I believe in Christmas

As John Lennon wrote, “the Word is love.”

The day after Thanksgiving, I found myself at the flagship Macy’s store in Manhattan with The Wife, The Daughter, my eldest niece, her husband, and a couple of their friends. I also saw a guy I knew from Albany walk by.

The Macy’s windows are great because they’re so imaginative. On one set of windows was the retelling of Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus, that famous New York Sun editorial from 1897, complete with a backstory about the girl and her family. It’s certainly why I know there’s a Saint Nick, who’s black and white and Hispanic and Asian and all sorts of colors.

I believe in the love of Jesus, too, who almost certainly wasn’t born in December, but rather under the sign of Aries or Pisces, not that it much matters. Got into a debate recently about how Christianity has led to lots of wars, and such – I’ve had that conversation a LOT, as you might imagine – but, for me, that comes from people misconstruing the Word. And, as John Lennon wrote, “the Word is love.”

You can call it magic, or hoodoo, or myth, and I’m all right with that. Faith is kind of like that. Like the love that the Pope showed to immigrants recently.

Merry Christmas.

In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
~ Albert Camus

Last-minute gift ideas

so this lady walks up at a traffic light, and. . .

Levitacious

levitacious (adj)– being filled with joy, levity

I think this is how it happened, though neither of us can remember for sure.

I walked by a colleague’s desk, in a reasonably good mood. Maybe I made a light joke.

C: My, you seem levitacious today.

R: Wow, that’s a great word you’ve coined!

More banter commending the word.

C (in e-mail): Which spelling doth thou prefereth? Levitacious or levitatious?

R (in e-mail): Think I like the C, avoiding 2 Ts. How about you?

C (in e-mail): I agree!

R (in e-mail): levitacious (adj)– being filled with joy, levity

C (in e-mail): Excellent!

So, are you feeling levitacious today? Tell me some of the word coinage you’ve done.

X is for Xylophone

I loved my xylophone, and think it’d be a nifty Christmas gift for SOMEONE ELSE’S little child.

Wikipedia says: “The xylophone (from the Greek words ξύλον—xylon, ‘wood’ + φωνή—phonē, ‘sound, voice’, meaning ‘wooden sound’) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets.”

When I was a kid, I had a xylophone, very much like this one pictured, with an octave and a half. It was good for Mary Had a Little Lamb, or for Chopsticks, if you had two mallets.

But I was always disappointed that certain seemingly simple songs often had ONE note (or more) that wasn’t in the standard scale. I figured “Do-Re-Mi” from “The Sound of Music” [LISTEN] certainly would be able to be played on a keyboard [PLAY!], using only the white keys of a piano, which is all most kids’ xylophones had. After all, the very basis of the song is that DO-RE-MI, etc, were the building blocks of singing. Alas, at LA (A in the key of C), it goes A down to D-E-F#-G-A-B. Then at TI, it goes B down to E-F#-G#-A-B-C.

Likewise, Dominique by The Singing Nun [LISTEN], a big hit in my childhood, just before the return of the chorus, went (in C) E-D-E-F#-G. In other words, again, one needed an equivalent of a black note on a keyboard, missing on this simple instrument.

Still, I loved my xylophone. I think this would be a nifty Christmas gift for SOMEONE ELSE’S little child.

ABC Wednesday – Round 13

Advent/Christmas stories and songs

A Charlie Brown Christmas almost never aired

Random FB pic

MUSIC:

Jaquandor has been offering Your Daily Dose of Christmas.

About.com’s Top 100 Christmas songs

The Bells of Christmas by Julie Andrews from a Firestone tire LP I still own.

Nat King Cole -The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)

Snow from White Christmas (Bing Crosby, et al).

The Dream Isaiah Saw, plus the backstory of the song, the lyrics and another rendition.

Tamale Christmas by Joe King Carrasco

SamuraiFrog’s contributions include Good King Wenceslas and the original Santa, Baby, as well as my favorite, A Christmas Carol by Tom Lehrer. But you should READ what he has to say about It Feels Like Christmas.

Eddie, the Renaissance Geek’s usual offering.

A Moose in a Maple Tree – The All Canadian 12 Days of Christmas

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer in Latin, set to plainsong.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen if it were played in a spaghetti western

The Beatles’ Christmas Record 1963

Vince Guaraldi Trio – A Charlie Brown Christmas (Full Album)

A very Coverville Christmas 2013; I especially enjoyed the Led Zeppelin.

dj BC writes, “I just dropped Santastic 8, the 8th annual Holiday mashup album in the series … This year we offer 14 new Christmas mashups and one old one which was reissued because it is great and it matches the album cover so well.

A goldmine of mostly very obscure, very bad seasonal music! Examples: a surfing Little Drummer Boy; a Jimi Hendrix version of Auld Lang Syne; and the truly awful Debbie’s Last Christmas.

VISUAL:

NORAD Tracks Santa Command Video 2013

The Bear and the Hare

That WestJet ad

Peanuts, 1966 and Peanuts, 1967 and Peanuts, 1968; in a similar vein, Off the Mark.

1966 CBS promo I remember watching at the time

Varicolored Christmas ChemisTREE

You do not want your school Christmas party to go like this.

Vintage Christmas cards; he’s gotten more, but this was the first one.

NARRATIVE:

Sharp Little Pencil: The Advent of the Adventure and Christmas Traditions.

Why NORAD tracks Santa

Yes, Megyn Kelly, Santa Can Be Black (and Jesus, Too), assuming Santa is real. Oh, Megyn was just kidding…

The White House has NOT decreed that its 2013 Christmas trees will be referred to as ‘Holiday trees’. So are you being persecuted?

Arthur’s wonderful Christmastime.

Fred Hembeck’s tote of notable holiday gifts connected to the comics medium

A Charlie Brown Christmas almost never aired.

It’s another solstice Ask Roger Anything

I remember last time, someone asked if a particular query was too personal. Too personal? Bah, humbug!

What are you going to give me for Christmas? Santa is bringing me the new Hess truck, aren’t you, Nick? A few pieces of music, a couple books, and some clothes are on my list. (It pleases The Wife no end that clothes are now on the roster, which was NOT the case a decade ago.)

I know. YOU can Ask Roger Anything. That would fill my stocking with holiday cheer. Then, in an act of reciprocal joy, I will actually ANSWER said questions, more or less honestly.

I remember last time, someone asked if a particular query was too personal. Too personal? Bah, humbug! I mean I’m sure there are questions out there that would qualify, but that one wasn’t even close!

I promise to respond within the next 30 days, as I have always done in the past. Now if y’all inundate me with SO many questions that I can’t respond in a month, 1) I’ll be very happy and 2) I’ll let you know. It’s not happened before, which, of course, is no foreteller of future responses.
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And while you’re at it, why not Ask Arthur anything as well? Maybe why kiwi describes New Zealanders, fruit AND flightless birds.

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