Happiness is...Christmas treats.

Or I suppose that should read 'are'. 

Anyway.

I spent a good bulk of my Saturday creating lovely Christmas concoctions for my co-workers, roommates, people at church and just for fun. 

Here's a glimpse of the pumpkin bread

the 'smores popcorn

the salted caramels

and Hershey kisses

Then about 2, I decided to finally take a shower and the roommates and I ventured out to the US Botanic Gardens where we witnessed a different kind of Christmas treat. Inside the greenhouse they've got replicas of some of the best DC landmarks recreated using plant materials.  It's pretty amazing and the pictures just don't do it justice. You can't tell but there a bits of acorns and leaves and bark and moss and mushrooms.  It's crazy!

In the other wing they've got a sort of fairy land set up using the same kinds of plant materials to create houses and such with a bunch of model trains chugging in and out. It's quite delightful!

After that it was off to a delicious Thai dinner and then our ward Christmas party...all the hot chocolate, desserts, and flirting one could wish for. 

A day well spent!

Happy 4th Day of Christmas. How has your weekend been?

Happiness is...a good book! *Christmas edition*

As one might expect, I also enjoy a good holiday read, though I confess most of mine are of the picture book variety. I don’t cling to these nearly as religiously and fanatically as I do my music and movies interestingly enough. When I get to the point that I have a family to subject to all of my craziness I will start a tradition that a friend of mine suggested years ago.

Each night as an advent activity of sorts you will all gather around the tree which has books wrapped as gifts piled high underneath it. A child chooses one of the gifts to unwrap and you all read the book together (ideally by the light of the Christmas tree and/or a roaring fire while sipping hot chocolate and wearing flannel jammies) before going to bed, ending with the Bible story on Christmas Eve.

Here are a few that would make it under my tree each year:
 

 

 

Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree by Robert Barry
A charming little story of a tree that ends up gracing the homes of many, many families. You never know how your actions might affect the lives of others.
 

 

 

 

  

How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss
Because it's a practically perfect story of repentance and redemption hidden inside lines of exquisite poetry such as...

The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be that his head wasn't screwed on quite right.
It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

But,Whatever the reason, His heart or his shoes,
He stood there on Christmas Eve, hating the Whos...

 

 

 

My Penguin Osbert by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
Because we all know I love penguins. And just look at those magical illustrations!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett
Because it's Christmas. And Trolls! It's a great little holiday homage to my Norwegian ancestry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Night Before Christmas by Clement Moore
Again with the near perfection. It's a classic for a reason! Pick any version but this happens to be one of my favorites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snowmen at Christmas by Caralyn Buehner
I love Snowmen at Night best but this is a delightful holiday rendition with the snowmen up to their typical, silly antics.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toot and Puddle: I'll Be Home for Christmas by Holly Hobbie
I have a secret wish to live in Woodcock Pockect and have a friendship as deep and abiding as Toot and Puddle’s is. The illustrations are just as charming as can be and I love that there are almost always letters and notes and postcards included as part of the stories. There’s a hint of realism and a hint of magic, the perfect Christmas story.

 

 

 

 

 

The Sweet Smell of Christmas by Patricia M. Scarry
This was one of my favorites growing up. Each page had an item to scratch and sniff and I can still smell the hot chocolate and gingerbread!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jingle Bells by Kathleen Daly
Another of my absolute favorites when I was little. I love J.P. Miller's illustrations, especially the ones with the reindeer and their colds and the final spread where everyone is crammed into the sleigh. Great memories!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Little Drummer Boy (traditional) illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats
This was another favorite from childhood which is ironic because, as previously mentioned, I hate, loathe and despise the song. But Keats' illustrations are earthy and timeless.

 

 

 

Outside the realm of picture books I'm a little more foggy. I try to re-read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and A Christmas Carol every couple of years and that's about it for my selection of ‘grownup’ favorites. This year though I decided to venture into the world of Debbie Macomber who is apparently the queen of Christmas stories. Many of her books have been made into the movies that keep the Hallmark channel busy this time of year. I oh-so-randomly grabbed The Perfect Christmas from the shelf at work. We'll see if it lives up to the reputation.

On deck next is Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor which is a little more tragic...more along the lines of the Lifetime Christmas movies, and then if there's still time I'm going to try one of the cozy mysteries that abound (though I'm not sure who decided murder and Christmas go together.)

Are there any suggestions among you?  If not, I'm going to shun sleep (it is Friday night after all), cozy under the covers and enjoy a visit or two from the Christmas spirits before succumbing to the visions of sugar plums that are sure to dance in my head.  And, as I don't have to work tomorrow, let's hope they keep on dancing til long after the Saturday sun is up.  Happy weekend!

Happiness is...a Christmas movie!

(So much for my 12 Days of Christmas posts...not sure how I skipped over yesterday completely, oops! And it was only day 2! Let's just pretend this posted yesterday, shall we?)

I love my holiday movies almost as much as I love my music, though it takes longer to watch a movie so I don’t get nearly as many in. Christmas isn’t Christmas without at least a partial viewing of A Christmas Story and the Rankin Bass Christmas specials with Frosty, Rudolph, and the gang. (I’m good with catching a half hour or so of them on tv and don’t usually feel compelled to watch the whole thing) and one or two of the ridiculously cheesy romantic comedy-esque movies that are churned out by the hundreds on Lifetime and Hallmark and ABC Family. Predictable, laughable and depending on which channel possibly filled with a death or two, they are also a requisite Christmas experience.

A few essentials that I watch at least once every year, sometimes not even at Christmas (shh!):

• White Christmas
• Muppet Christmas Carol
• It's a Wonderful Life
• Elf
• Holiday Inn
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original cartoon version with Boris Karloff narrating , not the scandalously horrid Jim Carey version)

Some great classics that make their way into my viewing lineup once every couple of years:

• A Christmas Carol-any version, but this is one of my favorites
• The Bishop's Wife
• Mr. Krueger's Christmas
• Miracle on 34th Street (I find I alternate the versions each year, usually getting one of them in each season and haven't been able to pick a favorite between the two)
• The Santa Clause
• The Small One
• Mickey's Christmas Carol

A few pre/pseudo holiday movies that help get you in the spirit without technically being Christmas movies:

• The Holiday
• While You Were Sleeping
• You've Got Mail
• Meet Me In St. Louis
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Little Women (the most recent version with Christian Bale...of course!)

I know it’s probably heresy to some of you that I don’t have A Charlie Brown Christmas on here but I’ve never been a fan. Aside from the part where they are practicing for the program and they all do their little happy dance I just think they’re mean to each other (Charlie in particular) and it’s just no good. I spend way too much time feeling sorry for Charlie Brown and never quite catching the oh-so-subtle spirit of Christmas hidden at the end to enjoy it. The music, however, is brilliant.

Any of your favorites I may have missed?

Let's leave you with a short clip to get your weekend started out right. Whaddya say?

Such a fabulous movie! Go watch the rest, right now. Whatever you think you need to be doing instead will still be waiting for you when it's over.

Happiness is...Christmas music!

Today marks the beginning of the 12 Days of Christmas. Okay, so historically the 12 Days of Christmas begins the day after Christmas and ends with Epiphany or 3 Kings Day on the 6th of January but as we like to do in our modern world we've twisted tradition to fit our needs and wants. We've kind of morphed it into a pre-Christmas celebration by doing sub for Santas and anonymous gift giving and such in the days leading up to Christmas, and depending on who you ask the 12th day could be Christmas itself or the day before, so it's really sort of a fuzzy logic. But since I didn't post this yesterday I'm declaring that it starts today and ends on the 25th, and if you don't like that, well, I have a couple of names for you...do you prefer Scrooge? Or Grinch? I'll let you pick.  :)

Now that that's over with let's celebrate with a little Christmas cheer, shall we?

I’m one of those people who starts listening to Christmas music on November 1st. I don’t put up the decorations until after Thanksgiving, but if I wait that long to start in on the music I find I don’t have time to get it all in and I’m left with a deeper feeling of post-holiday let down when it comes time to put it all away, which for me is just after my birthday on January 2nd.

There are a host of songs I feel embody the season of Christmas, many of them I only need to hear once to have had my fill (as much as I hate Feliz Navidad and Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, it just isn’t Christmas without them…once, and only once!) while there are others I need to hear a dozen or more times to truly reach my limits, if even then.

So, here, in no particular order are a few of my favorite songs (specific versions of course, for not all renditions are created equal) narrowed down to 12 in keeping with the spirit of things and making it a bit more manageable because I could go on for days, making up my ultimate Christmas playlist...so far.

Barbra Streisand-Jingle Bells
Bing Crosby-White Christmas
Nat King Cole-The Christmas Song (his is the ultimate Christmas album!)
The King's Singers-Es Ist Ein Rose Entsprungen
Ella Fitzgerald-Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Julie Andrews-Wexford Carol
The Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan-God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Frank Sinatra-The Christmas Waltz
Mel Torme-Good King Wenceslas
Harry Connick, Jr.-It Must've Been 'Ol Santa Claus
Andy Williams-It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Practically any version of Let it Snow! but Michael Buble's is my current favorite (though not this live version, sorry)

Hmm, 12 songs just isn't enough. That is in no way a proper sampling and it's much more heavy in the secular music than I would have thought. I really do love the religious songs as well, I promise! I also obviously tend to stick more toward the traditional sounds as my absolute favorites. But here are a few recent discoveries that are quickly finding their way on to this list!

I'd also kill for a great version of Gesu Bambino or Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella...I find most of them are instrumental and I've yet to run across a vocal version I'm in love with enough to pay the 99 cents for on iTunes! Any suggestions?

What are your favorite holiday tunes? Bonus points to anyone who actually responds in the comments! (That means Santa will be watching and you're guaranteed to get everything on your list this year...yes, I have that kind of power.)

*Also, if favorites are going to be mentioned I suppose I should give a tiny shout out to the song I love to hate. It's found its way onto nearly every holiday album ever and is one of the most cringe-inducing songs I know. I just can't stand it! (Though some versions do rater higher on the hate scale than others.) Let's give a nice round of applause for The Little Drummer Boy...


Clap louder! I can still hear those blasted 'pa rumpa pum pums'!

Happiness is...a listening ear.

I have a bit of a dilemma at the moment. It's nothing earth shattering or life-changing (I don't think!) but it's enough of a quandary that it's causing me some grief and keeping me up at night. But that's mostly because I excel at over-thinking and over-analyzing things. (Oh, that I could put that on my resume!) So, I just want to give a great shout out to all the people who have lent a listening ear and will continue to do so as I continue to obsess. Thanks for keeping me sane(ish)!

And as a little treat for your ears, let's give them something else to listen to besides me, shall we? How 'bout this?

Or if you prefer something a bit more happy-go-lucky sounding, you can try this one...

Two vastly different songs but they both make me wish I could stumble upon pianos (or any furniture really) in random outdoor settings.  Don't you just want to play a rousing number with the waves literally crashing around you? Awesome!

Happiness is...remembering.

Today marks the 70th Anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

I wasn't there that day but I think the experience must have been akin to the shock my generation felt while watching the events of September 11th unfold. Even now words fail to describe the horror and disorientation as ordinary lives quickly spiraled into the realm of nightmare and disbelief. I don't know if hearing things second hand, after the fact and described over the radio would make them more or less conceivable than watching them unfold live before your eyes on a television screen, but doubtless the situation could only have been surreal. What could the future possibly hold?

Both of my grandfathers served in WWII. One served in the Army in the Pacific, primarily in Okinawa, the other was a Navy man storming the beach at Normandy and sailing the coasts of Africa. I grew up hearing stories of what life was like for my grandmothers waiting back home but since neither of my grandfathers have ever really talked about their war experiences, I've imagined and pieced together what their lives may have been like through watching countless movies and reading scores of books both fictional and non.

My father and grandfather both served missions in Germany, my grandfather in the late 30s just prior to Hitler's reign of terror and my father in the early 70s. Their love for the German people and the land in general also generated a fascination in me for that area of the world and its complex and troubled history. I've spent many hours poring over slides and photos and journal entries of their experiences at various sites and hearing them talk about the damages Hitler's rule did to so many good people. I've been blessed to see a few of those places myself in recent years and remember watching with my father as the Berlin Wall fell and thinking that finally the land could begin to heal.

I was also able to spend some time in Hawaii several years ago and visited the site of the USS Arizona. There is a definite feeling of the sacred as you stand over the remains of ship still sitting at the bottom of the harbor, the watery graves of the 1177 crew members, soldiers and civilians lost in that fateful attack. Over 2000 were lost that day and over 1000 more injured in the episode that finally entered the US in the great war that had been raging already in Europe and the Pacific for years.

My grandfathers are 88 and 92 years old, their generation has nearly come to its close and soon only their stories and memories will be left. As George Santayana so wisely observed, "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." Let us not forget this Greatest Generation, their experiences and all that they've gone through or we will surely go through it again for ourselves.

Never forget!

Happiness is...a fresh Christmas tree!

Okay, fresh is sort of a strong term. But anything that has once semi-recently been alive and has nothing to do with plastic or PVC, aluminum or animal bristles counts as basically fresh in my book.

My roommate and I ventured out Saturday morning where we found a formerly fresh spruce just a little taller than myself, bound and gagged with a few of its closest friends in the parking lot of our local Home Depot. The friendly sales people Saran wrapped it to the roof of our car and we proceeded to drive oh-so-hesitantly back home where we liberated it and gave it a much needed drink before bedecking it with various lights and baubles and freeing it of about half of its needles.

I wish I could take a picture of the smell, because frankly, that makes me happier than anything else. Nothing says Christmas like the scent of 'fresh' pine, though the sight of a brightly lighted tree (fake or fresh) is pretty stiff competition.

Look for more posts about holiday traditions and faves in the weeks to come. And I'd love to hear some of your favorite holiday doings.  What does Christmas mean to you? When does the holiday season truly start?  Are there things you look forward to each year? Things you dread? I'm challenging anyone who actually reads this to post something, anything in the comments. I'd love to hear from you!