Why owls are the new go to Christmas trend

Reindeers used to pretty much have an exclusive affinity with Christmas but in recent years Rudolf and friends have been pushed aside in favour of a new chief slay animal The Owl AKA the “chrowl”

When you think of Christmas there’s a whole list of animals you probably associate with the season of course theres Santa’s trusty team of magical reindeers and according to the nativity theres a donkey, and the camels that the three wise men arrived on. There is also often the mention of an ox and sheep in the nativity.
Ignoring the biblical references and looking back at the Norse and Scandinavian winter celebrations, traditionally families would celebrate with a yule goat or a yule boar, both of which were a source of food throughout winter.

But no matter which of the Christmas origins you delve into, there’s no mention of an owl. Even a mouse gets a mention in the opening line of the classic poem, ‘The Night before Christmas’.

The Chrowl is Hijacking Christmas
Despite its lack of cited seasonal relevance, chrowls(or Christmas owls) are becoming the dominant species in the world of winter festivities. Don’t believe me?

You’re sure to be traipsing around your local mall or town centre in the next few weeks, while you’re there stop and look at the array of Christmas merchandise available, especially in the home décor and tree decoration sections…..it’s all Chrowls!
Owls will easily out-number any other animal-themed products on display.
Although owls seem to have been overlooked in Christmas literature, there’s no shortage of other festive birds. Doves appear in Christmas decorations, the red breasted robin is associated with winter in the UK and even a penguin wouldn’t look out of place on a Christmas Card.

Infact theres a whole list of birds relating to Christmas, they dominate the first half of Twelve days of Christmas’ . Theres a patridge in a pear tree, two turtle doves, three French hens, Four calling birds, six swans a swimming and a massive eight geese a laying …a total of 24 festive birds but still no owl.

The origins of the Christmas Owl

Clearly I’m not the only person left wondering why owls are taking over Christmas, as the yahoo post below proves.
So what is the connection between owls and Christmas? Well no one really seems to know. In Christian culture the owl symbolizes desolation, death and darkness owing to its nocturnal lifestyle…. that seems far removed from any ideology of a Christian’s take on Crhistmas.

Some say that the chrowl dates back to 19th century Christmas ornaments, the bird’s intelligence and wisdom symbolized a Christmas wish.

I think the origins of the owls involvement in the holidays is actually more recent, infact the story begins about a decade ago.
The boom in popularity of owls was spurred on in 2003 by artist Jonathan Adler’s who featured owls in his range of pillows, plush toys and even salt and pepper shakers.
Since then owls have been on the rise featuring in home wear products in stores like Next , urban outfitters and basically everywhere. Just take a look on Etsy, the online crafts marketplace.
There are 219,117 items for sale on Etsy with owl as part of their description, by comparison just 65,346 products featuring reindeers. The same is true for ebay where a massive 932,236 owl products are available, almost four times the number of reindeer related products.
The fact is owls are popular, even teenagers have embraced the owl culture by wearing clothes depicting owls, owl bags, phone cases and so much more. The success of owl amongst teens could be thanks to Justin Beiber who in 2012 revealed an owl tattoo on his left arm.

By higgy pop