IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-02437257.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Happy Christmases are all alike; each unhappy Christmas is unhappy in its own way

Author

Listed:
  • Vivien Blanchet

    (EM - EMLyon Business School)

Abstract

The French postal service has been opening a bureau for Father Christmas every winter since 1962. Sixty employees are responsible for responding to letters to Father Christmas. In 2018, more than one million children corresponded with him. But what would happen if someone were to write to Father Christmas, developing a close epistolary relationship with him? This short story explores such a scenario. Pierre M. and Father Christmas have during many years maintained regular and personal correspondence. Yet Father Christmas's attitude seems to have changed. Pierre M. reveals the evolution of their secret relationship to his mysterious friend. On substance, the short story offers an original perspective on modern marketplace mythologies. Previous studies depict myths as liminal spaces in which people negotiate contradictory meanings, practices and realities. The myth of Father Christmas thus involves compromises between ignorance and knowledge, life and death, the sacred and the profane. The short story tells how they evolve to define the identity of the protagonists and the world they live in. It highlights how they are embodied in hybrid artefacts like letters to Father Christmas and extraordinary servicescape. The short story also questions the performative force of the myth. It shows that it results from the interpretative work and ritual practices of the protagonists involved in an unstable actantial system structured around an enlightened person, an ignorant person and a mythical character. This is constantly negotiated throughout sociotechnical interactions, which, as in the case of witchcraft, may or may not realize the myth. On form, the short story adopts the principle of the eternal return inherent to the myth: it is plotted as a series of small variations on recurring themes and structural repetitions. Intertextual references to academic publications, literary tradition and popular culture enrich the narrative by extending it beyond its textual boundaries.

Suggested Citation

  • Vivien Blanchet, 2020. "Happy Christmases are all alike; each unhappy Christmas is unhappy in its own way," Post-Print hal-02437257, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02437257
    DOI: 10.1177/1470593119897764
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02437257
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-02437257/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1470593119897764?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen Brown & Pierre McDonagh & Clifford J. Shultz II, 2013. "Titanic: Consuming the Myths and Meanings of an Ambiguous Brand," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 40(4), pages 595-614.
    2. Craig Thompson & Kelly Tian, 2008. "Reconstructing the South: How Commercial Myths Compete for Identity Value through the Ideological Shaping of Popular Memories and Countermemories," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(5), pages 595-613, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hartmann, Benjamin J. & Brunk, Katja H., 2019. "Nostalgia marketing and (re-)enchantment," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 669-686.
    2. Katja H Brunk & Markus Giesler & Benjamin J Hartmann & Darren DahlEditor & Craig ThompsonAssociate Editor, 2018. "Creating a Consumable Past: How Memory Making Shapes Marketization," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 44(6), pages 1325-1342.
    3. Daniela Andreini & Diego Rinallo & Giuseppe Pedeliento & Mara Bergamaschi, 2017. "Brands and Religion in the Secularized Marketplace and Workplace: Insights from the Case of an Italian Hospital Renamed After a Roman Catholic Pope," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 529-550, March.
    4. Silvia Biraghi & Rossella Chiara Gambetti & Angela Antonia Beccanulli, 2020. "Achieving cultural relevance in technomediated platforms: instant cultural branding and controversial clicktivism," Italian Journal of Marketing, Springer, vol. 2020(2), pages 163-187, September.
    5. David Crockett, 2022. "Racial Oppression and Racial Projects in Consumer Markets: A Racial Formation Theory Approach [The Ghetto Marketing Life Cycle: A Case of Underachievement]," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 49(1), pages 1-24.
    6. Pecot, Fabien & Merchant, Altaf & Valette-Florence, Pierre & De Barnier, Virginie, 2018. "Cognitive outcomes of brand heritage: A signaling perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 304-316.
    7. Andrea Lucarelli, 2018. "Co-branding public place brands: towards an alternative approach to place branding," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 14(4), pages 260-271, November.
    8. Canavan, Brendan, 2019. "Tourism-in-literature: Existential comfort, confrontation and catastrophe in Guy De Maupassant's short stories," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1-1.
    9. Bryce, Derek & Murdy, Samantha & Alexander, Matthew, 2017. "Diaspora, authenticity and the imagined past," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 49-60.
    10. Zanette, Maria Carolina & Brito, Eliane Pereira Zamith & Fontenelle, Isleide Arruda & de Camargo Heck, Marina, 2021. "Eating one’s own otherness: When producers commercialize their ethnicities," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 134-144.
    11. Chloe Preece & Finola Kerrigan & Daragh O’reilly & Eileen Fischer & J Jeffrey Inman & Julie L Ozanne, 2019. "License to Assemble: Theorizing Brand Longevity," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 46(2), pages 330-350.
    12. Bradford, Tonya Williams & Sherry, John F., 2014. "Hyperfiliation and cultural citizenship: African American consumer acculturation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 418-424.
    13. Philip Boland & Stephen McKay, 2021. "Personality association and celebrity museumification of George Best (with nods to John Lennon)," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(4), pages 409-419, December.
    14. Hélène Cherrier, 2016. "Material Presence and the Detox Delusion: Insights from Social Nudism," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 100-123, March.
    15. Luna-Cortés, Gonzalo & López-Bonilla, Luis Miguel & López-Bonilla, Jesús Manuel, 2022. "The consumption of dark narratives: A systematic review and research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 524-534.
    16. Dobscha, Susan & Foxman, Ellen, 2012. "Mythic Agency and Retail Conquest," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 291-307.
    17. Valentina Chkoniya & Ana Oliveira Madsen & Teresa Coelho, 2019. "The impact of information and communication technologies in fish consumption in Portugal: building a support for the coming generations," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 21(3), pages 855-872.
    18. Bernard Cova & Simona D'Antone, 2016. "Brand Iconicity vs. Anti-Consumption Well-Being Concerns: The Nutella Palm Oil Conflict," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 166-192, March.
    19. Regany, Fatima & Benmecheddal, Ahmed & Belkhir, Meriam & Djelassi, Souad, 2021. "Conflicting coexistence of legitimation and delegitimation logics in a revived market: The case of a traditional clothing market," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 438-449.
    20. Diaz Ruiz, Carlos, 2014. "Market Representations in Action," Thesis Commons vxjma, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    discourse; Christmas; myth; performativity; Santa Claus; marketplace mythology;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02437257. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.