THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 21, 1995 TAG: 9512210053
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
LENGTH: Long : 186 lines
CHRISTMAS IS A time of wonder. A time to ask ``What is the true meaning of the season?'' ``What is love?'' ``Who is God?'' ``What can I get my mother-in-law for Christmas?''
While you're pondering all those heavy questions, we've saved you some time and dealt with the lighter mysteries of Christmas. Grab yourself a cup of eggnog and wonder no more, if you've ever asked yourself:
What is figgy pudding, and why won't we go until we get some?
It's a pudding made of - get ready now - FIGS!
OK, so that's no big surprise, but you're dying to know more, right? According to the chef instructors at Johnson & Wales University College of Culinary Arts, figgy pudding was one of the earliest sweets to travel from the Old World to the New.
The simple fruit pudding is of English origin. It's generally made of figs, raisins, dates and nuts, and adorned with spices. Often, the fruit is marinated in wine for preservation's sake.
Maybe it's that sweet enhancement that makes us sing, ``Now bring us some figgy pudding,'' in the second verse of ``We Wish You A Merry Christmas,'' and ``We won't go until we have some,'' for another.
Or maybe we're just pushy.
- Elizabeth Simpson
Are battery sales at their highest around Christmas?
Does Santa wear red? Those radio-controlled cars and burping babies don't run on air, that's for sure.
``Absolutely,'' said Theora G. ``Bunny'' Webb, a spokeswoman for Duracell International in Bethel, Conn. The fourth quarter of the year - that's now - is when Duracell makes 35 to 40 percent of its annual battery sales.
``Sales do soar over the holiday season,'' Webb said. ``And increasingly now because of not only the toy sales, but there are so many electronic devices.''
``Electronic devices'' is another way of saying ``adult toys.'' Your laptop computers. Your portable stereos. Your boom boxes. Your fancy athletic watches. Your hat-mounted fans.
``I tell you,'' W. Lynn Fuller, owner of Battery Express, a national mail-order retailer in Parkersburg, W. Va., told us, ``where we see our biggest increase is in camcorder batteries.''
Thanks, D cells, for the memories.
Matthew Bowers
What ever happened to aluminum trees?
No one who lived through the '60s can forget the aluminum tree.
Remember how the colorwheel at the base bathed the metallic branches with those smoothing blue, red, green colors?
How retro, you're thinking. But actually the tree goes back even further, making its debut just after World War II.
First marketed as a tabletop fixture, aluminum trees didn't become a craze until the late 1950s with the growing popularity of another not-so-natural item - the plastic ornament.
Aluminum trees came in silver, blue and gold and had tinsel-covered branches with pompon tips.
By 1970 - the year of the first Earth Day - aluminum trees had lost their sparkle. Artificial was out; natural was in. Plus, the poorly made trees rarely lasted through a handful of Christmases.
They're now more popular as collectibles, selling for hundreds of dollars at some antique shops.
- Denise Watson
How long has Santa been riding that electric razor in the Norelco commercial?
Twenty-eight years.
Maybe the idea of getting someone known for his thick white beard to advertise an electric shaver seemed a little crazy in 1961.
But the jolly ol' elf more than caught on. Now the animated Santa seems to kick off every season with his buzzing glide across the snow.
Well, not quite every season. In 1985, D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, the Norelco advertising agency, decided the ad was getting ``tired,'' as they say in the advertising biz. They pulled the commercial for something fresher.
Big mistake. So many people complained, the company revived the animated Santa six years later.
``You can't retire an icon,'' said Maerwydd McFarland, deputy director for corporate communications of the company.
- Elizabeth Simpson
What is mincemeat pie?
It's one of those holiday foods you see on the buffet table, but you're afraid to try because you don't know what's inside. We'll clear that up for you.
Beef tongue.
No joke. We've got a recipe that calls for 2 1/2 pounds of fresh beef tongue. You chop it up (Mince. . . meat. Get it?) and combine it with apricots, prunes, peaches, raisins, currants, apples, lots of stuff. Says if you don't use all the tongue this time you can save it for some other use. Right. Beefs lick their noses with those tongues.
But there's good news, too. We have another recipe that calls just for ``lean boiled beef'' and suet, combined with the sweet stuff. Somehow, that sounds more appetizing.
- Diane Tennant
Why was the star in the East so bright?
``Star light, star bright. First combination of planets I see tonight.''
Substitute comet, nova, UFO or miracle in that last sentence, if you like. Nobody really knows what the Christmas star was. But the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News has a few ideas.
``There are records that say that certain astronomical events were happening around the time of certain people's lives, such as Herod,'' said David Maness, director of astronomy at the museum.
``The events that were going on in the sky were some very close and pretty conjunctions of Venus and Jupiter, as well as, just before that, a triple conjunction of Jupiter - the King Planet, as they would have known it - to Regulus, which is the King Star in the constellation Leo the Lion.
``We believe that they had records and predictions already written out, the astrologers over in Persia where probably the Magi came from. They were told that if a triple conjunction happened around Regulus that would mean a king would arise out of the west and rise up and be a threat to their kingdom. It was pretty important to them. We think that's why they started out on their journey.''
The Living Museum runs through all the star theories in a planetarium show called ``Star of Wonder.''
The show runs through Jan. 7. Call for dates and times, at 595-1900.
- Diane Tennant
Why do people wait until the last minute to shop?
``Everyone always procrastinates doing everything. That's basic human nature,'' said Neil Thall, president of Neil Thall Associations, an Atlanta-based retail analyst.
But the procrastination is particularly apparent at Christmas. Blame it on savvy shoppers looking for sale-priced gifts, he says.
``In the last few years, the number of sales have increased dramatically. People always think they're going to get a bargain during the last few days of Christmas and retailers have proven that's true,'' he said.
Although sales run throughout the holiday season, retailers frequently mark items down even more the last few days before the holiday, Thall said, because buying drops significantly after Dec. 25.
Waiting until the last minute can be risky, he warned. ``You run the risk of having certain items missing that you really want.''
- Debra Gordon
How can Santa's sleigh travel around the world in one night, making stops at so many houses?
To answer that question, we went to Santa sleigh expert Larry Silverberg, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University.
As an academic exercise in fun (and a gift to beleaguered parents), Silverberg and his students devised this scientific answer.
Albert Einstein's theory of relativity proved that under the right conditions, time can dilate and space can contract. It is theorized that on Dec. 24, these conditions occur at the North Pole, which is the Earth's center of rotation and also a point of convergence of its electromagnetic field.
When this happens, a rip develops in the fabric of time, allowing Santa to slip through. Until he returns back through the rip, time stands still for the rest of the world. He can take as much time as he wants to deliver the packages, and to us, it seems like it was done in a the twinkling of an eye.
- Debra Gordon
Are poinsettia plants really poisonous?
They're not recommended as part of a daily diet, but neither are they as poisonous as we've been led to believe.
According to POISINDEX, the information resource for poison control centers around the country, a 50-pound child would have to eat more than 500 leaves to exceed the experimental doses that found no toxicity.
And if a kid eats 500 leaves, he oughta have his taste buds examined.
- Elizabeth Simpson
Are there really more suicides during the Christmas season than at any other time of the year?
Nope. But there aren't a whole lot less, either.
There's long been a myth that the holidays see more suicides, that somehow people who are depressed get even lower during this month of lights, celebration and family get-togethers.
But studies and general observation don't support that. If anything, people with suicidal thoughts perhaps receive a little positive boost during the holidays. They often have more contact with people, including their families, lessening - albeit temporarily - their feelings of isolation.
Statistics kept by the state medical examiner's office in Richmond show that in Virginia in 1993 and 1994, December's suicide rate was only marginally higher than average.
In Hampton Roads both years, seven months saw more suicides than December.
- Matthew Bowers ILLUSTRATION: Illustration by Sam Hundley, spot illustrations by Janet
Shaughnessy/The Virginian-Pilot
by CNB