New Delhi: December 24, Christmas Eve, marks the beginning of the holiday season in many countries of the world and Google is wishing its users "Happy Holidays" with a colourful doodle. The doodle on the homepage appears to be the first in a series. It features a one-horse open sleigh dashing through the snow - with the letters of Google written underneath.
Google has been wishing its users with a pre-Christmas doodle for over 10 years now. In 2012 Happy Holidays doodle on the Google homepage had a parade of toys, some of whom were playing different musical instruments. The grand master leading the parade was welcoming the festive season, and the letters of the word Google were seen in the backdrop.
In 2011, Google happy holidays doodle was made up of lit up holiday symbols - snowflake, Santa Claus, bell, snowman, candle and a gift box - on a dark background, symbolising the night sky. The Google logo appeared as a faint outline behind the holiday icons.
In 2010, Google had put up a doodle of interactive portraits of holiday scenes from around the world. Before 2010, Google used multiple doodles for the holiday season.
In popular culture, eight flying reindeer pull Santa's sleigh as he delivers presents to children around the world on Christmas Eve. That scenario was first described in the 1820s by American poet Clement Clarke Moore. More than 100 years later, American writer Robert L. May added Rudolph with his red nose leading the way.
Some of the story is rooted in reality, as migrating reindeer herds are usually led by a single animal.
But there's debate on the origins of the flying reindeer, and some have traced it to reindeer eating hallucinogenic mushrooms. Ancient Sami shamans, the theory goes, would then drink filtered reindeer urine and get high themselves, then think they were seeing their reindeer "flying."
"Mushrooms have been used to a certain extent in shamanic ceremonies," says Arja Jomppanen, a researcher at Sida, the National Museum of the Finnish Sami in Inari. "But drinking urine has not been mentioned in accounts of Sami traditions."
Hakan Rydving, an expert in Sami religion at Norway's University of Bergen, firmly rejected the theory as a myth.
"There is no such information at all from the Sami world, neither about drinking the urine of reindeer, nor of seeing flying reindeer in their dreams," he said.
(With inputs from AP)
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