52 Days Until Christmas

A cloudy, chilly November day, just as it should be. I am working, and burning a cinnamon stick Yankee Candle, having almost finished a load of laundry and putting away the Hallowe'en decorations. (I was taking down Hallowe'en decorations to replace with Thanksgiving decorations to the tune of Christmas music. Love it!)

Someone on one of my Christmas groups noted that not only did Dish Network start their Christmas music, but they have six different channels this year; in the past they have only had one. One is country, one is Christian, one is a very odd "Remix" channel that wasn't half bad, one is instrumental, one is classical, and one is jazz. Listened to the instrumental channel for a while, then put on the CD I bought in Ellijay on Monday, Christmas music done on hammered dulcimer, which I can't resist. I then put on "Voices of Christmas Past," which is a collection of old recordings from 1898 to 1924. Love listening to the voices of the men singing in those days, a completely different style of singing; lots of tremolo in it, like old songs you might hear by Irish tenors, with much more emphasis than we would use in a song today. This is the type of album I love to collect, either quiet instrumentals or unusual music, not the new album by the latest singer.

This album also has several "spoken only" pieces, like "Uncle Josh" talking about Christmas at "Punkin Creek" (typical small-town humor) and a piece with an "Oirish" family having Christmas (at least the stereotype isn't insulting), and another that is supposedly a group of British "Tommies" around the fire during the Great War.

Now I am listening to a two-CD set called "A Vintage Christmas Cracker," music from 1914-1949. The "gimmick" is that this is a British album, so, although there are bits of hit American songs on it, like Bing Crosby's "White Christmas," and British bands playing American hits like "Little Brown Jug," the majority of the songs are British, like "The Fairy on the Christmas Tree," and even the King's Christmas message to the Empire.

"Addie and the War Hero"

If you are looking for something different to read for Hallowe'en, you might like to try my Hallowe'en themed Addie Mills story.

A Hallowe'en Treat

Raggedy Ann & Andy: The Pumpkin Who Couldn't Smile, Part 1

Raggedy Ann & Andy: The Pumpkin Who Couldn't Smile, Part 2

Raggedy Ann & Andy: The Pumpkin Who Couldn't Smile, Part 3

Autumn Amidst the Raindrops

Dark, dripping, and dreary: today in a nutshell. There were fits of rain, but surprisingly no thunder, and it was necessary to keep the lights on all day.

I kept my own inner light burning with the warmth of music in the morning and podcasts in the afternoon. First things first: I played the copy of "New England Christmastide" I received in the mail yesterday so I could do my feedback. I've had "New England Christmastide 2" on cassette tape for years, and when we were on vacation, I saw it on CD in the Christmas store in Weston, VT, along with a newer album, "New England Yuletide," which I purchased, but not the original album. So when I got home I hunted it up on Amazon Marketplace.

All of the collection are instrumentals, my favorite type of Christmas music, done in a simple style on "folk instruments" like hammered dulcimers, bagpipes, recorders, etc. As I expected, it was quite lovely. These are all from North Star Music, located in East Greenwich, RI.

Following were my autumn albums: George Winston's "Autumn," and David Huntsinger's "Autumn in New England" and "New England by Piano." The former Huntsinger album is my favorite of the two, but I really love a piece on the second. It's a bouncy little tune called "Climbing Katahdin" that sounds as if it could be background music in an Addie Mills story. I can see Addie out on her bicycle or working on an art project when I listen to it.

The afternoon was reserved for some podcasts, a "A Way With Words" talking about things like "olly olly oxen free" and its various regional permutations, and two Rick Steves' Travels, one about misconceptions about French culture and the other about Naples.

During lunch and in the evening I worked on my "Father Christmas" cross stitch. I haven't cross-stitched in ages; the light is not good in my usual seat and the rocker is usually clogged with books and magazines, but I loved the old-fashioned look of the piece. I always think the English "Father Christmas" looks better than our Santa Claus, with his hood and robe rather than the silly tassel hat and the red snowsuit.

[10/28: It was finished during lunch today; here it is on the oval backing board, ready to go in its gold frame. The French knots on the tree are not good, but I left them that way, just to look quirky.]

61 Days Until Christmas

After a beautiful week of New England autumn leaves, the ones here are a bit disheartening. It's not the trees' fault; the soil and the climate is different, and it hasn't yet become cold, so the trees are of subdued hues; even the occasional orange and yellow are muted.

However, we had a good rain this morning, and, although it looked as if it were clearing up when I went to lunch, when I awoke from my nap the clouds had come over again, almost completely covering the sky. It wasn't dark, but grey and misty, and it lent an unearthly look to the trees. The color is always a bit brighter at work, because the complex is set next to a wetlands, and the combination of turning trees against the clouds was quite pretty.

I am doing something tonight I haven't done in ages, work on a cross stitch! It's a small kit I bought on Saturday. I have Strong Poison (the Sayers story done with Edward Petherbridge as Lord Peter Wimsey), and stitching Father Christmas and watching Harriet Vane be cleared of murder make agreeable evening companions.

80 Days Until Christmas

Here are the classic Raymond Briggs stories as animated for television, but you may not have seen them this way before. Father Christmas has the original British voices (the version that is sold to American audiences was retracked with a different actor) and this version of The Snowman has the original introduction by Raymond Briggs.

Father Christmas, part 1

Father Christmas, part 2

Father Christmas, part 3

The Snowman, part 1

The Snowman, part 2

The Snowman, part 3

Funniest Christmas Parody Ever

STAN FREBERG - Christmas Dragnet (1953) / Yulenet (1954)

"Most folks call 'em green onions..."

85 Days Until Christmas

Whew! End of fiscal year is finally...well, ended, and it's time to start living again. Temperatures dropped a few days ago—I never thought I would be so glad to see it in the 70s, as high 50s are my favorite. Driving home lately I have noted goldenrod sprouting everywhere. It's time for wonderful things

• autumn leaves
• open window weather
• fall festivals
• fall decorations
• pumpkin tarts at Trader Joe's
• hot chocolate and hot soup
• next year's calendars
• Christmas planning magazines
• great photos of autumn landscapes

(hmmn, sense a theme here?)

Ironically the craft project I have now is partially an Easter project, but it can also be used for winter. I bought two little stools to go in the foyer to hold holiday figures or decor. One is red and will work for Christmas, autumn, Valentines Day, and even Independence Day, but it really didn't work for Easter, so I also bought one that's kind of a distressed creamy white. I'm going to paint it pale blue, so it will work for both Easter and winter.

91 Days Until Christmas

Here's a blast from the past! Castle Films used to make movies for you to show on your home projector. Back when Dad had his Bell and Howell movie camera, projector, and screen, we had a "Deputy Dawg" cartoon in black and white that I loved to see. This has music added to it; our home movies were silent and normally this would have been, too.

"The Night Before Christmas" - Castle Films - 1946 (8mm)

Here's the 16mm version, which has narration:

"The Night Before Christmas" sound version

But you wouldn't have seen this in your home unless you could afford a sound projector.

96 Days Till Christmas

Everything has apparently figured this out except the weather. 90 degrees through the end of the week.

Odd because everything else in nature has been pretty much operating on schedule. Some weeks ago the cicadas quit screaming from the trees in the office park complex. The oak trees are shedding their acorns all over the tarmac to crunch out their lives under tires and soles, and the squirrels' tails are plumping nicely. (I'd wondered if they were sick this year; I've never seen squirrels with such skinny tails as this summer.) Odd leaves are turning yellow, especially on the big tulip trees, and the dogwood trees already have leaves tipped and dipped red, sometimes only one and two to a tree, some with a whole tip of a branch showing scarlet. There's usually a breeze, and it sends leaves spattering down.

We are chatting on one of my Christmas groups about favorite holiday movies, including Hallowe'en films. I'm not a horror film person. "It's a Good Life" on Twilight Zone was about as creepy as I get. Even with Sam Neill in it, I couldn't finish watching Event Horizon. But I do like a few traditional things:

• It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
• The delightfully kitschy The Worst Witch
• Following Fairuza Balk, Fairuza Balk: Return to Oz, deliciously creepy and with Nicol Williamson to boot
• The Haunted History of Halloween from the History Channel
• The even more delightfully kitschy Midnight Offerings, with Mary Beth McDonough (Erin Walton) as a good witch and Melissa Sue Anderson (chewing the scenery) as Vivian Sutherland, a really, really bad witch
• And always the For Better or For Worse cartoon special, "The Good-for-Nothing," in which Farley disappears on Hallowe'en night

97 Days Until Christmas

The best way to spend the time until Christmas is to enjoy the autumn.

Here an entire collection of fall festivals dot the weekends up through October. It starts out with the annual Yellow Daisy Festival the weekend after Labor Day, with booths that line the different trails through the Stone Mountain exhibition grounds. Wares range from cute clothes for Grandmas to shower their grandchildren with to foods (barbecue sauce, soup and casserole mixes, candies, dips, maple syrup, and more), crafts to outdoor displays, children's playthings to homemade soap, musicians CDs to recycled products, home decor, fudge, furniture, ceramics, and more, with the obligatory food stands—and even souvenir bags, postcards, and mugs. Booths are liberally laced with artificial garlands of colorful autumn leaves, and a hope for cool fall is in the air.

This is usually followed by a little show called "A Blue Ribbon Affair" which proceeds the North Georgia State Fair. Well, "proceeds" except for this year. We arrived at the park today to find out they had cancelled it despite announcements to the contrary. Made a bit of a dent in our day.

Will just have to dive back into my collection of fall magazines, including Blue Ridge Country and Birds and Blooms, having finished up Yankee and Vermont Life.

100 Days Until Christmas!

Summer always gets on my very last nerve, but this summer has been particular obnoxious. Temperatures sailed up into the 90s at the beginning of June and, except for one or two few days every month, have remained there. Here it is September and they are predicting we won't see 80s until later next week.

Not to mention they are predicting a warm fall and winter this year because of La Nina. Last year was so cold and lovely, from October though March, that I was sure we'd pay for it somehow. Well, summer has made that abundantly clear, the wretched brat, smotheringly, suffocatingly hot from one end of her iron reign to the other. I wish she'd take a long walk off a short pier...and not know how to swim.

I have been taking pleasures where I can get them: the Hallmark Ornament Premiere in mid-July, the appearance of fall garlands and then picks and things in Hobby Lobby in late June to early July (I can't help burying my face in them and giving them a hug), the Christmas crafts dotting the pathways at the Yellow Daisy Festival, the appearance of October dates on upcoming events calendars—and now the joy of the Christmas issue of Early American Life, the fall issue of the Vermont Country Store catalog, and Christmas craft magazines in the stands. And as a bonus an "it's like Christmas!" visit from a friend. When end-of-fiscal-year mania was at its peak—and this year with the recovery act funds in the mix it's been particularly egregious—I would retreat into instrumental Christmas carols. It's definitely music to soothe the savage "beast" of summer.

So while it's poppin' hot outside and annoyingly aggravating at the office—compounded by the fact we haven't had any hot water there for over four weeks now!—I'm trying to keep it cool and wintry...or perhaps I mean cool and "autumn-y"...in my heart.

It's definitely a hard slog and there have been tears.

Let go, you wretched witch of summer! Begone!

She Made It Christmas

Patricia Neal has died.

This noted character actress, known for her smoky voice and often gritty roles, played in many famous theatrical films, including Hud, The Subject Was Roses, and A Face in the Crowd, and her private struggles were almost as famous as her roles: in the 1960s she suffered a severe stroke and had to learn to do the simplest things again.

For me, Neal will always be remembered as Olivia Walton in The Homecoming. While Michael Learned made the character famous, it was Neal’s arresting performance that first defined her. True, Neal not only was older than the Olivia character, who should have been about thirty-six or –seven, but the after-effects of the stroke made her seem older than her forty-five years. However, she personified not only the strict but caring Depression-era mother who knew what it was like to struggle to keep her family clothed and fed, hiding her sorrow that “Santa Claus” could not deliver the gifts she wanted to give her children. However "tough" that Michael Learned played the role of Olivia in the television series (and Learned was noticably more strict in the early seasons), she never quite captured the bleakness that Neal’s Olivia must face each day with a husband away all week earning a meager living, scraping together food to feed her growing, hungry children, losing sleep to knit scarves into the evening so that each of those children would have some sort of Christmas gift under the tree. But then The Homecoming was always more gritty than the series (the novel grittier still) and Neal fit into that aspect with perfection, like Dorothea Lange’s 1930s "migrant mother" photo come to life.

Good night, Miss Neal.

Easter Is...Peace

We are spending a quiet day after our busy one yesterday, all the busier since we were both up late: James was down in the "man cave," and I was on chat. Near the end of chat, when the conversation was getting spotty, I went to the Android Market to find a couple more games. I'm not much on games, but I like to have something for lines or mindless waits. I found a Bejeweled clone that's themed for Christmas that had an extra fillip, and something akin to "Cash Cow" called Color Drips. Then I found the demo version of "Space Physics." OMG, best game ever. I want the full version.

I was playing the ten demo levels until after 3 a.m.!

We had a leisurely breakfast this morning while I posted an Easter card on my main blog and surveyed Facebook, and we listened to this week's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," then at lunchtime I put Here Comes Peter Cottontail on. I love the songs in this one, especially "Puzzle of Life" and "If I Could Only Get Back to Yesterday."

The show, in its entirety:

Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1970) Part 1

Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1970) Part 2

Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1970) Part 3

Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1970) Part 4

Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1970) Part 5

At this point James retreated down into the "man cave" and I put on The Easter Promise. Here is a short clip from this third Addie Mills story. The stories take place in the fictional "Clear River," Nebraska, and Jean Simmons plays Constance Payne, the local girl who "made good" as a Broadway actress. But she has proven a disappointment so far to Addie and her friends after she shows up at their style show drunk. Here Constance tries to make up for her gaffe by giving the girls dramatic lessons:

Clip from The Easter Promise

(In the story James brings home pussy willows, which I wrote about in a previous post.)

Now I am listening to a December "This Week in Tech" podcast (speculating about the just-released iPad!)

[Later: put on some music and finished Jesus, Interrupted. We had ham steak and rice pilaf for supper, with ice cream for dessert. Had a few laughs from American's Funniest Home Videos, then watched the "Birds" and "Deep Sea Creatures" installments of Life.]

Pussy Willows

We love trotting through Trader Joe's, seeing the different varieties of food, sampling whatever is in the back, having a cold sip of water from the cooler. The cashiers are more relaxed than at a grocery store, and lining the windows in front of the store are seasonal plants.

Today they had a short line of three pussy willow plants in the window. Coupled with the first day of spring, it was enough of a nudge into the past. I petted one of the little silver-and-grey catkins, having done it dozens of years and dozens of times in the past.

One of the first signs of spring when I was a kid was of my Uncle Guido showing up at the back door with a big bunch of pussy willows in his hand. They were for my mother, ever the plant lover, with the philodendron plant in a ceramic dish in the living room carefully nursed year after year, the rose bush ruthlessly pruned back every winter always to resurrect in crimson blooms in June, the "bridal veil bush" which bloomed in tiny white flowers and gave us flower petal "snow" when the blooms were blown, and Mother's azaleas, huge bushes on each side of the front steps, which blossomed vivid pink right around Mother's Day.

Mom would take the pussy willow stems and put them in a big glass vase reserved usually just for them. I was allergic to anything that bloomed and the pussy willows were the only thing that didn't make me sneeze. When Dad bought Mom roses for Mother's Day, they had to stay out on the back porch. But the pussy willows I could enjoy, and pet as if they were tiny grey kittens.

Uncle Guido spent his whole life with plants. For years he was a landscaper at the Alpine Country Club. When he wasn't making his living with botanical items, he was tending a big vegetable garden in the rear of his house, and every year as long as he was well, he would buy marigolds and argeratums (the "fuzzy purple flowers," I called them) and red salvias and pansies and plant them in the dormant beds in front of our house for Mom to baby and tend and water for the rest of the summer. Unlike me, he was unafraid of earthworms and the creepy-crawlies in the dirt, and, as he knelt in the soft grass that edged the flower beds, his calloused hands would take up each tender little plant from its tiny cup and lovingly set it into the soil, tamping it around the stem so it remained upright, facing the sun.

Uncle Guido left to work in another Garden last May, at the age of 91, but the sight of pussy willows will always remind me of him.

Buona Festa di San Guiseppe!

A baker's "half dozen" of St. Joseph's Day articles!

Zeppole Are Just Part of the Family business at DeLuise Bakery

Italian Eyes are Smiling as St. Joseph's Day Approaches

Chicago's La Madia Celebrates St. Joseph's Day

Thanking St. Joseph With Pasta, Pastries and Prayers

Chiff.com's St. Joseph's Day Article and Links

Celebrate St. Joseph's Day With Zeppole

Celebrate St. Joseph Feast Italian Way

End of the Trail

A sad day today: I got rid of the snow on my Farmville acreage. :-)

I also started taking down the rest of the Valentines Day decor (I took the porch items down last week, but then had a relapse and ran out of energy again) and the winter decor. The kitchen and dining room are back to normal and most of the living room is cleared. Still have the divider, the foyer, and the porch to go. The front door wreath is ready, at least.

The Bradford pear trees are beginning to bloom, too.

As I've said elsewhere, I can't quibble with this winter. It's been nice and chilly. We even lucked out at the Apple Festival last October. Last! It seems like just yesterday...the days just went by too fast!

Winter's End?

It was in the low 60s yesterday, and mid-/upper-60s today. Today's actually quite pretty, blue and very bright. I have all the windows open as I type and the birds occasionally interject commentary.

Friday I saw some light-green buds on some bushes on the way to Kroger, and yesterday we noted buds on the Bradford pear trees. Today as we came past one of the houses on our usual route home, one with a stone retaining wall next to the driveway, we noted that the phlox plant on the wall is in bloom. So spring is on its way, but we still have a week of 50s and 40s to look forward to.

My Snurgly Valentine

I had a cold over Valentine's Day, so it wasn't the fluffy romantic day that most women might have wanted. I was feeling pretty wretched, to be honest.

When I was feeling better on Friday, however, I got a bee in my bonnet about the game night. I had looked in the stores for old-fashioned Valentine cards like this one.


But everything I saw was media-based. Instead, I noted the little Valentine card kit I bought at Michaels last year. Along with some cute animal stickers, I made handmade cards for each person. I also made a Valentine card for James with an original verse inside. It was fun. I should do projects like this more often.

No pics, sorry. These were little cards, and the stickers were Suzy's Zoo cats and dogs and one bear.

Shadows and Sunshine

Looks like ol' Punxsatawney Phil has seen his shadow, so the Northeast supposedly will have six more weeks of winter, while General "Beau" Lee did not, which means spring is in the offing. Whatever. We're supposed to get gallons more rain on Thursday and Friday, just a normal winter day in the south.

I've been quiet since Epiphany...just nothing to say. My after-Christmas ennui seems to get worse each year.

Couldn't burn a candle today for Candlemas, so will try to do so tomorrow. My "roasted coffee" candles are almost at an end. Must get more, or the cafè au lait ones. Nothing is as soothing as the smell of brewing coffee.

We are supposed to have a game night next Saturday. The Valentine decorations should be up by then and I hope to do a minor Valentine theme. That should be fun. The day before our game night is the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. We missed most of this last time because of moving, so I'm hoping to enjoy all that snow this year!

Farewell, Christmas

It never seems to last long enough—not just Christmas, but that whole golden season that starts with a glimpse of fun to come: DragonCon, Yellow Daisy Festival, even Blue Ribbon Affair, as small as it has gotten. Then the air starts to chill and the real fun starts: the Apple Festival, vacation, preparing for Thanksgiving and then for Christmas, days that go by in a twinkling on enchanted wings.

Our party is Saturday, and of course a few bright lights will shine: Valentines Day, Atomicon, Timegate on Memorial Day weekend, but otherwise it's all downhill from here. First it will get warm, then the pine pollen will choke us for weeks and blanket the landscape with its dirty, gritty yellowness, then the flowers will bloom along with allergies...and then it will be...ugh...summer and then, even worse, end of fiscal year (misery doubled).

Pretty lights. Pretty tinsel. Pretty music. Lights, fun, frolic. Cool, sweet air.

Ah, well, maybe the snow will come through tomorrow...

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: Christmas on the Home Front

by Mike Brown

This is a fabulous book I found in the Hamilton Books catalog; even more fab because the homefront they are speaking of is the British one, not the American. This easy-read of a history book portrays each Christmas from 1939 through 1944, with a postscript for 1945, with personal remembrances, recipes and advert excerpts, and even reports of what pantomimes, BBC Christmas Day programming, and sports were conducted during each Christmas season. As the years progress, you can see the decline in foods for feasting and goods for giving due to wartime rationing. The super bonus about this book are the photos and especially the period adverts and cartoons from newspapers and even the famous "Beano" peppering the text: everything from companies reminding people that their product will be back after the war to recipes for "mock goose" and "wartime mincemeat pies," dinners colored with colorful veg instead of fruits and instructions for home-made gifts like pin-on mascots made of knitting yarn. Super look at wartime Britain!

C is for Christmas Convocations (Continued)

We spent the rest of New Year's Day relaxing. I finished all my Christmas magazines—Victorian Homes was beautiful as always (and lots of simple decorating ideas) as well as Early American Life Christmas; the British Country Living was also quite nice, with articles about people who have Christmas-oriented businesses, like Christmas tree farms, and I even picked up the British Country Homes which had some very simple, pleasant decorations, like using red-and-white towels (no Christmas designs needed) to emphasize the Christmas theme; Cottages and Bungalows looked nice, but was a bit disappointing, with too many pale things; oh, and I bought O Magazine because Ellen made such a fuss to get on the cover, but sad to say I found it a little dull, with too much fashion—and we watched various things we'd recorded, like Conquest.

[Re O—when I was in Barnes & Noble the other day, I saw a British magazine called Women and Home. I have one of these from the 1980s, and have kept it because of the fascinating British-life articles, including a story about a woman who was an embroiderer who did robes for the Archbishop of Canterbury, with photos of a beautiful Pentecost robe with the "flaming tongues." I was so disappointed when I looked at the newest version: slick, glossy, like Cosmo and O, with lots of ads and articles about makeup and makeovers and fashion and clothing—ugh...nothing unique about it at all. How sad.]

Today we went down to Warner Robins to visit James' mom and sisters, and also his youngest sister and her husband, who were visiting from South Carolina. Between James' work schedule and Mom's work schedule, this was the first day we could get together; we even had to miss James' niece Nicki, who had to go home earlier in the week.

It was a nice, sunny day, but also very cold for Georgia: when we left it was in the 20s but with the wind chill making it feel like the teens. We made a slight detour to go by the hobby shop and bring Rusty a Christmas gift: a Confederate calendar with artwork done by Mort Kuntsler, who started out doing art on model boxes. Then we got on the freeway and headed south. Despite the new "Super Speeder" law, many people were just zipping along at the speed of light. Many "snowbirds" going down to the Kingdom of the Mouse, we assume, including a New York van that was simply encrusted with salt from top to tire. Once I was out of Virginia I would have run that thing through a car wash. My dad tried to get his car washed every week during snow season; the salt is terribly corrosive.

We stopped in Jonesboro at the complex where BJs/Books-a-Million is, to hit Wendys for something to eat. Well, yeah, we also went into the bookstore. I found the January Country Extra (more snow photos!)—no more until fall now—and a Robert Fulghum book I didn't even know existed from the $3 last chance shelf. Haven't read any Fulghum in ages.

Arrived at Mom's a little after noon. Instead of making dinner, we had little finger foods—chicken wings, veggie and fruit tray items, the peanut pork rolls James made, pigs-in-blankets, little meatballs, etc.—and watched NCIS while waiting for James' younger sister and her husband all afternoon (they just moved and their clothes dryer wasn't working properly). I've seen NCIS before—it was a show my mom liked and reruns were a godsend the six weeks I was up there in May 2005 (along with the various permutations of CSI) since she had no cable and I absolutely loathe reality shows—but I think that's the most I've ever watched of the series at one time. I love Abby! And of course "Ducky" (heck, I remember when all the girls swooned over David McCallum back when he was in The Man From UNCLE).

We headed home about 7:30 and didn't get home until wayyyyyyyy after ten because of 20 stupid miles between the Tanger Outlets and the split to I-675. It was stupid because there were no more cars on the road as there had been south of Tanger, but there it was the speed limit and whap! at Tanger it was stop-and-go until a half mile before the split. A lot of traffic went off right to the split, but in reality it looked like "poof!"—block gone! What a pain!

So home again and chatting...

from all of us here:
Linda
James
Willow
and of course
Schuyler

C is for Christmas Crafts Continued

Remember this?



Well, it now looks like this:



You can see roof, top glass, and pavement have been slightly "dirtied down."

Poster has a soldier with "We'll Meet Again...Buy More War Bonds" surrounding.

The handbill at front says "War Bond Rally...7 PM City Hall...Help our boys fight!"

Here's the other side:



"Kilroy" grafitti visible. The poster says "When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler...join a car-sharing club today!"

All done to a lovely accompaniment of Strauss on WABE: selections from Die Fledermaus and also "The Beautiful Blue Danube"—which, of course, I can't hear without thinking of Rudolf and Flavia dancing in The Prisoner of Zenda (the original, of course, with Ronald Colman...drool...).

I never could find a proper figure to go in the stair. I'll look again next year. I have a stray cat that can be placed outside.

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: A Christmas Promise

by Anne Perry

Okay, having a donkey and a dark-skinned foreign gentleman named Mr. Balthasar in a Christmas story is a bit derivative—but I found it didn't matter.

Thirteen-year-old Gracie Phipps—who will soon become a servant in the household of Charlotte and Thomas Pitt—lives with her impoverished grandmother in one of the poorest areas of London and soon faces life working in a factory. But just before Christmas she befriends 8-year-old Minnie Maude, whose Uncle Alf has just been murdered while on his rag-and-bone route. Minnie is desperately searching for Uncle Alf's donkey Charlie, who vanished after the murder, and good-hearted Gracie promises the little girl that she will help her look for the creature.

But as the two children start asking questions, it becomes obvious that others involved with the crime, like Minnie's aunt and uncle and the man who found Uncle Alf's body, are frightened, but frightened of what? And is the killer now stalking Gracie and her new friend?

Perry's descriptions of Gracie's life bring this little mystery to life: the cold, the poverty, the residents' efforts to celebrate Christmas despite their social situation. It's an exciting tale that solves a further mystery in its final two pages.

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: The Christmas Tree

by Daniel J. Foley

Another library find! I have Foley's Christmas the World Over, but this volume is a treat as well. Foley talks about the custom of bringing greens into the house, and the history, as far as it can be determined, of the Christmas tree custom, and the Christmas tree custom in the United States, followed by a history of Christmas tree lights and also Christmas tree growing. The book was published in 1960, so the photos are all in black and white except for a four-page color insert, and any photos with people have a quaint quality now, like those in the early part of the century, but I note that several myths that still persist to this day, such as Martin Luther being the creator of the Christmas tree, have already been gently debunked, or at least designated as "not proven," in this volume.

Legends connecting other plants with Christmas, a chapter on Christmas decorations from the original apples to the shiny Germany ornaments, and information on other Christmas-tree substitutes (like the German pyramid and the Italian ceppo) are also included, with a wealth of 18th and 19th century engravings.

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: The Light of Christmas

edited by Frances Brentano

Last year I purchased several older Christmas story collections (The Fireside Book of Christmas Stories, Uncle Toby's Christmas Book, etc.) looking for uncommon Christmas stories, ones I had not read over and over in multiple anthologies. I did find many, especially in Jack Newcombe's New Christmas Treasury, but I was still dissatisfied.

This year this book turned up at the library and darned if it wasn't just what I was looking for! It has six sections, the first stories centered around Christ's birth from various POVs—including a play written by Dorothy L. Sayers of Lord Peter Wimsey fame!—and then around the influence of the Biblical tale. The third section has stories about children at Christmas, the fourth about families, the fifth and sixth filled with fictional Christmas stories and Christmas memories. Several of them were familiar, like Robert Tristam Coffin's "Christmas in Maine," but all were joys, including the Biblical tales "The Sequel to Bethlehem," "Anniversary" (about a hunchbacked child), "Journey to Christmas," the Christmas chapter of Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, "Christmas on the Prairie" from Bess Streeter Aldrich's classic A Lantern in Her Hand, the Moss Hart Christmas anecdote later used in PBS' Simple Gifts, and more. It was an absolutely delightful read!

C is for Christmas Convocations

We had a quiet Sunday morning and afternoon. The moment we rose, James put both the gingerbread and the brownies in the oven, so they would be cool enough to decant before we left for the Lawsons' house. Read. Watched Schuyler. James eventually fell asleep in his chair. Nice.

From 4 p.m. onward we were at the Lawsons for a combination games night/gift exchange. The gingerbread and the brownies were a big hit, and even the cookies we brought had a big dent made in their amount. We got some majorly cool gifts which I opened so quickly and with such pleasure that I have pretty much forgotten which gift was from whom, but they were all fantastic: small things to use with electronics, a cool Disney book and a cross-stitch volume, two lovely plaques for the house, cashews, and others. The guys, as usual, went into the den and discussed changing the world, the kids played various video games, and we ladies played the new Mental Floss trivia game and a Cranium dice game where you had to complete three challenges, like totaling up to a certain number, finding three images, fitting a word into a sentence, or doing a "stunt." Both were wonderful fun!

Sadly, we had to head home about eight so James could get ready for work.

And so endeth St. John the Apostle Day...

C is for Christmas Crafts

One of the things I bought yesterday was the "Carol Towne" subway entrance:



Since about half of the mantelpiece village is a city scene, I thought it would be appropriate between two of the buildings rather than the trees I have there now.

But my scene is wartime/1940s and the Carol Towne piece Victorian era, and it also has no "snow" on it like the other pieces, so this morning I took it into my own "Santa's workshop" and started to work some magic on it. First I aged it just slightly by dry brushing some brown and grey paint on the "onion dome" type top and on the "glass" roof and overhang. I also put some on the floor to the entrance so it will look like people with dirty boots have tramped in and out. On one of the panes of "glass" opposite the newspaper box I drew a "Kilroy was here" figure.

From there I could have just added white paint, but I like the snow to be a little more three-dimensional, so I have used Elmer's glue to make little "snow piles" at the sides and in the cuts on the entrance dome. Right now those are drying and I will paint over with white paint when it is finished. I also used a black paint pen to correct something: the price on the newspaper dispensing machine (which they actually wouldn't have had back in Victorian times, just a newsboy) said "25¢"—good heavens, even magazines didn't cost that much at the time, and not even in the 1940s! So I blotted out the "2."

In the meantime I have printed out two WWII posters on James' color printer: the "You drive with Hitler when you drive alone" poster which I thought appropriate for a subway entrance, and another war bond poster, plus made a home-made sign announcing a War Bond rally for 7 p.m. at City Hall. Those will be glued on the sides of the entrance after it's "snowed." Then it will be finished, although I am toying with another idea. Of course there is no stairway "down" except for a black spot representing the stairwell. I was thinking of buying a figure and then cutting it in half, gluing the top half of the figure on the "stairwell" so it looks as if someone coming up from the subway.

Fun stuff...love doing this!

C is For Christmas Deflation

Gah. I woke several times during the night, and when James got up for work, and again, and again, and finally with a post-Christmas depression that just wouldn't quit. I've been fighting these depression attacks since after vacation and this one annoyed me. I have nothing to be depressed about. I had a nice Christmas. We are looking forward to a nice Christmastide with dinner out tonight and a games night tomorrow and a family visit next Saturday and a party the Saturday after that. But James is at work and I'm morose and for a while I huddle in my self-made misery.

Finally I roused myself to re-envelope and stamp a card that the post office returned. I had the right address; she went away for a few days and had the post awful hold her mail. When the box holding her mail got too full, they returned all the rest. Duh. And the USPS wonders why they are losing business. I also sent a card to cousins I hadn't seen in a while; she sent me a note via her son's Facebook page.

Then I dressed and went out to stick the cards in the mailbox, and went out. Stopped at Borders, which is starting a sale today. Found something for James and also Irene Pepperberg's Alex and Me. Stopped at Lowes, but evidently they have been clearancing their Christmas stuff for a while; the place was stripped. Where the Christmas trees were are flowers in pots. Only a few ornaments and village pieces remained, not even any light strings or bulbs. I found a subway entrance for my manteltop village, and something I just bought because of the nostalgic vibes. Except for the tiny wreaths on its sides, it doesn't even look like a Christmas building. It's a circa 1950s-1960s bowling alley, complete with a window to look at the bowlers, and a sign that advertises billiards, just like the old Garden City Lanes. I had to buy it. Maybe I'll use it as a nightlight downstairs or something.

Stopped at a CVS and bought some more tinsel. Heaven knows, maybe someday they'll quit making it, and then what will I do?

Finally went from one "Love Street" store to the next, spending my birthday savings. I found a gift in Love Street Home (and bought an identical piece for myself). Looked around the Love Street Heart and Soul store, but couldn't decide, so went across the parking lot to the main store. Bought some half-price Christmas ornaments, and a "girlfriend" for "Woody" the log reindeer. It's a log reindeer with holly for antlers, so I named her "Holly." It's also real holly, so I'll have to find replacements by next year or find something artificial.

What can I say? Woody looked lonely. :-)

Came home intending to eat lunch and ended up contending with an overflowing toilet. It made me cranky again, and I ended up not eating except for some bread and later an orange.

Gotta go...need to take Wil out before James gets home.

C is For Christmas (Evening Edition)

We had dinner at the Butlers...a small crowd this year: only four Lucyshyns and two Skidmores along with two Youngs and four Butlers along with Lin's mother, who did manage to visit despite her hip problems. We had a magnificent dinner, with ham, tenderloin, and a Cajun turkey (I skipped the latter, but I understand it was delicious), Ron's mashed potatoes, James' corn casserole, the Trader Joe's Thai ginger carrots I brought, brussels sprouts, Lin's apple stuffing, and other stuff I've forgotten. Plus for dessert there were big cherry and blueberry pies, and Lin made the little piecrust goodies as always. Between dinner and dessert there were presents, but the company was the best gift of all.

On the way home, James drove in and out of the streets so we could see more light displays, and then we came home and relaxed until it was bedtime, which was early, since James had to work on the morrow...

C is for Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope everyone has a nice day, even if they aren't celebrating...enjoy your day off!

After our Christmas Eve supper we bundled up, for it was already raining, and went to look at lights. The ride up Mount Paran Road was rather a bust, as "Mr. Inflatable" must have gotten read the riot act from his neighborhood association, for there were only two small inflatables on his lawn, and more tasteful lighting. :-) And nearby, the "dueling houses" from last year aren't dueling anymore because one of the pair is empty and for sale. The other was lit quite brilliantly in white, though. We did find some garlands and bows and wreaths, and a few colorful displays, but mostly white, or white and gold.

But so many houses didn't have any decorations at all or were quite dark. The economy? More occupants who don't celebrate Christmas? Maybe just apathy?

The working-class neighborhoods were much nicer. We noticed this even when I was a kid: the decorations on the "rich" homes tended to be spotlights on the wreath on the door, where the blue-collar neighborhoods went all out. Maybe the electric bill in January was horrendous...but, hey, we looked beautiful!

And then came my favorite part of Christmas Eve: watching The Homecoming! Love this movie; have loved it since 1971...looks much more gritty and country than The Waltons ended up.

Then we were sleepy and wandered off to bed...only to be woken by the alarm on my phone at nine. Remember when you were kids on Christmas morning, how nothing could keep you in bed after 7 a.m.? How could you wait so long? Breakfast? Are you kidding me?

So I clicked on the television for Schuyler and I swear this morning Today was more commercials than show. Ye Gods. There was an animal sequence with Hoda and Kathy Lee and Julie Scarpitta: Kathy Lee was cuddling a sloth through the entire segment; it did not want to let her go. In the meantime Hoda fed it bits of pineapple and it looked happy. Well, happy for a sloth. There was also a reindeer named Holly and two penguins who wandered the set with a "what the heck is this?" expression, and two lovely otters who dug into their Christmas boxes enthusiastically and feasted on the resulting fish. Goodness, I wouldn't have wanted to smell their breath.

James made me wait anyway; he fixed biscuits which I had with butter and he had with homemade country sausage we bought at the last of the Farmer's Market (and Willow as always had her own biscuit, as well as doggie snacks, and Schuyler devoured her Christmas gift, a short sprig of millet, in minutes), and we had little cinnamon rolls from Trader Joe's, and then we opened gifts. The fids gave him the DVD set of Firefly and I bought James a copy of Superfreakonomics and a new GPS unit. It's a Garmin, so now he can go out on the town with Nutcrackers looking for curling matches (and hopefully miss the creepy clown on the roundabout). LOL.

(And hopefully this one won't send us down anymore dirt roads or tell us to turn where there isn't a street...)

He gave me the book companion to Ken Burns' The National Parks, a colonial couple cross stitch he bought at Valley Forge, and a time turner—it's a piece of jewelry, but it comes with a display case. Pity I can't make it work...I'd dial it back to vacation and do the last month and a half all over again! Where did the time go?

So we have been sitting watching A Christmas Story—and the birds at the feeder: the male red-headed woodpecker greedy at the big feeder, and two titmice sitting like little statues on the mount, and the white-breasted nuthatch eating upside down—and James called his mom, and now A Charlie Brown Christmas is on and Schuyler evidently likes the Guaraldi score 'cause she's singing along and James is starting his corn casserole...

A Christmas Gift

The color version of Truman Capote's bittersweet A Christmas Memory:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Looks like it may be uncut (except for the credits), unlike the copy I recorded from Macon's Channel 24 almost 20 years ago, and without a huge "bug" and time and temperature.

How It All Began

Behind the Scenes: NORAD's Santa Tracker

The Christmas Spirit

How much more perfect for Christmas Eve? The gentle Lutheran-produced drama Davey & Goliath: Christmas Lost and Found.

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: The Battle for Christmas

by Stephen Nissenbaum

It was a long road from the original Christmas celebration in the United States to the child-centered, family-oriented holiday we know today: it began on our shores as a riotous, often-violent celebration of half-inebriated men and boys wandering from house to house, making loud noises and pounding on doors demanding liquor and food. In fact, this was the main reason the Puritans held Christmas in disregard for so long: not because it was an idolatrous birthday celebration, but because it was so long celebrated with drunkenness and incivility.

This is a scholarly but readable history that brings us from those obnoxious revelers to the Victorian celebration that is so close to what we celebrate today. Some critics wonder why Nissenbaum stopped there, but it's evident; all the elements were then in place. Covered are the drunken "callithumpians" versus the Puritan element, servants versus the upper class, the writing and influence of "A Visit from St. Nicholas," the change in the gifting dynamic, the rise of the "old-fashioned Christmas tree" as a vehicle for dispensing the gifts versus the stocking tradition, gifts for the poor, and the plantation traditions of the ante-bellum South. Also recommended on this subject: Penne Restad's Christmas in America.

Here and There on "Christmas Adam"

"Christmas Adam" is a joke I found somewhere; apparently a child piped up one day and said if December 24 was "Christmas Eve," then December 23 should be "Christmas Adam." I thought that was cute, especially as December 24 is the Feast Day of Adam and Eve. So I have tooled around this morning celebrating "Christmas Adam."

I was headed out to BJs for BreatheRight strips, as I've been out for a couple of days and I woke this morning with a stuffy nose. But on the way I stopped at Hobby Lobby for a last dose of Christmas cheer, knowing that on December 26 everything will be ripped up and shoved into a corner for sales while the rest of the store is turning pink and red for Valentines Day. Alas, the changeover has already started: the walls are cleared and moved to the seasonal aisles, and everywhere is already appearing signs of the dreaded "S" word: "S" for "Spring," that is, which leads to an even worse "S," horrendous "Summer."

However, I did have a good wander about and found some small winter decorations at half price, and something else that would make a gift. Then made a short stop at Borders, then went to BJs and found a...wait, if I mentioned it, it wouldn't be a surprise to someone, would it? Heh.

Finally stopped at Kroger to fill up the car, then went inside to buy some turkey thighs for Christmas Eve dinner—turned out we were completely out! I got one of the smaller carts and filled it up almost completely, then left with three packets of turkey thighs and a baguette. The rest was all for the Can Bank.

Most satisfying thing I bought all day, except for the surprise.

Vacuumed this afternoon and tried to tidy the coffee table a little, had bow-tie pasta for lunch and watched Rick Steves' talk about Granada and Gibraltar, but spent the afternoon watching "Lassie's Gift of Love" and "Christmas at Plum Creek" and, once again, "Merry Gentlemen." James arrived home early from his doctor's appointment; it's the final one. The doctor says his broken finger is healing fine; he just needs to keep exercising it.

Golly, I'm hungry...

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: A Christmas Secret

by Anne Perry

Dominic Corde, once the brother-in-law of Charlotte Ellison Pitt, is now a curate with a loving wife, Clarice, working in a dreary parish with an overbearing superior. When he is offered a temporary job at a church in a small village over the Christmas holidays, he jumps at the chance. But while he worries about what he can say to a congregation whose minister seems almost perfect, Clarice begins to suspect that there is something strange about the Reverend Wynter's holiday after she discovers that he has left his personal Bible—as well as other objects—behind, items he would have certainly taken on a holiday.

This was more like what I was expecting from an Anne Perry Christmas mystery, unlike A Christmas Grace: a compelling setting, a complex and interesting mystery, and Christmas as the background. Plus Perry's forté for description comes to the forefront: I could almost see the homey parsonage and feel the stinging cold of the snow and winter wind. The village characters are also an interesting lot as their mysteries are revealed, especially the sexton who suddenly gave up his job. All in all a satisfying short cozy.

Black and White Christmas

Last year I bought something called "Holiday Family Collection" off Amazon...it was less than $10. It's a bunch of old Christmas cartoons, some Christmas movies like The Great Rupert and Beyond Tomorrow, and Christmas episodes of mostly 1950s, but also early 1960s television series. I popped out the volume that had the television shows on it.

The first episode that started was "The Late Christmas Present," the very first Christmas episode of the Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and it came with the original Aunt Jemima Pancake mix commercials. It was a sweet story: on Christmas afternoon Ricky and Ozzie go to the home of another Nelson family to see if the department store delivered Ricky's missing catcher's mitt to them. They find out Mrs. Nelson is a widow with three little children who had a tiny tree and a poor Christmas. So they gather toys and things to help them.

Next I played "Cannonball Christmas," from Petticoat Junction: Scroogy Homer Bedloe tries to shut the Hooterville train down on Christmas Eve, before the annual caroling tour. This was intact except the theme song was replaced due to copyright considerations. But it had the original Filmways logo! Following that, I put on the Paul Winchell Show episode. It was rather slapstick-y, although the second half was a "space cadet" 1950s look at the year 2000, where Paul spends Christmas on the moon. This came with the original Cheer commercials, for "new Blue Cheer," which was advertised as making your clothes so clean they needed no bleaching nor bluing. (Does anyone still know what "bluing" your clothes means?) It also had the old "NBC Television Presentation" logo and black-and-white logo at the end.

The next episode was "The Christmas Present" from the British Scarlet Pimpernel series, with Marius Goring as Sir Percy. And, oh, my ears and whiskers, Patrick Troughton playing one of his best friends! This was from 1955, the year I was born. The Pimpernel rescues four royal children from the clutches of Chauvelin. (Hey, this guy is good...he not only manages to bring four kids to England, but a donkey and a dog, too!)

One Shining Blue Day Before Christmas

Well, I'd started off to Publix with good intentions—until I realized I couldn't remember if I had locked the front door. So after I had recycled the plastic bags, I went back to the house. This would give me an opportunity to fetch the Borders coupon I had left behind.

I think sometimes God has a hand in these things, because, when I emerged from the house with coupon (and having locked both locks), I was entranced for about ten minutes by the antics of the bluebirds. They have just suddenly appeared at the feeder again, and now at least a half-dozen of them, perhaps as many as eight, both male and female, were chasing each other around, playing tag with each other, perching on Susan and Josh's mailbox, and racing back and forth between the front yard of the folks two doors away and the folks across the street. What fun to watch!

Anyway, I finally headed out, on my way to Borders. I stopped at Book Stop, a new used bookstore on Atlanta Road and Paces Ferry. It's very small; as usual in used bookstores, a lot of romances, but a fair amount of mystery. The proprietor is very nice. I picked up a copy of Rick Steves' Postcards from Europe.

I didn't stay at Borders very long; I was just there to pick up a copy of Ballet Shoes, which I have to admit I really enjoyed and wanted a copy of. From there I went to Michaels, which was a mistake. The Michaels in Smyrna is at a shopping center with a really funky intersection—James and I figure the highway engineer was on some good drugs at the time—and it was backed up as I entered because about four car lengths in there is a stop sign so you won't run over people going to the makeup store.

I'd hoped to get an early birthday gift at Michaels, but they didn't have anything I though was appealing. I did get a bunch of wintry Christmas picks; I had so many in my hand when I got to checkout that I looked like the Christmas bride I wanted to be (before I was talked out of it). Also found some Christmas stationery with robins and a snowman—how cute!

Overshot the Sibley Library in going down Atlanta Road in the other direction (toward downtown Marietta), so figured I would just go to the Central Library instead. I did a circuit and a half around the square and someone backed out of a space, so I took it as an omen and parked, just for a leisurely walk around the square.

I always pop into the antiques store on the corner of Church Street and North Park; they have an old wringer washer in the window and a green and white enameled range that reminds me of the one my godmother had, except I remember hers having the warming shelf. She probably loved having a new stove, but I always missed that pretty enamel-and-chrome one. This store doesn't sell all that many antiques anymore; mostly preserve goods and antique reproductions. I also went into the antique store a few doors down; they have lovely old furniture, including a bookcase cabinet that also looked like something my godmother once had, and a mahogany table with folding sides that looked a lot like the one in our house.

My last stop here on Church Street is always Willow Antiques Too. The other stores are decorated for Christmas with greens and ornaments here and there: a branch here, ornaments in egg cups, tinsel in a bowl. But when you walk into Willow the space around the checkout counter is always full of antique Santas and kugel and old candles and other Christmas-y things; it even has a big fireplace mantel to display things on. I love wandering all the way to the back to what was probably the original store's store-room. This year, on the way there, I found a bowl full of nativity figures that looked vintage with my own, which Mom and Dad collected a piece at the time from bins in Woolworths and Grants. One kneeling shepherd figure looked like a close match, so I bought him...we only have one shepherd to go along with the man with the eggs and the piper. I also bought a prim sheep, which I can't resist.

I was starving by this time, but didn't think I had time left to sit down and eat (it's only two hours parking downtown and I had already used up an hour). So I went into the Australian Bakery and bought a big cookie. I wanted an apple turnover but they didn't bake any today.

Finally I walked up to Antiques on the Square and Luke the white standard poodle was there! He was at the door greeting visitors and when I offered him my hand to sniff, his nose went immediately to the bag I had put the cookie in! Smart boy that!

This is a neat store to wander around because they have a lot of old photography equipment and record players along with the usual china, lots of LP records, old books, and other things. I was arrested by two copies of The Ladies' Home Journal on a shelf—oh, how I wish I had $90 to blow on the two of them! They were from October and November of 1918, with wonderful advertisements, including ones for World War I rationing, support of the troops, etc. Wow.

But my two hours were almost up, so I hiked back to the car and finally got my books back to the library. With my "to be read" pile at home, you would have thought I'd just head back out. But I wanted to see if they had Anne Perry's A Christmas Secret, and once I had that, it was just a short walk to two other Christmas books and some Sherlock Holmes short stories. I'm incorrigible.

But then I really was heading home, to have the rest of my goat cheese for lunch with crackers...

The Shortest Day

Susan Cooper's classic winter solstice poem:

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.

And more about this afternoon's solstice:

Winter solstice 2009: What It's All About

Winter Solstice Rituals

Winter Solstice Facts

The Solstice and Yule

Meteorological winter actually began December 1.

The Christmas Mystery

I spent an interesting day either working in my craft room or wrapping Christmas gifts.

Two of the gifts require "presentation"—basically, I don't want the gift to look like what it is. So I am presenting it in a different way, which required some painting. I realized when I started to paint that the surface I was painting had a varnish on it. So I did manage to paint it, eventually, but it was a struggle. I made sure to use a little sandpaper on the second item and the painting went a bit better. Then the items were trimmed and left to dry.

I also started a decorative Christmas craft, but might use it as a gift, so will not talk about it.

I wrapped gifts one and two and three at the time, going back to the crafts, or to harvest crops in Farmville, or even to grab a peanut butter sandwich. I finally got to the last one I could do, which was wrapped in tissue paper and had the person's name upon it.

Except when I opened it, it wasn't a gift for that person at all, it was the two Christmas ornaments I had bought up at the Christmas shop in Dillard last April. Too weird. I swear I bought the gift...so where is it?

A Good Day for Christmas Shopping

After a very late night on chat, on which we learned with relief that Rodney had made it safely to his mother's house for Christmas, after a harrowing 13 1/2 drive in the snowstorm that just hit from North Carolina northwards, we awoke around ten to still cloudy skies. However, the clouds cleared as the day progressed, but it never got much warmer. I don't think it topped 40°F today, which was fine with me. Wonderful weather for Christmas shopping. (Certainly better than 70s—I remember the first Christmas I was in Georgia and flew to Rhode Island, having to leave wearing my coat, hat, boots, and gloves because it would have taken a second suitcase to hold them, and it was about 72°degrees!)

Since it was almost eleven, we just grabbed a Special K meal bar out of the cupboard and split it, since we were planning to have lunch at our destination, Discover Mills. Ostensibly we were going out there (about an hour's drive) to check out the calendar store. James likes to get an aviation calendar each year and this store usually has the best choice. Also, I wanted to go to the Bass Pro Shop. If you've never seen one of these, it's a funky camping/hunting/fishing/outdoor living type amalgamation of a store, with a big fish tank of game fish and a waterfall and a rock climbing wall and at this time of year they even have a Santa Claus, outdoor outdoor-themed ornaments and lights, and gift items. We found we had a couple of extra presents to find, and Bass Pro was the perfect place to find one, as well as another we were working on. We found some neat stuff, and I discovered their bird suet was all 99¢ each, even the berry/peanut/fruit kinds, which are all over a dollar now at Lowes! I bought seven different kinds, and some collapsible cups, and a light that clips to your hat brim.

Anyway, the first thing we did was eat lunch at Johnny Rocket's. I had a cheddar grilled cheese sandwich, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I love everything about this place except the music. WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO LOUD? I should not have to shout to be able to talk to the waitress or to James across the booth from me. Sheesh.

We also passed by Bath and Body Works, which supplied another gift, and I discovered they had the mid-sized "lambie" figures on sale. This one has a brown face, so you can see its cute little stitched eyelashes.

We did get to the calendar place, although James did not see anything as unique as he wanted. He did get a discount calendar with jets on it, and bought a gift for a friend. I lucked out: not only found a New England Seasons calendar for work, but a Boston calendar for my craft room (with a lovely shot of Quincy Market in the snow), and a small Susan Branch calendar for the guest room. Enjoyed having Jen and Meggan this year and hope to have more guests next year. Shari says she thinks she will be able to come to the Twelfth Night party, so...that's one!

Of course if I don't finish wrapping gifts she will have nowhere to sleep. I now have three more to wrap!

Before leaving we popped in at Books-a-Million, and there was the December Country—yay! snow pictures!

We stopped at the Sandy Springs Trader Joe's and got some chicken and baby salad greens for supper, plus more Christmas goodies and another pumpkin tart. There were fresh balsam and cedar swags and wreaths outside and I contented myself to not being able to have them in the house by taking a few good sniffs. Mmmn!

Also stopped at MicroCenter for a small gift, so I think we really are done now, then fed the car and bought a newspaper (got a double paper, only to find there were no coupons this week—what goes? the next two weekends are the holiday weekends!) before heading home.

We had the Asian salad for supper, then watched the Grinch and A Very Merry Cricket, then while James baked some cookies, I watched four Christmas-themed Ask the Manager episodes (1980, two from 1981, with Joe Dimino, and Dan Berkery's first Christmas show in 1982). James has had a wild hair to bake some of the "Splenda and spice" cookies from the Splenda cookbook for a couple of weeks. These are bite-sized cookies which are supposed to be cinnamon-y, but he has fiddled with the recipe enough that they almost taste like gingerbread. He's also fiddled with an alternate recipe and makes a chocolate batch, with sugar-free Hershey's syrup.

And now we are watching Apollo 8: Christmas on the Moon. Talk about bringing back memories! Remember the astronauts reading from Genesis on Christmas Eve...when they played that clip I got goosebumps all over again.

Christmas Crackers

This appears to be a series of five minute films made for BBC television about different aspects of Christmas. Here they are in order:

"Nativity Tales"

"Making Merry"

"Commercial Christmas"

"Santa Claus"

"Festive Food"

"Green Christmas"

"A Time for Giving"

"Christmas Past"

"Christmas Climate"

"Christmas Animals"

A Great Christmas Story

Daniel Taylor had this wonderful story linked on his blog. I wanted to link it, too, since it's such a wonderful story!

(This made me nostalgic as well—'cause I've been to that farmer's market. On the 1978 California trip with my parents, we got tickets to see Match Game, which was filmed at CBS Television City, and we ate lunch at the market. I know it was 1978, because they still had a poster up from CBS: On the Air, their 50th anniversary special which had aired earlier that year.)

It's Time for Cookies...

...but it took a while to get there.

I had all the ingredients and the equipment set out, the recipe in front of me, had mixed all the dry ingredients—and then noticed the light shining in the wine bottle. There was something on the surface of the wine. It looked...oily. Eh? Opened the bottle and sniffed.

Okay, I'm a total wine dork. My paternal grandfather used to say I wasn't really Italian because I didn't like pepper or wine. Frankly, unless it's a sweet wine or sangria, it all tastes sour to me. Wine is to cook with (and not those nasty cooking wines, either). But this didn't smell right, either.

Now, it's tough being Italian in Georgia. In Rhode Island I could have popped in the car and driven to any liquor store (never mind driven up to the State Line Liquor stores in New Hampshire over leaf-peeping weekends) and found hearty burgundy wine. I called three liquor stores close to the house and none of them had it. Even worse, one was a wine store and the clerk had never heard of hearty burgundy wine. One clerk at a liquor store thought I was looking for a brand name ("Hardy").

Sigh. Good thing I hadn't started pre-heating the oven.

So I headed out into cold, miserable, mucky, grey weather (it was so dark the outdoor lights were on all day, a perpetual "dusk"), on the way to Harry's Farmer's Market, which was the only place I knew I might find it. (You can use regular burgundy, but it doesn't have the rich taste, nor does it turn the dough a proper color. Hearty burgundy is the closest I can come to my dad's father's wine, which was so dark it almost looked like grape juice. He had a "cold room" wine cellar off the basement and pressed his own grapes.) On the way, I noticed the big liquor store on Delk Road, Mink's. So I stopped there.

Again, the first clerk I talked to didn't know what I was talking about. Apparently there is an Australian brand of wine called "Hardy's"! I had to write down "hearty burgundy" for him ("hearty"—"hearty"; it's an adjective that means "strong"), and he went to ask the manager, who knew exactly what I was talking about. And there he found the nice bottle of Gallo and I went home, only an hour behind.

I had the SiriusXM Holiday Pops channel on all afternoon, and they were playing nice choral carols, like something you might have heard on the radio in the 1930s. I made two batches of wine biscuits (about 75; I lost count when I was putting them in the bowl). I make them now in mom's big green and patterned mixing bowl; it's a sweet tie to the past. By the time the second batch was ready to go in the oven, the first batch was ready to come out.

I had almost forgotten to eat and then all I had was a sandwich bun and some leftover turkey broth from a mug. So by the time I got the second batch I was exceedingly lightheaded and I went downstairs twice looking for the old cigar box Mom kept her recipes in when it was sitting right smack in back of the loveseat in my craft room under my nose.

I decided to try Mom's almond bars again. I made some last year and the batter was very sticky and I used almond extract, which was too strong. This year I used the Splenda baking mix sweetener and was expecting the dough to be very sticky again. Instead it was dry. I added a tiny bit more oil to it, then gave up and added, like I did last year, the rest of the egg mixture that I used to glaze the top of the wine biscuits. And before I shaped the dough I spread some canola oil on my hands so it wouldn't stick!

The little dough loaves shaped perfectly this time and baked nicely.

So now the table is set with Christmas cheer and Christmas food. And the house smells like cookies, smells like memories—smells like Christmas.

(Followed by soup for supper and then by a doubleheader of Dickens: Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol and Mickey's Christmas Carol, and now The Small One...braced for tears...)

British Christmas Films

"Santa Claus" from 1898

"Scrooge, or Marley's Ghost" from 1901

"Dreams of Toyland" from 1908

"Making Christmas Crackers" from 1910

"Christmas Under Fire" from 1941

"Christmas 1946" theatre greeting

"Christmas is Coming," a short film in silhouettes from 1951

Lagninappe (not Christmas, but fascinating just the same): "Old London Street Scenes" from 1903

Lots more old British films here.

Christmas Music 12-17-2009

More from the CD collection:

• "A Leroy Anderson Christmas," Leroy Anderson and His Orchestra (except for "Sleigh Ride," done by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops)
Great collection of Christmas music arranged by Leroy Anderson, who is most famous for his arrangement of "Sleigh Ride," which became a Boston Pops signature Christmas tune. Along with "Sleigh Ride" and another Pops perennial, the medley "Christmas Festival," there are medley arrangements for brass, strings, and woodwinds. Great background music for work or party.

• "Perry Como's Greatest Christmas Songs"
Ahhh, Mr. Relaxed himself. After Bing Crosby, Perry Como was my mom's favorite singer, so we heard a lot of Mr. C around our house. This is a nice collection of sacred and secular, all sung in Perry's mellow style, including the two songs that were standards at our house, "I Saw Mommy Kissin' Santa Claus" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Hubby says he grew up on Gene Autry's "Rudolph," but it was Perry's version which held sway in our home.

• "A Christmas Collection", Volumes 1 and 2, Greg Miner
These are two interesting CDs I bought at Daedelus Books in Maryland several years back: Christmas music played on rare or interesting instruments. Along with the usual guitars and lovely things like dulcimers and harps, there are bluegrass-with-banjo arrangements and even some sitar versions of secular and sacred Christmas music. Well worth seeking out if you like unusual Christmas music.

• "Christmas in an Irish Castle," The California Revels
The Revels folks invite you to imagine an old-fashioned Christmas in Ireland: waits, Wren boys, feasting and of course whisky flowing freely! Toe-tapping dance music mixed with more thoughtful sacred melodies and even Irish narrative to help you envision an Irish feast. Sláinte!

• "Christmas Live!", Mannheim Steamroller
Live Christmas concert, with all my favorites (check out a previous post), including "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" and the haunting "Silent Night." Oh, yes. Wish the newest album hadn't featured vocalists. All good vocalists, you understand, but I don't buy Mannheim Steamroller to hear vocals.

• "Christmas Favorites by the Hollyridge Strings"
60s favorites finally released on CD: Christmas instrumentals in a bright, bouncy lounge style. These pieces of music were used as background themes for ages; if you're old enough, you probably remember them on local ads and television commercials. Their version of "Santa's Got a Brand New Bag" is particularly recognizable. Time travel to another era with these smooth Christmas tunes.

Santa Claus is a Woman Because-

• The vast majorities of men don't even think about selecting gifts until Christmas Eve and only go for a last-minute shopping spree.
• For a he-Santa, there would be no reindeer because they would all be dead, gutted and strapped on to the rear bumper of the sleigh.
• Even if the male Santa did have reindeer, he would inevitably get lost up there in the snow and clouds and then refuse to stop and ask for directions.
• For a Santa man, there would be unavoidable delays in the chimney, where the Bob Vila-like Santa would stop to inspect and repaint bricks in the flue.
• He would also need to check for carbon monoxide fumes in every gas fireplace, and get under every Christmas tree that is crooked to straighten it to a perfectly upright 90-degree angle.
• Men can't pack a bag.
• Men would rather be dead than caught wearing red velvet.
• Men would feel their masculinity is threatened...having to be seen with all those elves.
• Men don't answer their mail.
• Men would refuse to allow their physique to be described even in jest as anything remotely resembling a "bowlful of jelly."
• Men aren't interested in stockings unless somebody's wearing them.
• Having to do the 'Ho Ho Ho' thing would seriously inhibit their ability to pick up women.
• Finally, being responsible for Christmas would require a commitment.

A tip of the hat to April on "Christmas to the Max."

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: Wishin' and Hopin'

by Wally Lamb

The subtitle, "A Christmas Story," is a bit of a misnomer, but the last half of the story does take place at Christmas, so...close enough for this humorous memoir about Felix Funicello, whose only "claim to fame" so far in his ten years has been that he's distant cousins with former Mouseketeer/singer/movie star Annette Funicello. But in October of 1964, life changes for Felix: his fifth-grade parochial school teacher, Sister Dymphna, suffers a nervous breakdown and his class gets a lay teacher, a French-Canadian woman with a decidedly Gallic outlook on life (and the curriculum, since they now have French lessons); his mom gets in the Pillsbury Bake-Off semifinals; Felix himself and his pals will be in a future audience of the local Ranger Andy television show; and an outrageous Russian student joins their class. Into this heady mix stir the usual class teacher's pet, Felix's growing awareness of the opposite sex (partially stimulated by his slightly older best friend), and the approaching class Nativity pageant.

It all turns out to be a very funny, very true portrait of a 1960s Italian family in southern Connecticut, a "slice-of-life" story that reaches its hilarious conclusion at the Nativity pageant. If I have any complaint with this book, it's that Lamb almost throws in TOO many 1960s references...hair scrunchies, references to TV and radio personalities, references to the newfangled idea of "subscription television," etc. in an effort to portray the era. But for me it didn't overwhelm the sheer fun of the story--and it even ends with an American Graffiti-like "whatever happened to" epilog which provides the tale with a perfect capper. Enjoyable, especially for nostalgia buffs and those who, like me, remember the early 1960s.

A Day of Lights and the Glitter of Tinsel

Oh, it's been a busy weekend preparing for Christmas.

Usually I put up the tree on my birthday, which was Friday, but James hadn't brought the tree upstairs yet, and I still had the Rudolph tree to put up. So I did so, and had to fix a couple of other things. Then I cleared off the coffee table so it would be ready for me to sort out ornaments.

I felt myself starting to obsess about this and had to slow myself down.

We had to get up early for Hair Day on Saturday, as our hairdresser, Sheri, was going to a Christmas party. We brought cornbread to go with the main dish, different kinds of chili (Alex made three! a white turkey chili, a regular chili with pork, and Cincinnati chili), and gingerbread (unlike Sook, it's not "fruitcake weather" for me, but "gingerbread weather"). Before we went to the hobby shop, we stopped at Kroger for milk and things. No worries about the milk staying in the truck; it was colder than the refrigerator outside, a chill day with temps in the thirties.

While we were at the hobby shop I took the opportunity to go to the hardware store across the parking lot and buy a space heater for our bathroom. With that big picture window in it, it's never warm enough in there in the winter. (Saturday night it was about 57°F in there; in 16 minutes it had raised the temp 10 degrees.) The owner was exceedingly grumpy that I used a coupon and that I paid with my credit card.

We were keeping an eye on the weather. We were supposed to drive out to Birmingham tonight to our friend Shari's Christmas party, but they had been predicting a hard rain since Thursday. Now, as the forecast settled out, it looked like the periods of rain were supposed to be worst at 5 p.m. (when we would be driving out there) and 1 a.m., when we would be coming home. Plus, last year we went to Hair Day and Shari's party on the same day, too. Between Ron and Lin's cats and Shari's cats, I ended up riding home from Birmingham with a burgeoning allergy attack.

So we reluctantly decided not to go, and instead stopped at BJs on the way home for something we'd forgotten, then came home. We had one of those Hormel packaged meat dinners, beef with bourbon sauce, with some white rice. Pretty good. Then we moved the rocking chair into our bedroom and James brought the tree up, and the box with the ornaments, and I commenced to decorate, since we wanted something Christmasy.

I just took my time. I didn't start until after eight, and we had to fluff the tree and, ::sigh::...get the lights working...parts of two strings were out...we just pressed at them; the bulbs must have been loose, because that did the trick. And refasten the lights to the branches, as taking the tree up that narrow staircase isn't conducive to tight lights. LOL. I was even on chat for a while as I put the last set or two of ornaments on the tree. You see, James found a chat program for the Droids. He set his up, then helped me set mine up. Yep, I can chat on the phone now!

I just decided to wait until today to put on the tinsel. James said last night, "You know, you don't have to put on tinsel." Well, yeah, I do. Our trees always had tinsel. [By "tinsel," I mean silver icicles, of course.] My grandparents' and relatives' trees always had tinsel. Garland is okay for the smaller trees, but it's not really a Christmas tree to me unless there's tinsel. It makes the tree live, and breathe.

(We were talking about tinsel last night on chat. Jen said she had only ever know the light, mylar stuff. Pretty much so did I. Lead tinsel was banned by the time I was growing up. I had relatives who still had it, because as a prudent, non-wasteful person, you removed it from the tree and returned it to its holder till next year. In fact, we did the same with the mylar, unless it got too wrinkled. And I did so when I moved out on my own. But the tinsel they're making today is thinner than the mylar tinsel from back then. It's like that fluffy "angel hair" that was once popular for trees. It's so thin and frangible that I have to remove it after Christmas and toss it. Makes me feel wasteful.)

Didn't get to bed until two, and had a nice sleep in, then went to Costco for lunch...cough...we were actually looking for a gift, but they didn't have it. Lots of nice samples for Christmas: chocolates, crab cakes, lobster spread, salsa, meatballs, cocoa and biscotti, potstickers, chicken nuggets, cheesecake, garlic chicken pasta, gouda cheese...

Found the gift in Best Buy, so we're all done. One may need augmenting. I'll see when I wrap.

Anyway, spent the rest of the afternoon tinseling the tree. When you're starting at the back, on the first branch, you wonder if it's worth it.

When you're halfway through and your back is hurting, you wonder if it's worth it.

When your hands are cold and the static electricity is making the tinsel stick to the carpet, you, the end table next to the tree, and the fireplace hearth, you wonder if it's worth it.

When it's finished, and James pushes the tree inch by inch back into the corner (because it can't be decorated in the corner, as there's no way to get to the back) on the unstable carpet, and all the lights are plugged into the timer and it turns on...yeah, it's worth it. Every single aching muscle.

And then, although I had said I would do it later, I vacuumed because I couldn't stand it anymore. And then I sat in front of the tree and put the manger set up, figure by figure, the one bought piece by piece by my mother from the bins at Woolworths and W.T. Grants and Newberrys...the Holy Family, the angel, three kings, three camels and the camel driver, the ox and ass, the man offering eggs, the boy playing the flute, the shepherd, and a flock of sheep and one goat and the sheepdog, all in or around the wooden stable. I bought one of those lights for it, the ones that go in village houses, and it has a yellow light bulb, of course, so the Baby Jesus is softly illuminated with heavenly Light.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that we had some thin steaks for supper with ramen noodles, and I finally got to sit and watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

And now we are having our annual Remember WENN Christmas chat party. We gather in the chat room and watch the episode "Christmas in the Airwaves" together. Always great fun!

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: The True Gift

by Patricia MacLachlan

Siblings Lily and Liam look forward all year to Christmas on their grandparents' farm, where they will help Grandpa with the chores, take snowy walks, withdraw books from "the lilac library," and shop in the small village nearby for Christmas gifts. But this year Liam is worried; their favorite farm animal, "White Cow," is now alone and seems unhappy. And if it takes everything he has, Liam will make sure White Cow is no longer sad.

It's hard to put a finger on an era for this book. It reads as old-fashioned, almost 1940s, with no television, computers, videogames—the kids are actually voracious readers!—or even radio in sight. On the other hand, MacLachlan refers to "chapter books" and a volume about "the emotional lives of cows," which no one in the 1940s would have cared about. Not pinning the time down is probably deliberate, to make the story seem timeless, and in the end it does. It's a good-natured, sweet book about two kids who do a good deed, something you might read aloud on Christmas Eve by the light of the Christmas tree to younger children. Older kids might find it "corny."

I loved the beautifully detailed black-and-white illustrations as well.

Blast from the Past: Christmas 1974

This was produced by Bill Melendez, which is why the animation looks vaguely like the "Peanuts" stories. Jimmy Osmond rather yowls the title tune, but otherwise this is pretty sweet.

Yes, Virginia, There is Santa Claus, Part 1

Yes, Virginia, There is Santa Claus, Part 2

Yes, Virginia, There is Santa Claus, Part 3

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: Christmas Miscellany

by Jonathan Green

Call it "Christmas 101 Lite." This charming, gift-book size volume, first published in Great Britain, answers the questions about our most cherished Christmas customs—like: What's myrrh? Why do we send Christmas cards? What's a figgy pudding?—with a British slant (Christmas crackers, plum pudding, etc. are included). The particular charm of this little volume are the illustrations, which are taken from Victorian magazines, "scraps" of 19th century illustrations, old Christmas postcards, and a few recent things, like a 1963 postage stamp. The light tone of the author and the colorful illustrations combine for a fun-to-read book that could be left out on a coffee table or in a spare room for guests to peruse. A worthy addition to a Christmas library.