Shame :D, I was looking forward to having a Santa in an upcoming expansion pack to the Sims 3.

From everything we've heard, those aren't objects you place at all... they're basically built into the roofs. So they can appear on any house or community lot building, you just have to make them visible, which you do with an interaction on your door. Then they gradually spread across town. There's more discussion of that earlier in the thread

Edit: more info from Graham's guide to the seasonal lot marker:

"If you want full control over which other lots use the Holiday House Lights, you can enter the "testingcheatsenabled true" cheat. Afterwards, simply click on the front door of a building on any lot to have access to the Holiday House Lights interaction. This can also be used to turn on the Holiday House Lights on other lots outside of the winter season. "

So it appears I was wrong, they will by default appear on other houses in winter unless you turn em off. Don't have to turn on your own lights for that to happen.

Just to add my two cents, I'm not Christian, and I feel Santa Claus definitely is a Christian figure, no matter how commercialized / generalized he has become. I think it's rather considerate of EA to not force Christian themed holidays on me. I'm really looking forward to playing with all these festival things; if there only were, like, Christian themed objects and decorations - well, frankly, I don't have those in my RL home, and I don't want them in my Sims homes, so I'd feel I couldn't really take part in all the festivity things. The Easter eggs of course do have a strong Christian connection as well, no matter how pagan the idea used to be before Christendom arrived; and maybe it would have been better to swap them for other special objects to collect, but concerning the eggs, I'm like - well, so what. One shouldn't take a point too far, right? ;-)

Santa has been totally outlawed in my parent's strict Christian home for years. Unfortunately for them, their banishment of Santa kinda backfired once their kids grew to be adults and turned Pagan. (In my house, he is celebrated in connection with Odin.)

This said, I'm ok with the fact that he isn't included in the game. I already have a nice Santa that I downloaded somewhere else, and I'm looking forward to setting him loose in Seasons. (My self-sim found him rather cute the last time he was in the neighborhood.)

I do find it interesting that EA decided to include Easter (Ostre, the goddess) eggs. I will enjoy the eggs very much, but wow, if my parents were simmers they would have thrown a fit over that. Then the next thing they'd do would be to burn the Seasons disk in a backyard bonfire! (Like they did to my poor Cabbage Patch doll, because they said it was evil. The horror!)

But yes, it is possible to take things a little too far. I can testify to this in so many ways.

Easter eggs and Santa are Christian? I could maybe see St. Nicholas...but easter eggs are definitely a pagan festival, as much so or more than Halloween! It is a celebration of fertility...hence rabbits, who procreate like crazy, and eggs, which are ovum and contain baby chicks.

Holidays like Christmas (winter solstice/yule), Easter, and Halloween (samhein) all have deep pagan roots but were commandeered by the Christians as holidays (Christ's birth, Christ's death, and All Hallows Eve). It was easier to get the pagans to convert if they could still celebrate their holidays, but with Christian themes. But the pagan parts of the holidays have morphed into our secular celebrations (lights on a tree, Easter eggs, and dressing up like ghouls and ghosts to scare the evil spirits).

I would have liked a Santa too and can't figure out why Easter and Halloween are in the game but not Santa...can understand not Christmas, but Santa in some form would be cool.

Edit: HAVE morphed rather than have not. Oops!

So if we use testing cheats then we can have Christmas in summer? I want my sims to have a traditional Christmas on the beach! Only without Father Christmas as there isn't one I don't see how leaving him out makes the game more inclusive but they left the American style halloween you see on the tv in. I mean, they could have called him something other than Saint Nick. From my point of view Santa/saint nick/father christmas/one of the hundred other names he has around the world is a bit more inclusive than the scary day.

Yeah, Easter eggs are Christian, they represent birth and re-life and all that. Yes, they may have been pagan first and still are now, but so was/is everything else. I think all religions have the same roots, they just use different names to tell the same story, or as my nephew once said when he was four "Mummy, why do the Christians and Muslims fight? Is it because they both call God a different name? I call you Mummy and Daddy calls you darling but I don't fight with Daddy!" Out of the mouths of babes, LOL Anyway, going a bit off topic here!

If we don't turn our house lights on does that mean no other house lights go on? Have I read that right? I don't want other sims celebrating Christmas in winter unless I'm playing a game set in the northen hemisphere! Also I want a Christmas tree! lol. I'm hopeful they'll do a Christmas set to sell from the store nearer to Christmas. That or I'll have to look at CC for one.

Thanks for pointing this out. I remember bringing this up on another site when people were complaining about no Easter in TS2, and people freaked out and started making posts attacking me. It's funny because we were taught about this when I was twelve or so, our school made us pick a holiday out of a bin to get to the real roots of. I happened to pick Easter. And kids ask what's up with the bunnies laying eggs . . .

All in all, I think a modder would be able to change the names of the holidays, maybe add variety packs for different nations and religions, because there are so many names that people use worldwide. (Did you know that in South Korea, there are Santas in blue?)

Blue Santa? I think I've heard of that somewhere at sometime! It's col you know that though :D

I would love if there were a bunch of festivals and we chose one for each season. What else would be cool if they'd adapted the festivals more for the sim's world-- things that play up jokes and sim-specific things from the game.

Fortunately the simmies are not religious. At least that's one less thing for the community to fall out over :D

I have to agree with that statement. We have enough to disagree about as it is.

Well, Christianity has changed since I was a Christian many years ago. It wasn't Christian then but just the secular part of the holiday. Nowadays, the Christians have either morphed more of our secular celebrations or have complained vocally about them. LOL I haven't been a Christian for a looooonnnngggg time and honestly, I only hear them complain about Santa and shopping and "Happy Holidays" these days.

I still go with Easter eggs as pagan, even if the Christians have co-opted them. Even the name Easter is pagan! But if the Christians want to borrow them, then fine. I am not anything so no skin off my back! Just love history.

I agree rian90, they are pagan morphed celebrations that made the people more receptive to Christianity. Learned about all the holidays true origins in middle school, that made me rethink about the whole religious aspects to many of the things considered holy. I got into lots of trouble bringing that home too, but it was too late. My mind was made up.

Are the educational systems teaching the origins of holiday celebrations now a days? I haven't heard much from the kids I know or they don't even ask about it.

Hah, I've spent Christmas in Australia, so I know what you're talking about Eating a huge meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with three kinds of Christmas pudding for dessert when it's HOT outside was a bit of a shock to the system though!

Luckily, weather, holidays, festivals, party types, seasons, and decorations are all more or less independent in this EP... so you have a lot of control over how you want things to go.

The different party types, for instance, can be held anytime. So there's no issue at all with having a "gift giving party" in summer. You can turn on the lights on your house any time too, so that part is OK. And of course, you can decorate your home however you want. I'm really not sure exactly what triggers lights going up on OTHER houses, by default... whether it's the season or the holiday or what.... but from what Graham said a cheat will let you control that manually.

The "Snowy Day" holiday will still be in winter, but that is probably one of the reasons they didn't name the holidays after real life ones. You can equally imagine that the summer holiday (can never remember what that one is called) is Christmas. And a string table mod is all you'd need to rename it as far as the interface is concerned, if you want to do that.

The Festival Lots are editable, so you can certainly place christmas-type items and decorations in your Summer festival lot.

And you can tune what weather occurs in each season using in-game options, to match the climate you're trying to reproduce.

I think you can get most of what you want using in-game tools and settings; for the rest, simple mods would take care of it (and maybe cheats, don't know exactly what they'll do for us yet!)

I honestly don't care whether it's religious or not. What matters to me is, whether it's mainstream enough that simmers all over the world would recognize and relate to the theme. I say they would. Christmas can be a backdrop for storytelling regardless of your background, religion, nationality and whatnot. What's next? You can't use a Holiday as a backdrop in movies or literature because it might offend some people?

As I said, Santa was entirely non-intrusive. I'm sure that if I gave my Sims 1 and Sims 2 copies (all EPs) to a 1000 non-simmers that probably only 5 of them would encounter Santa in the game purely by accident. You must know how to trigger the entire Santa appearing ceremony or it won't happen. People could play the game for years without knowing the option is even there!

There was no logical reason whatsoever to leave him out.

I don't think they do. At least not in my part of the country where they want everything to revolve around the Christian religion. I certainly don't remember ever hearing about the real origins of what we call Christmas today in school, but I could be wrong.

I ought to post on my FB half-way through the season this year "So, have y'all put up your Saturnalia tree yet?".

Let's be glad that most educational systems still teach evolution.

I understand the need for sensitivity in managing a holiday like Christmas, and the generic gift giving, holiday light winter holiday is a reasonable compromise.

I don't understand, though, how when Supernatural gave us witches, and Seasons gives us pumpkin carving and trick or treating in costume, Spooky Night couldn't have just been Halloween without freaking anyone out.

Yeah, I mean isn't in the supernaturals themselves that are the controversial subject that people would be offended by?

In the case of Halloween it's comical to include it and the supernaturals and then say you're calling it something else for the sake of not offending people. I'm pretty sure it's not the title of "Halloween" that offends people when it comes to the holiday.

Actually, the modern Santa Claus is a creation of the CocaCola corporation. That's why he is wearing the Coke colors.

Earlier versions of Santa Claus can be found in the 19th century, but he does not appear much earlier than that. One of his earliest mentions was in the poem "The Night Before Christmas." Of course the illustrations that went with that poem, as well as most of the earlier depictions look nothing like the CocaCola Santa. The CocaCola Santa first made his appearance in the 1930s.

Of course, while Christmas is nominally the birthdate of Christ, most scholars say he actually was born in the spring. The whole business of mangers, angels, wise men and the like are primarily a mishmash of Biblical stories. The December date was originally a Roman holiday, the Saturnalia, which celebrated the Winter Solstice. It traditionally was a time when farm animals were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed through the winter.

Christmas traditionally had a rather bad reputation. It was a time when people got drunk, engaged in brawls and licentious behavior, and were otherwise pretty rowdy. That's why the Puritains banned it.

The modern Christmas holiday is primarily the product of 1830s New York merchants who used it to boost sales

Bottom line is Christmas is a Christian holiday in name only, and those who think otherwise don't know their history very well (or they don't watch the History Channel).

i agree. i played sims 1 & 2 and had absolutely no idea santa was in there!! haha

edit: also, if im right, almost every country has a magical man who brings presents to children who have been good. i think its a part of parenting

Nope. It's a Western thing that is not even part of traditional Christianity. Though plenty of folks worldwide have adopted it due to culture contact :p

ah, thanks for correcting me i knew it wasnt related to christianity though haha

i think that its only english speaking western countries (uk, usa, austrailia...) that call him santa though, i know they have versions in continental europe with different names.

i suppose there may be a santa in this game, just nobody has found it yet

Sorry, but no.
A Brief History of Santa Claus: http://youtu.be/RbUVKXdu4lQ
and
History Lesson for the History Channel: http://youtu.be/utDHcbiOfKY

Bravo, to both!

They've taught it at nearly every school I've gone to without issue. People seemed genuinely interested.