Rudolph Day, July 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

For our July edition, it's time for "Christmas in July"! Cool down with these:

Hey! Remember Glass Wax stencils? I used to do this every year with our front window, including reusing the reindeer stencil four times to get all eight tiny reindeer and the camel and wise man stencils to get all three of them. The stencils would get soaked and limp if you used them more than once, so you did one reindeer pair, then did other stencils, then another reindeer pair once the stencil had dried a little, and so on.

Read a 92-year-old book by George McKnight about St. Nicholas: His Legend and His Role in the Christmas Celebration and Other Popular Customs (here's a flip book version, too).

Remember the first animated Christmas special ever made for television? Nope, it wasn't A Charlie Brown Christmas, or even the stop-motion animation of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It was, in fact, the 1962 Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, which was scored by two Broadway veteran songwriters, and adapted directly from Dickens' tale, with a delightful framing sequence that has the nearsighted Magoo as an egotistical actor playing Ebenezer Scrooge in a Broadway play (with a great song about Broadway to boot). Now there's a book about the making of this special by Darrell Van Citters that's a delight as well, telling how the idea of the special came about, how it was made almost "in tandem" with UPA's Gay Purr-ee, and of the changes that were made to the story to fit it into a 52-minute timeslot. So if you've ever wondered if the scenes with Scrooge's nephew Fred, with Ignorance and Want, and with Belle and her husband were ever included in the original teleplay, you'll find out here. (The one mystery about the story that everyone asks about, why the Spirit of Christmas Present came first, is sadly not solved; in the original script the ghosts were in the proper order.) There are also nice tidbits about the actors—I didn't know Paul Frees' death was actually a suicide!—and the production (the original sponsor was Timex, and the minute the author mentioned the commercials I could remember them). If you are as big a fan of the story as I am, you will want to order it directly from the Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol site. If you are interested, but not fanatic, it is supposed to be available for general release, i.e. Amazon.com and the like, in the fall.

This site about producer Abe Levitow also has a page and some clips from the Carol.

A Favorite Chronicled

I have already ordered one. I remember watching the original broadcast on our old black and white television; didn't see it in color until the late 1970s.

Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol: A Book By Darrell Van Citters

Rudolph Day, June 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

It's now six months until Christmas!

For our June edition, let's go back to the 1950s and some great black and white video from YouTube!

1950 movie theatre Christmas ads

More vintage movie theatre Christmas ads

Movie theatre Christmas films: Christmas 1955 and New Years 1952

Newsreel of London at Christmastime, 1953 (silent)

Santa Claus' Story, a tale about monkeys celebrating Christmas!

Santa Claus' quiz show, another odd movie short

"A Christmas Dream"

1950s Christmas photos done to "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (strange music choice!)

There are still those among us who were there Sunday afternoon, December 6, 1964, watching a new Christmas treat which we did not know would become a holiday classic. On that Sunday, in place of their weekly university competition, College Bowl, General Electric presented their "Fantasy Hour" featuring the stop-motion tale of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. If you are a Rudolph fan, Rick Goldschmidt's The Making of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a must, a slim volume chock-full of "Rudolphy" tidbits. Goldschmidt goes all the way back to the early days of the partnership of Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass and describes the production of the story, and the volume is filled with one-of-a-kind photos of the production staff, including the Japanese studio where the stop-motion animation was done. A big treat is the inclusion of Romeo Muller's original script, where you can see all sorts of things changed: Sam the snowman originally as a different type of character, a "maternity" seal, Donner being injured, and a different ending for the "Bumble" among them. Enjoy!

"What Do the Holidays Mean to You?" Quiz

Your Holidays Are Lively

For you, the holidays are about celebration. You enjoy all the fun and fellowship that the holidays bring. You celebrate the holidays in a offbeat style. You believe the holidays are for doing whatever you feel like - and some of your "traditions" are pretty wacky. During the holidays, you feel magical. You love all of the decorations and how happy people are. You like to sit back and take it all in. You think the holidays should be nostalgic and sweet. The holidays bring out your inner child. Your favorite holiday memories are complete and very visual. Past holiday events play out like a video in your mind.

What Do the Holidays Mean to You?

Rudolph Day, May 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

For our May edition, Christmas comes in on little mice feet:

• Visit some Christmas stores online! Christmas Days • Bronners Christmas Wonderland • The Christmas Mouse

• Read the story of "The Christmas Mouse" (many other Christmas inspirational stories linked here)

• How mice helped a poor workingman in Beatrix Potter's classic "The Tailor of Gloucester" (her favorite of all her tales)

I am always on the lookout for Christmas stories I haven't read. Most newer books contain the usual selections: bits from A Christmas Carol, Capote's "Christmas Memory," Taylor Caldwell's Christmas tale, and also Pearl Buck's. That's why I was delighted to find a worn book from 1945 called The Fireside Book of Christmas Stories. I could just imagine some World War II veteran buying this volume, reading and re-reading it over the years.

Granted, some familiarity still remained: Dickens' edited version of A Christmas Carol, Henry Van Dyke's "The Other Wise Man," the "little women" and Wiggins' Carol Bird celebrating Christmas, Washington Irving's "Old Christmas" and the Christmas chapter from The Pickwick Papers. And, sadly, the "cute darky story," "How Come Christmas" and also "A Plantation Christmas," with its happy black characters including one ex-slave who was happier in slavery ::eyes roll::, were also included...sad remnants of the negative side of "the good old days." And one British story, "The Almond Tree," didn't even make sense in inclusion, as it merely took place in the winter, not at Christmas, although the holiday is briefly mentioned.

Despite that, I did get my wish. There were several touching Biblical efforts about the lives of Mary and Joseph, plus one about the Magi Caspar, Frances Hodgsen Burnett's tale of "The Little Hunchback Zia," stories of Santa Claus and one of St. Boniface and the first Christmas tree, a couple of British ghost stories as well as memoirs and stories of small towns and lonely children, and Langston Hughes' bleak "One Christmas Eve." If you like old-fashioned Christmas story collections, you will probably appreciate this selection.

Jingles From the Future

I have an incredible report that there is already a small amount of Christmas merchandise (mostly ribbon) out at a Hobby Lobby. Wow!

Rudolph Day, April 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

For our April edition, you may read online A Little Book of Christmas, by Cyrus Townsend Brady (Project Gutenberg).

Here's a list of the five best Christmas stores in the United States.

Some quotations about Christmas.

Dickens' Finest Song
Everyone has his favorite film version of A Christmas Carol. Many prefer the Alistair Sim offering, while others favor George C. Scott or Reginald Owen. Still others go for the more offbeat versions: perhaps Mr. Magoo's or Mickey Mouse's, or The Muppet Christmas Carol or Bill Murray's Scrooged.

But how many of you out there have close acquaintance with the best version—Dickens' original novel?

Not Dickens! you groan. Dickens wrote by the word. Dickens wrote in the Victorian style, full of description and overly stuffed with exposition.

A Christmas Carol is none of these. Dickens' simple, to-the-point story is full of delightful imagery that is never captured in any of the versions. Here is his description of Scrooge himself:

"Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas."

Have any of the movies ever described the cold of that Christmas Eve any better than this?:

"Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture."

Here's a marvelous passage describing the marketplace at Christmas:

"...There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement."

The whole book is full of such delightful passages. The spirits are more mysterious, the villainous Old Joe and his compatriots more sinister, the Cratchits more affecting...characters appear often ignored by the films and more venues appear. Treat yourself this year to the original, Charles Dickens' "little Christmas book," A Christmas Carol.

Christmas in...April?

Yes, the Hallmark Dream Book came today!

I love it...there is a "Bolt" ornament!

Other cool ornaments I noted:

• The first in a series of "Mickey's Christmas Carol" ornaments (this one is Mickey as Bob Cratchit at his desk)

• A gingerbread Santa-and-reindeer set (as well as a gingerbread Noah's ark)

• A nice "full size" and also miniature train set

• A cute miniature Snoopy and Woodstock

• A "talking" Ralphy in the pink pajamas

• A Robby the Robot

• A wonderful Eeyore ornament with him and a Charlie Brown-type tree

• A new Marjolein Bastin ornament (a cardinal on a garden gate)

plus, of course, all sorts of Santas, snowmen, and Snoopys, superheroes and Barbies, angels and of course the Child in the Manger.

Happy Easter!

A Joyful Passover

Our friend Mel mentioned this special prayer in a recent e-mail: Jews Ready Blessing of the Sun for Passover

Holiday.net celebrates Passover

Today did some quiz questions about Passover this morning. I remember reading the story in my children's Bible. Everyone remembers the lamb's blood and the slaying of the firstborn, but do you remember all the ten plagues? They were:

1. Blood
2. Frogs
3. Lice (vermin)
4. Wild Beasts(flies)
5. Blight (Cattle Disease)
6. Boils
7. Hail
8. Locusts
9. Darkness
10. Slaying of the First Born

Pesach : History and Meaning of Freedom in Faith

Rudolph Day, March 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

For our March edition, Earl Hamner Remembers A Nelson County, Virginia Christmas (this appeared in a slightly different form on the LP "The Waltons Christmas Album").

Did you know artificial Christmas trees are not new? They were originally conceived after the depletion of forests for Christmas trees. Here's the history of feather trees on a feather tree kit site, and also an article about them from the Victoriana online magazine.

This month's featured book is I'll Be Home for Christmas, a collection of personal memories from the magazine Good Old Days. This full color hardcover book is full of vintage illustrations (including some by Norman Rockwell) and reminisces from the turn of the century through the 1950s. The common denominator in all of them is not the fantastic expensive gifts that were received or the home's expensive decorations, but the happiness of family and friends being together again and receiving tokens of love from those they cared for, and giving those same tokens. Christmas was about happiness, not about money. Stories include memories of grandparents, wartime tales, and country fun. Great for a quiet read during Christmastide.

Celebrating St. Joseph's Day in the News

St. Joseph: A Humble Man of God

This is an interesting article about how St. Joseph's Day has become meaningful to African-American groups. (Funny how this refers to St. Joseph's Day as a "Sicilian" holiday; I just think of it as an "Italian" holiday.)

A look at creating a St. Joseph's Day altar in New Orleans.

Preparing a St. Joseph's feast with love in Texas.

Celebrating St. Joseph's Day With Bread, a story from Chicago. (Zeppoles filled with chocolate custard? Now those I could go for!)

A New York bakery shows us how to make zeppole.

In some places it's just easier to find an Italian bakery: a video of zeppoles being prepared at Schialo's Bakery in Providence, RI. (This is up in the Federal Hill neighborhood where my mom grew up; "the Hill" was primarily known as an Italian neighborhood for many decades.)

Rudolph Day, February 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

For our February edition, play Reindeer Roundup

Read Temple Bailey's "A Candle in the Forest"

Like these newfangled MP3s? Download Christmas albums or individual songs at Amazon.com

Also noted are Ace Collins' two Christmas songs books, Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas and More Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas. These are short pieces about the history of favorite Christmas hymns, carols, and songs. Not everyone's taste is the same, and I have to admit that "The Christmas Shoes," "Blue Christmas," and "Pretty Paper," all covered in these books, are probably my least favorite Christmas songs, but they are best-loved by quite a few folks out there. :-) But I have never heard of "Thank God for Kids," "It Wasn't His Child," "Come and See What's Happening in the Barn," or "Christmas in the Country," nor heard them played anywhere, or seen them on Christmas CDs. Shouldn't "best-loved" songs mean just that, ones everyone knows rather than some obscure country and western songs like these seem to be? Otherwise these are readable, interesting pieces on each of the songs.

How Much Wood...

Bother. With the weather report the way it is, looks like "General Lee" will not see his shadow. Noooooo! Not spring! Not spring!

Groundhog Day 2009 at the Yellow River Game Ranch

The "official" groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil.

The groundhog tradition comes from beliefs centered on the Christian holiday Candlemas (40 days after Christmas, the day when all Christmas greens must be removed or it will bring bad luck; the name comes from the Church practice of blessing the candles that day for use in the remainder of the liturgical year) and the pagan celebration Imbolc. A Scottish poem says of this day:

"As the light grows longer
The cold grows stronger;
If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter will have another flight.
If Candlemas be cloud and snow,
Winter will be gone and not come again.
A farmer should on Candlemas day
Have half his corn and half his hay.
On Candlemas day if thorns hang a drop
You can be sure of a good pea crop."

Early American references to Groundhog Day go back as far as 1841 and state this as a German custom. The original German animal, however, was a badger; once in the United States, the behavior was changed to the groundhog (also known as the woodchuck).

Thanksgiving Flashbacks

Check out this New York Daily News site, with vintage Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade photos.

Rudolph Day, January 2009

The purpose of Rudolph Day is to keep the Christmas spirit all year long. One can prepare Christmas gifts or crafts, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas music, or read a Christmas book.

For our January edition, here is purportedly the first sound version of A Christmas Carol, Sir Seymour Hicks as Scrooge, from 1935.

For your perusal, a site dedicated to the old paper Christmas village pieces you could find in Woolworths, Grants, Newberrys, Kresges, McCrory, and all the other wonderful "dime stores": Papa Ted's Place.

I have one Christmas project that is nearly completed; one more wooden cutout will do it.

Since I found wrapping paper for 39¢ per roll, I bought three, which fills up my wrapping paper container.

I also finished the book Christmas the World Over by Daniel J. Foley, originally published in 1963. This is a thin, readable volume of celebrations around the world, although it is skewed more to European and North American customs. However, Russia is included, despite the Soviet Union's restrictions upon worship at that time, and even China and Japan are touched upon. Australia abruptly ends with the index! However, since this was published in 1963, there are some fascinating details of customs that have disappeared since the book was published, with Christmas becoming more homogenized. Illustrations are in black and white. Worth getting at a reasonable price if you are interested in different ethnic Christmas celebrations.

Snow Good

One of the things I bought at one of the craft stores (Michaels, I think) on sale after Christmas was a tube of something called "Glistening Snow Writer." From the description, it sounded like it was something that put a three-dimensional snow coating, with a bit of glitter, on items to make them look snowy. So this afternoon when I had a minute I applied it to three different items: the Marjean Bastian wheelbarrow Hallmark ornament which I had with my winter display, a little gold box filled with "berries, pine and a pine cone," and a woven twig basket filled with artificial pine (three kinds), two different types of berries, and twigs. I am using them all as winter decorations, but they have never been snowy enough for me.

I loved the way this stuff went on, but sadly, the white has dried as clear as Elmer's glue, leaving only the glitter behind. I suppose it's a good thing I scattered an entire container of white glitter on all three items before the "Snow Writer" liquid dried or it wouldn't have been as white as it is. Wish I'd used the snowflake-like white glitter now!

Still, it does look frosted, at least.

Wintry Mix

Not the weather, more's the pity. It's raining out, but there's a cold front on the back of it.

Well, downstairs is swept, the upstairs and the stairs are vacuumed, and most of the winter decorations are up except for the things that go on the railing of the porch, like the silver wreath. Because of the rain, it's not really a good time to put them out. I did put the snowmen out there, and the snow garland, and the sled and the shovel.

Most of the Christmas gifts we got are still sitting on the hearth. Must find homes for them soon.

The autumn things that go back up after Christmas (the scarecrow on the landing and the things that go on the mantel) are still in boxes downstairs. All in good time, I suppose.

Burnt Out (Me)

With the help of James' brawn, all is now ensconced in the closet.

I won't put the rocker back in its corner until I vacuum, and I'm not doing that tonight. Everything needs to be vacuumed again, and the downstairs hall swept, then I can put things back in their places and can put the winter decorations up.

At this rate it feels like it will be spring before I can accomplish it.

All I want is a good night's sleep...

Burnt Out

It struck me that it might be prudent to save some of the bulbs from the discarded set, even though I found two replacement bulbs in the ornament box. I pulled the string from the trash. These are miniature white lights under colored caps. I unscrewed a cap to find the light burnt out. Upon inspection, most of them are burnt out. And the one or two I found that look sound, I can't figure out how to get them out of their socket. Usually there's an edge of a bulb you can get your fingernail under, but these bulbs are inset into the socket. If one bulb does blow out, I have no idea how you replace it!

I did save some of the caps in case one breaks going up and down the stairs to the closet.