Our dangle leg gingerbread man figurine is 12 inches long. The dangle leg gingerbread man sits on the edge of a shelf with his 8 inch long, red and white, dangle legs, with brown boots, hanging whimsically. This gingerbread man is wearing a red and white stocking hat with blue dots and a gold bell on the end and a decoration of holly. The gingerbread man has a green scarf, a red jumper with white and blue candy buttons and blue dots. He has zigzag lines of white icing decorating his face arms, jumper and boots. His arms and legs are attached to his body by gold metal loops allowing them to swing free.
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History of the Modern American Santa Claus Born in the United States of mixed ethnic and religious heritage, Santa Claus embodies the American ideal of the nation as a great melting pot of cultural identities. Santa Claus became an important folk figure in the second half of the nineteenth century, about the time when Americans were beginning to celebrate Christmas in large numbers. Santa Claus bears a good deal of resemblance to his closest relative, the old European gift bringer St. Nicholas. Indeed “St. Nick” serves as one of Santa’s nicknames.
Many popular songs tell of his North Pole and Christmas Eve activities. Nearly every American child can tell you that Santa is a plump, old man with a white beard who wears a baggy red suit and cap trimmed with white fur. Many send letters to his North Pole workshop describing the gifts they would like to receive for Christmas. They eagerly await Christmas Eve, when he loads his sled with toys for good girls and boys and flies around the world, sliding down chimneys to place the presents under decorated Christmas trees. As if to confirm this Christmas fairy tale, men in Santa suits regularly appear on street corners, at office parties, and in department and toy stores around Christmas time.
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History of The Santa Claus Express:
The Santa Claus Express is a generic name applied to a number of holiday railroad excursions throughout the United States. Often sponsored by railroad museums and incorporating appropriately decorated vintage locomotives and cars, the Santa Claus Express may offer scenic tours beginning in late November and continuing through December. By other schedules, the Express stops at towns and villages along the line, at which time professional or amateur performers aboard provide a Yuletide concert or show for citizens awaiting outside.
The Santa Claus Express also is a vehicle for delivering toys and gifts to underprivileged children, an example of which can be found in Appalachia. Since the mid 1440s on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, officials of CSX Transportation have furnished a locomotive and cars so that the Santa Claus Express could wind its way from Pikeville, Kentucky, across Virginia, and into Kingsport, Tennessee. All along the tracks, children and families gather, many having camped overnight to secure strategic positions. When the train slows at each whistle stop, children run behind as Santa, who addresses everyone as “darlin’,” and his assistants, local businessmen, toss candy, small toys, and other gifts from the platform on the last car into eager hands. Local merchants, some of whom were once among those children chasing the train, donate the gifts, which become the only Christmas presents that many children in this region will receive each year.
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What is Snow?
Snow is a form of precipitation that consists of crystals of ice. These crystals, called snow crystals, grow from water vapor in clouds. Water vapor is the gaseous form of water, the form that water assumes when it evaporates. A snowflake consists of up to 100 snow crystals clumped together.
Particles of snow vary in size from crystals almost too small to see with the unaided eye to snowflakes 1 inch or more in diameter. Some of the tiniest crystals occur in ice fog, a fog that can form in the Arctic regions when the temperature is extremely low.
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