So it’s a joy for those of us who like a bit of pagan magic with our mince pies to see two examples enjoying a revival, on stage and through the power of social media. Poor UX of Electronic Patient Records is often cited as a major cause of burn out in the USA but not something we often talk about here, and yet last year’ s national usability survey commissioned by NHSX (R.I.P.) revealed the NHS to have some of the worst IT UX in the civilised world and it is causing burn out. In Eastern Europe, one of the stories told to children is about Frau Perchta, or the Christmas Witch. She has two faces, a nice face that she shows to nice children, and a scary face she shows to bad ones. She comes into homes on the 12th night of Christmas and leaves a piece of silver in the shoes of nice children. The Germans can’t get enough of creepy characters designed to scare children. Knecht Ruprecht is a sort of counterpart to Santa. He wears a dark robe, has a long, dark beard, and carries a bag of ashes, switches, treats, and a long staff. Some people still dress up as Knecht Ruprecht, giving the treats to nice children while giving the naughty ones switches and ash. A newspaper today advised people to phone a taxi instead of 999 as if that were unusual. A paramedic friend gave me the same advice before Covid and the situation has worsened since then.

We need the darkest Christmas stories. These are dark times

The family arrive in A&E and are shown to the “crying room”. It’s my job to tell the family that Daddy won’t be home for Christmas. Ever since he was featured in the TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Abominable Snowman has been tied to the Christmas season. It’s based on the legend of the Yeti, a monstrous half-man-half-bear creature from the Himalayas, that many people still believe is out there today.An annual tradition, this year’s Joe McDonald Christmas column looks at Christmas past, present and future with regards to digital health and NHS IT and the issues and pressures facing the NHS. On Christmas Eve, parents often blame their child's inability to fall asleep on the anticipatory excitement they experience while waiting to begin a fun-filled Christmas morning. However, the truth is that there is a dark side of Christmas, and it's worse than anything you'll encounter on Halloween.

Top 5 Darkest Christmas Songs - Holidappy Top 5 Darkest Christmas Songs - Holidappy

So for the NHS to succeed, and I agree it could do this, we would need massive investment in health informatics similar in scale to that seen in the US private sector. It was shattering and dehumanising, after a number of months of chronic sleep deprivation, I’m seeing things no 24-year-old should ever see. I was a burned-out husk of my former self. I’d come to regard the public as the enemy. People became acronyms. On the small white cards which served as the record of a visit to A&E I’d record the history: The author Piers Torday had been similarly obsessed with the story as a child. He wanted to stage an adaptation while at university with two friends who shared his passion for it, but the rights were not available, and the project was forgotten. Twenty-five years on, the stars aligned: the same friends were now a theatre executive and a producer, and Torday’s new adaptation of The Box of Delights has just opened at Wilton’s Music Hall in east London. I understand how hard it is for NHS staff this Christmas. We have 3 kids and 2 of them are junior doctors on the front line. Their workloads are overwhelming, and I can see them developing the character-armour and detachment from people required to survive.Eartha Kitt made the song “Santa Baby” famous in 1953, and it’s still a Christmas classic today. But if you take a closer look at the lyrics, the weird mixture of children’s traditions and the sexualization of Santa is more unsettling than charming. December 1942 saw the bloodiest Christmas in the history of mankind. From the islands in the Pacific to the China front, from the trenches in Russia to the battle lines in North Africa, in the skies over Europe and in the depths of the Atlantic, men were killing each other in greater numbers than ever before. The Holocaust continued, and innocent civilians were murdered by the thousands throughout the evil Nazi empire, even as the perpetrators celebrated the birth of Christ.

Darkest Christmas: December 1942 and a World at War Darkest Christmas: December 1942 and a World at War

One of the most disturbing traditions is one that scores of people participate in, when you really think about it. Every year, there are long lines at malls all over the world for children to get the chance to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. Some adults might do the same thing to get a laugh. But all of those mall Santas are just guys in costume, and all those people are just sitting in a stranger’s lap. To this day, next to people who dress as Santa, you can find others dressed as Le Père Fouettard, complete with the whip, threatening French and Belgian children.

15. Just Don’t Look Into Their Lifeless Eyes

Despite what Hallmark has led you to believe, the history of Christmas is filled with terrifying figures. Even modern Christmas traditions, such as watching holiday-themed movies, can prove unnerving to a child. Consider the time-tested film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which features a terrifying carnivorous snow monster as the primary antagonist.