Wing wrote: »

they are not making Christmas in ESO, they are using the themes to draw people into ESO holidays and learn more about them.

That's how I see it too.
And I can't fault them for that, especially after testing the event on the PTS.

The event is NOT a "totally not Christmas" kind of event, and instead of being just one general celebration it actually has multiple parts that take into consideration the different cultures of Tamriel (except for Imperials for some reason). And I think the cultural celebrations are not really too close to Christmas celebrations to be identifiable. I mean, at least I didn't see a clear link with any of them, nothing that couldn't be attributed to any generic celebration.

Darkstorne wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

If the use of "mistletoe" were intended to reflect the plant, which could exist in Tamriel, not the cultural Christmas holiday, it would not be a red, green, and white combination of colors because mistletoe is most commonly green with white berries.

Mistletoe was used in winter festivals long before Christians decided to adapt bits and pieces of other religions and merge them into their own. It's long been known as a Druidic tradition in the UK, but has roots in Scandinavian countries too.

Only the colour red is a Christian reference here, and since Christians don't own the colour exclusively it shouldn't be too difficult to assume that other festivals completely unrelated to the Church might decide to use a warm colour to symbolise life.

The Green and Red combination is related to Holly, which was also adopted by Christians for their observance of Christmas. Without getting too into this, the Christians tended to do this with a lot of the observances. Over the centuries, all of these things were folded into Christianity.

If referring to the plant, the "Mistletoe" dye pack would more commonly use green and white, with no red. In the context being used, the term Mistletoe is nothing but a reference to contemporary Christmas. It would be no different if they had some sort of "Festival Elf" costume that was Red and White or an "Elk Mount" that might even have a red nose and be covered in bells.

This is part of what is so frustrating. The old excuse of "how do we know that mistletoe was not around" and "how do we know that red and green aren't the colors of New Life Festival" ring very shallow. The bigger question that I am asking is "why should they be?"

Yes, we know that Bethesda made analog holidays, and they did it in Arena for exactly the same reason that all of us speculate. Back at a time when they did not know they were creating Elder Scrolls lore. Back at a time before Elder Scrolls lore existed and they had to make it up. Back then, it was just Arena and they had no plans for any other games in the series. Heck, when Arena was done, it was nothing at all like what they set out to make. Since that time, the Elder Scrolls has evolved into something that is significantly apart from the real world. An alien world. Yes, they pull from the real world, but they also change it so that it is different.

My point is that they are not being different enough with the Christmas party portion of the New Life Festival. The candy references. The mistletoe. The colors. Too familiar. They could have replaced any one of the colors with a different color, for example. They could have used something other than mistletoe, just to further separate it from the real world.

To me, this is not about creative thinking to justify why it draws so much from today's holiday. It is about creating an alien holiday and building the lore, story, and environment to show why it is not the same. They have done this, as far as I can tell, with the rest of the Festival. It is the STORE that did not seem to get the message.