Cultural Usage
Coal is the official state mineral of Kentucky. and the official state rock of Utah; both US states have a historic link to coal mining.
Some cultures hold that children who misbehave will receive only a lump of coal from Santa Claus for Christmas in their christmas stockings instead of presents.
It is also customary and considered lucky in Scotland and the North of England to give coal as a gift on New Year's Day. This occurs as part of First-Footing and represents warmth for the year to come.
Read more about this topic: Coal
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or usage:
“They’re semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken on a life of their own, like those Jules Verne airships that those old Kansas farmers were always seeing.... Semiotic ghosts. Fragments of the Mass Dream, whirling past in the wind of my passage.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
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—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)