be a friend for ever, covering your eyes so that nobody can see you and knowing that Santa Claus exists. What better way to celebrate the seasonal festivities than dive back into those enchanting beliefs, just for a while.
Basically, life is a fairy tale, and you only have to know how to see it.
The log in the fireplace needs rekindling. Night is falling and the light that filters through the windows is too dim to light up the room. Strange shadows appear on the floor, stretching out the shape of the lacy curtains on the wood. There is the silence of biscuits just out of the oven, that feeling of fragrant wonder which precedes a nice cup of tea and the peace of an armchair to stroke a tired back.
The last few days have been frenetic – everything must be ready in good time. Thank goodness when darkness falls everything stops and you have some time to think about the past. Over the years this pastime has increasingly been a source of energy for Santa Claus. The elves have finished assembling toys for today and they say goodbye in chorus, leaving him finally alone. Pleased with the daily mounting pile of presents, he stokes up the fire and sits down.
Christmas Eve is approaching. His nine reindeers are on a special diet for the long journey ahead and so is he, as the years pass and he must keep fit. His outfit from last year still fits – he tried it on just yesterday, and he only had to add an extra hole in his belt to contain his bulging paunch. Rudolph’s red nose shivers at the sight of his dazzling red outfit.
While the flames from the fire are reflected in his glasses and the fragrance of pine fills the air, Santa decides to light up his pipe. He wants to enjoy the last few evenings before the great day and dwell on the symbolic meaning of the date chosen as Christmas Day. Knowing that he celebrates this event at a time when the sun begins to lengthen the days again and heralds spring makes him feel even prouder of his work.
So many letters are still coming in, and he has a boxful of them to read before tomorrow. How times and wishes have changed, he thinks while puffing on his pipe and stoking his fluffy white beard. Sometimes in the list of gifts there is no description of the toy, but merely a link to the website where it can be bought. The wonders of the new millennium! Yet, he has read all sorts of Christmas letters, and from experience he can proudly say that although generations change, one thing that all children do not change is their firm belief in their dreams. This is precisely what he counts on when he takes his sleigh and sets off to deliver his gifts. Even if sometimes there is a limit to what he can do, as when in 1886 the French asked him to deliver to the Americans the largest present that had ever existed, namely the Statue of Liberty, and he had to decline. He already has so much to do as it is.
Suddenly a loud “Ho Ho Ho” rattles the window pane. He has suddenly remembered some strange things that some adults have done in relation to him, those adults who have forgotten how to dream The best one which has made him laugh is the one where the speed of his sleigh has been calculated in order to be able to deliver the presents worldwide in a single night, by a certain Larry Silverberg, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at North Carolina State University, who had been a child himself once, only he had forgotten this. Anyway, one day the great Larry came up with the figure: 8,180,295.55 kph, the speed needed in order for Santa to visit 200 million children spread over 517,997,622 square kilometers. Ho, Ho Ho! What a laugh! Another funny episode, which goes back a few years, occurred in 1955 when a store in Colorado Springs advertised a number to all the children who wanted to speak to Santa, but unfortunately gave out the wrong number, namely the secret hotline of CONAD, Continental Air Defense. However, unlike Professor Silverberg, Colonel Shoup, the person manning the line, got on well with children, and after his initial bewilderment, played along and answered all the children’ questions, also getting his radar operators to track Santa’s sleigh’s exact location. This was the start of a well-loved annual Christmas tradition, even when CONAD became NORAD. Indeed, since then NORAD has used its technology to track Santa's movements and children’s dreams. Another hilarious episode was when some other scientists decided to find a plausible scientific explanation for Rudolph’s red nose (why does science always try to trample on dreams?). According to their theory, the red nose was a product of an extremely cold climate, and the glow was similar to the phenomena found in lizards or certain types of fish. Actually, thinks Santa, it is well-known that Rudolph’s red nose glows to help the other reindeer find their way in case of fog and it is thanks to him if I can slide down chimneys, put gifts under trees, shoes and stockings that hang above the fireplace and make dreams come true.
As his memories pile up, Santa realizes it is time to go to bed. However, before going he glances out of the window, and sees a white, snow-covered landscape. Living at the North Pole has its advantages, as it is always snowing. He strokes his white beard, takes a last puff on his pipe and then goes to bed. What a wonderful thing to go to bed and knowing you will wake up in a dream.
Merry Christmas from Al Pascià to all children today and to the child within you. >>
I haven't posted any new blogs lately because of family events keeping me too busy to write anything. I do have two new ones coming in the next day or two. A second Interview with Santa and Santa Answers 10 Question. Hopefully they will be up tomorrow morning.
For those who enjoy podcasts, I highly recommend this one about the history of Santa Claus. It's well researched, and you'll learn somethings you might not know about Santa.
Comments
Thanks for the additional info. I appeciate your taking the time to peruse this nonsense.
Seeing Santa didn't make me want to smoke a pipe. Eating those awful tasting candy cigarettes didn't make me want to smoke. Neither did those bubble gum cigars. People who smoke want to, and it's not because of some line in a Christmas tale. These blatherskite liberals are so afraid of a pipe being seen by children, but then again they're pushing for weed to be legal everywhere because that apparently is a much better option [eyes rolling from Brownsville to Timbuktu] Nothing more than a bunch of egotist bathtub admirals thinking they need to save everyone from themselves, as if no one can make an intelligent choice in what they wish to do. They seem to only care about tobacco... seriously, check out the CDC website for tobacco and then for alcohol. The tobacco page immediately talks about death and quitting, while the alcohol page talks about "What is alcohol? and how it effects you?" As if ANYONE of legal drinking age is unaware of what alcohol is and what it will do to you. They brush over how many deaths actually occur from drunk driving, binge drinking, chronic alcoholism, etc... Nope, tobacco is the villain, drunk driving where an innocent person gets killed is ok and people just need to understand it better. Maybe that's too simplified or overstated, but I'm looking at a warning in the lower left portion of my screen telling me how bad tobacco is, it's even printed on tobacco tins that otherwise the art on it is sometimes beautiful; however, when I walk into a liquor store, I don't see huge black and white ugly signs saying don't drink too much and kill someone tonight on every can and bottle, I only see the ones at the front checkout that the booze company sent over as their obligation. Even those posters are always showing someone cool and hip having a drink. But wait, it's a little simpler than that I think; the tobacco industry represents a $35.1 Billion industry, while the alcohol industry is only $249.0 BILLION.
It would seem that Santa can't have his pipe ever again because tobacco is bad and doesn't constitute a significant enough monetary reason to let him keep smoking while the libs are fine with youtube videos being preempted by a booze commercial showing something funny, hip or trendy. Showing Santa smoking a pipe endangers our kids, while youtube shows how cool it is to drink. I like a drink, I like my pipe, yet people are trying to make it impossible for me to do one of those things, and Santa gets cauhgt in the crossfire.
https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm
Just a thought, how far will this expunging of pipes and tobacco go? Santa and Frosty are early casualties, but are Bing and Gen. MacArthur in threat of having their lives changed post-facto as well?
Trying to keep a jolly old guy from enjoying his pipe. They all deserve COAL.
It's not that a pipe smoking Santa is causing kids to smoke, it was someone who had a bone to pick and wanted to make a movement happen. Well they did, and we're all a little sadder knowing Santa wont pick up his pipe and blow a smoke wreath in the air. When will they get rid of Santa altogether? I mean, Santa is Spanish for Saint and you can't have anything Christian about Christmas.
If more people smoked a pipe, more people would get along because they'd be less stressed and more thoughtful, kinda the way Christmas is supposed to be. A time of reflection and kindness, rather than WHINING, I say it sincerely, because I believe that is all this is; grousing about things the normal person couldn't care less about.
https://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/12/santa_loses_the_pipe_in_a_new.html
Maybe a few years from now, there will be a new collective saying that Santa actually is frightening for children, because it talks about a secretive man who sneaks into your house at night. Too simple? I don't think so, to make his pipe evil and for people to feel the need to re-write 'Twas the Night Before Christmas all they had to do, was ignore everything else about the story and say this is the point of contention. Just ignore the fact he leaves gifts, is magic, and there you go, he's guilty of trespassing. The pipe issue is a depth marker showing how low people's minds have gone. THIS???? Making sure children for years to come won't be subjected to a snowman with a corn cob pipe, or Santa Claus puffing away at night. These troglodytes focus on an issue so small, thinking that the mere image or mention of pipe, not tobacco, but a pipe and smoking it will cause "untold numbers of smoking related deaths"? gimme a break. https://www.prlog.org/12259927-tell-all-the-kids-santa-has-quit-smoking.html
There are children going cold and hungry all over the world. And this...THIS is the cause that seems most important to these people.
1. Santa doesn't have a pipe in the Coca Cola ads because he usually has a bottle of Coca Cola in his hand. He's either holding the bottle or drinking from it. It would look strange trying to drink a Coke with a pipe in your mouth. Coca Cola was trying to sell their product and not pipes.
2. In the image posted previously which looks like the pipe has been edited from it, you are incorrectly assuming the pipe was edited out. What Santa is doing is standing outside of a room with a Coca Cola bottle on a table. He is looking at the camera or artist and pointing back at the bottle with his thumb. Sort of a "Got a look at this" moment.
<< SANTA CLAUS
PIPES AND MEMORIES
https://www.alpascia.com/moments/en/detail/71/santa-claus
For Christmas this year we’ve decided to banish life’s daily greyness and wrap ourselves in colour. Besides, Christmas time is a good excuse to become young once again and believe that anything is possible, whether it’s wishing on a falling star, believing that the kid who lent you the ball will be a friend for ever, covering your eyes so that nobody can see you and knowing that Santa Claus exists. What better way to celebrate the seasonal festivities than dive back into those enchanting beliefs, just for a while.
Basically, life is a fairy tale, and you only have to know how to see it.
The log in the fireplace needs rekindling. Night is falling and the light that filters through the windows is too dim to light up the room. Strange shadows appear on the floor, stretching out the shape of the lacy curtains on the wood. There is the silence of biscuits just out of the oven, that feeling of fragrant wonder which precedes a nice cup of tea and the peace of an armchair to stroke a tired back.
The last few days have been frenetic – everything must be ready in good time. Thank goodness when darkness falls everything stops and you have some time to think about the past. Over the years this pastime has increasingly been a source of energy for Santa Claus. The elves have finished assembling toys for today and they say goodbye in chorus, leaving him finally alone. Pleased with the daily mounting pile of presents, he stokes up the fire and sits down.
Christmas Eve is approaching. His nine reindeers are on a special diet for the long journey ahead and so is he, as the years pass and he must keep fit. His outfit from last year still fits – he tried it on just yesterday, and he only had to add an extra hole in his belt to contain his bulging paunch. Rudolph’s red nose shivers at the sight of his dazzling red outfit.
While the flames from the fire are reflected in his glasses and the fragrance of pine fills the air, Santa decides to light up his pipe. He wants to enjoy the last few evenings before the great day and dwell on the symbolic meaning of the date chosen as Christmas Day. Knowing that he celebrates this event at a time when the sun begins to lengthen the days again and heralds spring makes him feel even prouder of his work.
So many letters are still coming in, and he has a boxful of them to read before tomorrow. How times and wishes have changed, he thinks while puffing on his pipe and stoking his fluffy white beard. Sometimes in the list of gifts there is no description of the toy, but merely a link to the website where it can be bought. The wonders of the new millennium! Yet, he has read all sorts of Christmas letters, and from experience he can proudly say that although generations change, one thing that all children do not change is their firm belief in their dreams. This is precisely what he counts on when he takes his sleigh and sets off to deliver his gifts. Even if sometimes there is a limit to what he can do, as when in 1886 the French asked him to deliver to the Americans the largest present that had ever existed, namely the Statue of Liberty, and he had to decline. He already has so much to do as it is.
Suddenly a loud “Ho Ho Ho” rattles the window pane. He has suddenly remembered some strange things that some adults have done in relation to him, those adults who have forgotten how to dream The best one which has made him laugh is the one where the speed of his sleigh has been calculated in order to be able to deliver the presents worldwide in a single night, by a certain Larry Silverberg, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at North Carolina State University, who had been a child himself once, only he had forgotten this. Anyway, one day the great Larry came up with the figure: 8,180,295.55 kph, the speed needed in order for Santa to visit 200 million children spread over 517,997,622 square kilometers. Ho, Ho Ho! What a laugh! Another funny episode, which goes back a few years, occurred in 1955 when a store in Colorado Springs advertised a number to all the children who wanted to speak to Santa, but unfortunately gave out the wrong number, namely the secret hotline of CONAD, Continental Air Defense. However, unlike Professor Silverberg, Colonel Shoup, the person manning the line, got on well with children, and after his initial bewilderment, played along and answered all the children’ questions, also getting his radar operators to track Santa’s sleigh’s exact location. This was the start of a well-loved annual Christmas tradition, even when CONAD became NORAD. Indeed, since then NORAD has used its technology to track Santa's movements and children’s dreams. Another hilarious episode was when some other scientists decided to find a plausible scientific explanation for Rudolph’s red nose (why does science always try to trample on dreams?). According to their theory, the red nose was a product of an extremely cold climate, and the glow was similar to the phenomena found in lizards or certain types of fish. Actually, thinks Santa, it is well-known that Rudolph’s red nose glows to help the other reindeer find their way in case of fog and it is thanks to him if I can slide down chimneys, put gifts under trees, shoes and stockings that hang above the fireplace and make dreams come true.
As his memories pile up, Santa realizes it is time to go to bed. However, before going he glances out of the window, and sees a white, snow-covered landscape. Living at the North Pole has its advantages, as it is always snowing. He strokes his white beard, takes a last puff on his pipe and then goes to bed. What a wonderful thing to go to bed and knowing you will wake up in a dream.
Merry Christmas from Al Pascià to all children today and to the child within you. >>
I do have two new ones coming in the next day or two. A second Interview with Santa and Santa Answers 10 Question. Hopefully they will be up tomorrow morning.
https://pappyjoesblog.com/catching-up-with-santa/
https://pappyjoesblog.com/santa-answers-10-questions/
BTW, enjoyed your two Santa blog entries......