U.K. Corrie Q? Santa Grot?
Sep 18th, 2006, 07:57 AM
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U.K. Corrie Q? Santa Grot?
Dear U.K. Fodorites - another question about something i saw on Coronation Street and as several times before i hope some of you will enlighten me on the meaning of the sign:
SANTA GROT that was posted in a house window at Christmas.
Santa i understand but Grot i can't even get a fix on.
Thanks!
SANTA GROT that was posted in a house window at Christmas.
Santa i understand but Grot i can't even get a fix on.
Thanks!
Sep 18th, 2006, 08:48 AM
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Could be - Santa's Grotto is something you'd normally find in a shopping mall, where you can go and visit Santa. I think you have the same thing in the States? I'd always assumed it had come from the States, using the word 'Santa' rather than Father Christmas.
Knowing, but not often watching, Coronation Street, it sounds like the sort of thing someone like Les Battersby would do - set up a Santa's Grotto in his living room!
Knowing, but not often watching, Coronation Street, it sounds like the sort of thing someone like Les Battersby would do - set up a Santa's Grotto in his living room!
Sep 18th, 2006, 08:50 AM
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Posted before I'd finished - if someone had 'over' decorated their house - lifesize reindeer on the roof, lights in every window, that kind of thing, then you could certainly imagine people saying 'seen 'er house? it's done oop like Santa's Grotto'.
Sep 18th, 2006, 09:04 AM
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Really? I was SURE it was an American import. What do you call the place where you take children to visit Santa in malls or department stores? (I know you do it too, I've seen Miracle on 34th Street)
Sep 18th, 2006, 09:08 AM
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Yeh every mall has a Santa but i've never heard that saying - he usually just sits behind some ice cicles on a kind of throne surrounded by Christmas trees and decorations - and maybe a North Pole sign, etc. I don't think there is a real name for it though each mall may have some title like that.
But yes we have many of them - even now Pet Stores have them for pets - well mainly to take pictures of pets in ridiculous hats, etc.
But yes we have many of them - even now Pet Stores have them for pets - well mainly to take pictures of pets in ridiculous hats, etc.
Sep 18th, 2006, 12:17 PM
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Kate: speaking of Christmas traditions and Corrie - everyone on the show (Christmas 2005 shows now on here in Canada) wears silly little hats like raindeer horns, etc. - well not silly but silly looking - does everybody do this or many people at Christmas din?
We would rarely do that - maybe at a Christmas office party but not at a family dinner.
And i hope that it's also not like Corrie where just about every family Christmas dinner turns into a complete disaster!
We would rarely do that - maybe at a Christmas office party but not at a family dinner.
And i hope that it's also not like Corrie where just about every family Christmas dinner turns into a complete disaster!
Sep 18th, 2006, 12:52 PM
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Those silly little "hats" are actually paper crowns that come inside the Christmas crackers. The cracker is a long decorated tube that has little tabs at each end to pull with a partner and they make a "cracking" sound.When you open it there is a slip of paper with a funny saying, a prize and the beloved crown...wouldn't be Christmas without it...love that Coronation street!!
Sep 18th, 2006, 02:54 PM
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As so often, the world's greatest soap opera is making a subtle point about English social changes.
Back in the Golden Age of Coronation St (that is before anyone demeaned it by calling it 'Corrie'), when Ena Sharples was downing her Mackeson, but had to call it milk stout because you couldn't use brand names, the real population of Salford would take their kids to Market St, for the Christmas Grotto at Lewis's. As their equivalents in the working class areas of Liverpool, Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham took their kids to their local Lewis's.
These were extraordinarily elaborate series of tableaux or even shows. They culminated with a photograph with Father Christmas (never, of course, 'Santa'). But for most of us, Father Christmas wasn't the point. It was the grotto, which at one point became the focus for seriously expensive competition between stores: I can still remember seeing Sooty and Pinky + Perky in one store at the height of the Great Grotto War of 1957.
Always, in those days, The Grotto.
Forward now to the 1980's. Pressured parents in the real-world Coronation St might take their kids to the truly, heroically, vile Santa's Grotto at the Fine Fare Hypermarket Hyde (a bit of the DIY section, carved out, surrounded with kitchen foil, staffed by some toothless loser on day release from the local nonce wing, and offering 'surprise parcels' of the toys they couldn't sell last year for 50p). Invariably at least one of the letters from the "Santa's Grotto" sign would fall down, and the system would be too mean or blind to replace it.
<i> Sic transit...</i>. And Coronation St remains, for all its faults, head and shoulders ahead of its rivals because it gets these things right.
Back in the Golden Age of Coronation St (that is before anyone demeaned it by calling it 'Corrie'), when Ena Sharples was downing her Mackeson, but had to call it milk stout because you couldn't use brand names, the real population of Salford would take their kids to Market St, for the Christmas Grotto at Lewis's. As their equivalents in the working class areas of Liverpool, Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham took their kids to their local Lewis's.
These were extraordinarily elaborate series of tableaux or even shows. They culminated with a photograph with Father Christmas (never, of course, 'Santa'). But for most of us, Father Christmas wasn't the point. It was the grotto, which at one point became the focus for seriously expensive competition between stores: I can still remember seeing Sooty and Pinky + Perky in one store at the height of the Great Grotto War of 1957.
Always, in those days, The Grotto.
Forward now to the 1980's. Pressured parents in the real-world Coronation St might take their kids to the truly, heroically, vile Santa's Grotto at the Fine Fare Hypermarket Hyde (a bit of the DIY section, carved out, surrounded with kitchen foil, staffed by some toothless loser on day release from the local nonce wing, and offering 'surprise parcels' of the toys they couldn't sell last year for 50p). Invariably at least one of the letters from the "Santa's Grotto" sign would fall down, and the system would be too mean or blind to replace it.
<i> Sic transit...</i>. And Coronation St remains, for all its faults, head and shoulders ahead of its rivals because it gets these things right.
Sep 19th, 2006, 01:40 AM
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Whatever happened to Lewis's? Did they go bust? I remember the Grotto in Lews's in Birmingham vividly (and not in the 1950s, I add hastily).
PalenqueBob - what Rosie said. One year my mother decided that, now we were all grown-ups, crackers were a waste of money, which meant no hats, no toys and no stupid jokes over the Christmas dinner. There was uproar. She has never made that mistake since.
Every house in the land is filled with silly hat wearers eating their Christmas dinner and then watching the Queen's speach at 3pm.
PalenqueBob - what Rosie said. One year my mother decided that, now we were all grown-ups, crackers were a waste of money, which meant no hats, no toys and no stupid jokes over the Christmas dinner. There was uproar. She has never made that mistake since.
Every house in the land is filled with silly hat wearers eating their Christmas dinner and then watching the Queen's speach at 3pm.
Sep 19th, 2006, 03:10 AM
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Knowing Coronation Street, is was probably meant as a joke - a play on words. Grotty means nasty or unpleasant "grot" can be used as rubbish or junk - or the sort of cheap and nasty Christmas decorations that someone like Les Battersby might put up. Hence Santa's Grot, rather than Santa's Grotto 
Sep 19th, 2006, 03:18 AM
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They have a Santa's Grotto at White Hart Lane, Santa wears blue and white robes.
As a soft shandy-drinking southern ponce I was always taken to Selfridges Grotto. That was rather good. I wouldn't mind going again actually, although I might leer at the elves a bit too much.
And yes the paper hats are de rigueur. As are the awful jokes and the toys that don't work.
British Christmas requires the following things:
Office party (with paper hats, arse photocopying, embarrassing snogging and heroic hangovers)
Pantomimes (Oh yes they are!)
The Queen's speech ("my husband and I...."
Enormous turkey with annual ration of brussel sprouts (surely no one eats these at any other time)
Christmas crackers, paper hats,
Tiddly elderly relative.
James Bond Film.
Morecambe and Wise.
As a soft shandy-drinking southern ponce I was always taken to Selfridges Grotto. That was rather good. I wouldn't mind going again actually, although I might leer at the elves a bit too much.
And yes the paper hats are de rigueur. As are the awful jokes and the toys that don't work.
British Christmas requires the following things:
Office party (with paper hats, arse photocopying, embarrassing snogging and heroic hangovers)
Pantomimes (Oh yes they are!)
The Queen's speech ("my husband and I...."
Enormous turkey with annual ration of brussel sprouts (surely no one eats these at any other time)
Christmas crackers, paper hats,
Tiddly elderly relative.
James Bond Film.
Morecambe and Wise.
Sep 19th, 2006, 03:49 AM
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You forgot sweet sherry (preferably Harveys Bristol Cream). 11am on Christmas morning is the only time you'll ever find my big burly brother drinking sherry from a dainty cut glass. Bring cameras.
Sep 19th, 2006, 06:15 AM
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I had wondered also why everyone on Coronation Street at Xmas dinner was reading stupid jokes - didn't notice the crackers but must have been there.
Still hope that most British Xmas dinners don't end up the disasters they all seem to on Corrie (oops Coronation Street).
The day that the Battersby-Browns listen to the Queen's Speech will never come i think! I even often listen to this speech on Canadian TV.
Still hope that most British Xmas dinners don't end up the disasters they all seem to on Corrie (oops Coronation Street).
The day that the Battersby-Browns listen to the Queen's Speech will never come i think! I even often listen to this speech on Canadian TV.
