Uh Alvin, you were a little flat
Watch it, Alvin—Alvin? Alvin?!
Okay!
Christmas with The Chipmunks was released in 1962 on Liberty Records[1]. Mother bought this record for me, I was 4 years old, and I loved it. It is now referred to as Volume 1 since there have been 3 more releases with the same name, in 1963, 2007, and 2008. The tracks from this and its follow-up album, Christmas with The Chipmunks Vol. 2 have been in continuous circulation since their original releases.
Most fake trees (85%) in the U.S. are imported from China, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
One of the first artificial Christmas trees was made using goose feathers that were dyed green. The German feather trees were one response by Germans to continued deforestation in Germany in the 1880s. The German feather trees[1] eventually made their way to the United States where they became rather popular as well. In fact, the use of natural Christmas trees in the United States was pre-dated by a type of artificial tree. These first trees were wooden, tree-shaped pyramids lit by candles, they were developed in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, by the German Moravian Church in 1747.
“We’re kicking off our fun, old-fashioned family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols.” — Clark Griswold
Long before the advent of Christianity, plants, and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many countries, evergreens were believed to keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.
Obviously to keep the Post office in business!
The tradition had its beginning in early 19th-century England. British students would write home [hopefully] boasting good grades and showing off their penmanship, composition, and artwork. They hoped that these joyful letters would produce good presents and/or money for Christmas.
Broken Peach is a Spanish band, 4 girl singers and 3 guys on the instruments. They are doing the Danny Elfman “This is Halloween” from the “Nightmare Before Christmas” movie.
Who’ll be the 2021 winner?
As more folks check out my blog they adventure around my categories and read the things that interest them. Sometimes, older posts are suddenly popular probably because there was something out there in the news that triggered a certain search term on the internet. I decided to see what my most popular posts were for the past year. The data is from my “Stats and Insights” on my WordPress Dashboard. Winners are at the bottom.
This 2 million year old lake was discovered February 14, 1844.
Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States straddling the state line between California and Nevada. Crater Lake, in Oregon, is the only United States lake that is deeper (by about 300 feet).
What was happening 100 years ago this year?
We made it, through another year of the Covid pandemic, worsening at the end of 2021 with the Omicron variant. But it’s 2022. I never thought, as a child, that we would ever make it this far. I thought this would be a good time to look back 100 years to 1922.
Mele Kalikimaka (Meh-le Keh-liki-makah) is Hawaiian for “Merry Christmas”. In the song, by the same name, I’ve always had a mondegreen, misheard lyrics in the song. I thought they were saying “Mele Kalikimaka is the wise way to say Merry Christmas to you” when the correct lyric is “Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii’s way to say Merry Christmas to you”
He’s got a sleighful, it’s not gonna stay full
The first time I heard this Christmas song was from Kellie Pickler, the fifth season American Idol contestant. She is a country music singer, songwriter, and television personality. Her 2013 single is great and I just assumed it was her original song until our pharmacist Kelly said it was an old song.
