Pluto's Christmas Tree and Web 2.0

In Sweden, Christmas is celebrated today, December 24, not on the 25th. I called my parents earlier tonight, and my mother said she was hoping for a spiritual Christmas, ("andlig jul") which I thought was very nice.

Since the introduction of television, life on Earth (hrm) changed almost as much as with the introduction with the Internet. Yes, 50 years later we are seeing a similar revolution, this time known as "Web 2.0". Heck, Time Magazine even put You on its cover this year, as a tribute to all the people with their own blog, who watches YouTube, sends digital photos and or "raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing". Good.

In 1959, Swedish TV was very much a government affair, with a lot of political controls. A novel idea that particular Christmas was to broadcast "The Walt Disney Christmas Show". It had been produced in the US eight years earlier, a time gap that today seems totally insane. As Swedish TV viewers had been deprived of animated films on their TV screens, the 3PM show became an instant hit. So, even today, between 35 and 40 percent of Swedish people sit down and watch this annual show on December 24, according to Dagens Nyheter.

So here it is, a small part of Sweden's silliest Christmas tradition!