Jollygon, Issue 13, December 18, 2015 Vol. 67

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Online@ www.nw-tigers.org/the-octagon

Volume 67, Issue 13 December 18, 2015

Having lived in Ice-land, I was exposed to many of its traditions and folklore, a personal favorite being the Yule Lads, or Mountain Trolls, a name given to the Yule Lads by my younger self.

Yule Lads follows a folklore similar to that of St. Nicholas and Santa Claus, but instead of one person there are thirteen, each with individual names, descriptions, and

arrival and departure dates within December.

The official thirteen Yule Lads “come to town” during the last thirteen nights before Christmas. Along with the Yule cat, a beast who eats children who did not receive clothes for Christmas, the Yule Lads trek down from the mountains before Christ-mas to scare Icelandic children who have mis-behaved.

Children place a shoe of sorts on their window sill each night; if the children have been good, the Yule Lads, or Ice-landic Trolls, will places small gifts and such in-side the shoe, but if the child has been bad, small gifts are replaced with a rotten potato.

By Vixen Goette

 Today:

5:45 PM: Boy’s

CT & JV Bas-ketball Game @ Cumberland

5:45 PM: Girl’s JV Basketball Game @ Spooner

7:15 PM: Boy’s

Varsity Basket-ball Game @ Cumberland

7:15 PM: Girl’s

Varsity Basket-ball Game @ Spooner

 Saturday:

9:30 AM: Varsi-ty Wrestling Match @ NHS

 Monday:

6:00 PM: NMS Winter Band Concert

7:30 PM: NHS

Winter Band Concert

 Tuesday:

10:00 AM: NES

Winter Program #1

1:30 PM: NES

Winter Program #2

 Wednesday:

NHS Choir Tour of Schools

Pg. 3 Year of 2015

Pg. 5 Christmas

Pg. 6 Senior Profiles

By Cupid Harvey

‘Yule Lads’

Contin-ued Pg. 4

The Yule Lads and their mother and father.

We are less than two weeks away from Christ-mas and many of us are fighting the battle of in-dulging ourselves with the delicious seasonal treats. How do you find that happy balance of stuffing yourself with treats and not spending the first few months of the New Year trying to get back to our original weight?

Instead, replace the thoughts of guilt with honesty - you are going

to eat. You don’t exactly know how much or what exactly, but you will eat and you will enjoy eat-ing.

Many of us or our par-ents/families this season are doing a lot of baking. My favorite goodies range in variety, consid-ering that I love cookies, bars, toffee, gumdrops and almost everything else.

But what I don’t like, is coming back to school

after holiday break and getting to the top of the stairs and breathing and heaving like I just ran the mile. I am sure that I’m not the only one. The way I see it, in-stead of treating our-selves to all these deli-cious goodies just this time of the year, why not eat like this year-round. That way, how hard I’m breathing by the time I

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Editor: Rudolph Gaare

Staff Members: Blitzen Jarman

Cupid Harvey Comet Maki Vixen Goette Dasher Kovaleski

Advisor: Mrs. Claus 1. Donald Trump drops

out of the presidential race.

Honestly I don’t care how it happens, maybe he could become serious-ly ill, stranded on Gar-bage Island, or just de-cide that running for president is boring,

anything to keep him from being selected as the Re-publican Candi-date, anything.

2. ISIS, Boko Haram, and the other terrorist groups are de-feated.

Perhaps they all fall into a volcano, or are eaten by crocodiles, or we at least stop sending so many people into battle, and stop bombing civilians hoping we reach a target.

3. All police officers will require more hours of training, and a body camera that is record-ing sound and audio at all times.

Seriously, why do we train our hair stylists (10-14 months) more than we train our police officers (4-6 months)? Hair grows back, lives don’t.

4. LGBTQ+ homicides and suicides drop. This really shouldn’t be unrealistic.

5. College and health care will be made free for all U.S. citizens. Who wants to be $40,000 plus in debt for many years of their life? Who wants to be broke during school, while working two jobs, and just learning how to pay taxes and rent?

I sure don’t, and it doesn’t exactly help a capitalist economy like the U.S.’s when nearly

the entire young adult population can’t afford products that aren’t sec-ond-hand or off-brand. Also, wouldn’t it be something if people did-n’t suffer and/or die be-cause they couldn’t af-ford the treatment they needed?

Wouldn’t it be great to not have to pay monthly health insurance that doesn’t even cover all the expenses?

It sure would be nice if we could stop ignoring our medical issues be-cause the price of going to the hospital is thou-sands of dollars out of reach.

6. Congress stops deny-ing everythdeny-ing Presi-dent Obama tries to pass for the sole reason that he’s Democratic and the majority of the congress is Republican. Just because you’re opposing parties doesn’t mean you can’t agree on things that would actual-ly benefit the country.

7. The school starts of-fering more gluten free breakfast and lunch foods.

Okay this one is pret-ty selfish, but come on. I’m terrible at getting up in the mornings so most days I barely miss the bus, thus not being able to pack a lunch.

Plus on days when I do give myself those ex-tra three minutes it’s about a 50/50 chance that I made myself something more than cereal for din-ner last night and there-fore have gluten free left-overs I can pack.

It would be more than helpful if the school would start providing more than canned fruit and wilted salad with the occasional insect in it that I, and other gluten-free people, can actually eat without causing their body torment.

12/19:

Nathan Copp Tyler Mischke

12/21:

Paul Konkler Michael Lewis Travis Lewis McKena Tobiason

12/22:

Alexander Cadorette-Isakson

12/24:

Jeffrey McClure

12/25:

Britta Lind

12/26:

Janice Carlson Cody Waters Jacob Zoltak

12/29:

Gabriel Johnson Hayden Lemay Cheyenne Stone

12/30:

Alexandria Kolodziej

12/31:

Carter Spangenberg

1/02:

Hannah Lier

1/03:

Katelynn Clemmer Shaylynn Hoven Aleia Lupa

1/04:

Connor Wheeler

1/06:

Deitrich Raivala Crystal Taylor Haley Trautt

1/08:

Cole Arnes Bayleigh Sotona

Happy

Birthday!

By Rudolph Gaare

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By Jay Gaare

First woman elected to of-fice in Saudi Arabia in first

time allowing women to vote and run for office.

7.8 Magnitude earthquake hits Nepal, killing over 8,000, leaves over 100,000

homeless. Two deadliest terrorist groups,

Boko Haram and ISIS, kill thou-sands.

Above: Syrian refugees reach 4 million

Left: Approx. 57% of Amazon Rainforests trees face extinction.

Evidence of liquid water found on mars.

Pentaquark officially detected at Large Hadron Collider. Southern Pakistan heat wave takes death

toll of around 2,000. Zimbabwe drops Zimbabwean

dollar, converts to U.S. dollar at exchange rate of 35 quadrillion Z.

dollars to 1 U.S. dollar. _{Oldest (3.3 million years) Hominin} -made stone tools found in Kenya.

Oldest known fossil, Archae-ornithura Meemannae, is

discov-ered.

Same-sex marriage made legal in all 50 U.S. states.

Harper Lee’s Go

Set A Watchman,

an early version of To Kill a

Mocking-bird sells in 70 countries.

New humanoid species an-nounced, Homo Naledi.

New image of Pluto suggests it has ice.

Neolithic “Super Henge” found underground.

Confederate flag faces controversy, bans, law-suits, and fights due to

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1. Icelandic Name:

Stekkjarstaur

English Translation:

Sheep-Cote Clod

Description: Harasses sheep, but is impaired by his stiff peg-legs.

Arrival/Departure:

December 12th, Decem-ber 25th.

Giljagaur

Gully Gawk

Description: Hides in gullies, waiting for an opportunity to sneak into the cowshed and steal milk.

Arrival/Departure: De-cember 13th, DeDe-cember 26th.

Stúfur

Stubby

Description: Abnormal-ly short, steals pans to eat the crust off them.

Þvörusleikir

English Translation:

Spoon-licker

Description: Steals Þvörur (a type of a wooden spoon with a long handle - I. þvara) to lick. Is extremely thin due to malnutrition.

Arrival/Departure: De-cember 15th, DeDe-cember

28th.

5. Icelandic Name: Pot-taskefill

Pot-Scraper

Description: Steals left-overs from pots.

Askasleikir

Bowl-Licker

Description: Hides un-der beds waiting for someone to put down their 'askur' (a type of bowl with a lid used in-stead of dishes), which he then steals.

Hurðaskellir

English Translation:

Door Slammer

Description: Likes to slam doors, especially during the night

Arrival/Departure: De-cember 18th, DeDe-cember 31st

Skyrgámur

Skyr Gobbler

Description: A Yule Lad with an affinity for Skyr (Icelandic yogurt made from goat's milk).

Arrival/Departure: De-cember 19th, January 1st.

Bjúgnakrækir

Sausage Swiper.

Description: Would hide in the rafters and snatch sausages that were being smoked.

Arrival/Departure: De-cember 20th, January 2nd

Gluggagægir

Window Peeper

Description: A vo-yeur who would look through windows for things to steal.

Arrival/Departure:

December 21st, Janu-ary 3rd.

Gáttaþefur

Doorway Sniffer

Description: Has an abnormally large nose and an acute sense of smell, which he uses to locate laufabrauð (leaf bread).

Arrival/Departure: De-cember 22nd, January 4th.

Ketkrókur

Meat Hook

Description: Uses hook to steal meat.

Arrival/Departure: De-cember 23rd, January 5th.

Kertasníkir

Candle Stealer

Description: Follows children in order to steal their candles, which in olden times were made of tallow (beef and mut-ton fat) and thus edible.

Arrival/Departure: De-cember 24th, January 6th.

get to the top of the stairs will feel normal to me. Treat yourself to deli-cious treats and snacks. Who cares if they’re not healthy, who cares if they make you gain

makes you happy and you are eating something delicious. Don’t overthink it this holiday season. Just be happy, do what you want to do, smile lots.

Start your mornings

lunch maybe have some pie and cake, and for din-ner; brownies and cookie bars. Why? Why not. Enjoy the little things in life. Maybe bake some of the goodies with your family, make a mess in

and overstress yourself. It’s the time of the year where it is okay to spoil yourself without feeling guilty.

Icelandic Mountains (Hella, Iceland) similar to where the Yule Lads dwell.

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If BC means “before Christ,” then why is the year of Jesus’s birth be-tween 7 BC and 1 BC? Well, the answer is fairly simple. The medieval abbot who calculated the year of Christ’s birth did his math wrong. Howev-er, please consider that calculators had not been invented by the year 500 and that he did his work by candlelight with a quill pen.

Before the year of Jesus’s birth had even been determined (roughly) the day to cele-brate had already been chosen. The first docu-mented celebration of Christmas, or more spe-cifically the anniversary of Jesus’s birth, on De-cember 25 was in the year 336 AD during the rule of Roman Emperor Constantine, the first Christian emperor. In 350 Pope Julius I de-clared Dec. 25 the

offi-cial date of that anniver-sary and it seems to have stuck. About two hundred years later in 529 Emper-or

Jus-tinian made Dec. 25 a civil holiday. Then the Church at the Council of Tours in 567 made a Christian season of prep-aration called Advent before Christmas and extended the holiday un-til the Epiphany.

Now times are chang-ing again. Dec. 25 has gone from an uncelebrat-ed day in December to Christ’s-mass with droves of churchgoers attending a midnight mass to a secular season

stretch-ing from Black Friday to New Year’s Eve. Modern Ameri-cans have parties for host-ing, marsh-mallows for toasting, and possibly some caroling out in the new snow. (It’s finally here!)

Christmas is celebrat-ed by Christians and non-Christians alike with the help of Santa Claus. This legendary gift-giver was based on a real person named Nicholas who was born around 280 AD in modern-day Turkey. Nicholas, now Saint Nicholas, traveled and gave gifts to the poor in

his lifetime. During the Renaissance he became the most popular saint in Europe. Then in America in 1773 and 1774 groups of Dutch families that had been gathering to celebrate the anniversary of his death gained pub-licity in a New York newspaper.

Santa Claus soon be-came very popular in magazine advertise-ments. Then in 1841, af-ter one store in Philadel-phia attracted thousands of children with a life-sized model of Santa, stores began offering a look at a live Santa. The Salvation Army jumped on the opportuni-ty for publiciopportuni-ty next by dressing up unemployed men as Santa Claus and sending them out to ring bells in the 1890’s. Now portly red-clad men are everywhere.

By Blitzen Jarman

1931 Coca Cola Advertisement.

Whether it’s the joy of spending time with fami-ly or the excitement of being given a new phone, Christmas is celebrated in very different ways around the world. Some unusual holiday tradi-tions vary from putting a pickle in a Christmas tree to fearing a Christmas devil.

While on Christmas eve we’re busy making cookies for “santa,” most families in Japan can be found waiting in line at KFC because eating KFC on christmas eve is a tra-dition. Americans’ fes-tive Christmas colors are

normally red and green but if someone receives a red Christmas card in the mail they are more then likely to avoid it because in Japan red cards are normally the color of fu-neral announcements. In Italy, the Christmas season last 3 weeks and there is no such thing as santa but as Befana, a friendly witch that deliv-ers sweets and toys on january 5th. While chil-dren walk the town recit-ing poems and hymns, shepherds walk house to house singing and play-ing bagpipes. Families don’t eat any kind of meat 24 hours before

Christmas eve but to have a meal as large as a family can afford Christ-mas night.

In South Africa, chil-dren are told the story of Danny, a young boy who made his grandmother upset by eating the cook-ies that were supposed to be for santa, with her an-ger she killed Danny and is known to haunt houses on Christmas eve. In Norway you are not to clean your house and hide your broom in a safe spot in fear of evil spirits or witches taking it. Some of us may attend church on Christmas eve

or Christmas morning, the people in Venezuela do too, just in a different way of transportation than you would normally see. In the town of Cara-cas, there’s a tradition of rollerskating to mass. Venezuelans open their main presents on Christ-mas eve and spend most of Christmas day eating and interacting with fam-ily members.

So whether it’s hiding your broom or eating KFC there are many dif-ferent traditions around the world. It’s never too late to start new ones!

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Q: What’s your favorite zoo ani-mal?

A: Sheep. Just Kidding, probably a hippo.

Q: How did you find out Santa isn’t real?

A: Walmart Commercials.

Q: What’s the most embarrass-ing thembarrass-ing you’ve done in high school?

A: Asking the same girl out four times and being rejected every time.

Q: How many times have you pulled the seniority card? A: I haven’t because everyone

pulls it on me first. Even under-classmen.

Q: What’s the hardest class you’ve taken?

A: I’m not sure that I had any hard classes because I never really touched them.

Q: What’s the zaniest stunt you’ve ever pulled?

A: Not bringing a pencil to class, that’s for sure!

Q: What did you struggle with most as a freshman?

A: Talking to the ladies. Then again, I still have that problem.

Steven Markon

Donavon Hursh and Nate Lindahl. Not Pictured: Steven Markon.

Q: What is one piece of advice for next year’s seniors? A: Get involved.

Q: What’s the most played song on your device?

A: Complicated by Avril Lavigne.

A: Puffins, they look like they have a suit on at all times.

Q: If everything went perfectly after high school, what would you be doing?

A: Living in Seattle, teaching at a University.

Q: Write a small thank you to anyone who has helped you these past four years.

A: Dear Dan, thank you for being the man.

Q: What did you struggle with most as a freshman?

A: Being tall and awkward.

Q: If you could have one mythi-cal creature as a pet, what would it be?

A: Chimera, because they can de-stroy my enemies.

Nate Lindahl

Q: What’s the most played song on your device?

A: The National Anthem.

A: Human.

Q: How did you discover Santa isn’t real?

A: I added garlic salt and hot spic-es to the milk and cookispic-es, then

waited to hear coughing.

Q: How many times have you pulled the seniority card?

A: I can’t. It’s really difficult to do when everyone thinks that you’re a freshman.

Q: Write a small thank you to anyone who has helped you these past four years.

A: Thanks to all my haters...and everyone else.

Q:What did you struggle with most as a freshman?

A: Being tragically separated from lovely endless fields of potatoes.

Q: If you could have one mythi-cal creature as a pet, what would it be?

A: A Gariffe. It would be similar to a mix of a deer, camel and horse. But here’s the twist: It’s neck would be super long and so is it’s tongue, but that’s only because it needs something to hold it’s magical wand.