Search Results for: christmas

“‘And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’

“……That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

There’s always one person in every neighborhood who seems to think that the only way to celebrate any holiday is by erecting enough decorations to cause airplanes to veer off path and try to land. Their homes are akin to a neon homage to Tammy Fay Baker. These are the people who’s religion demands they shop at Never Enough Lights. The very rudiment of their faith includes the phrase “Thou must have a 128 channel light controller and starter kits are currently on sale.”

That’s from the Holy Book of Stultus est Sicut Stultus Facit.

Oh, look it up, I’m not a freaking teacher.

Anyway, “overboard” is where these people begin when it comes to holiday fun. “Excess” is just a word for losers in their minds. So, it should come as no surprise that some people aren’t thrilled with those people.

After all, would you want a quarter million strangers traipsing across your lawn?

That’s a question being asked by the nice residents of Prairie Village, Kansas. Faced with an unwanted tourist attraction, Reuters is reporting that some folks have had enough.

Mike Babick’s display of Christmas spirit has grown too popular for some neighbors, who complain his expanding array of lights and holiday figures draw some unwelcome gawkers.

Babick’s passion for the holiday has driven him to adorn his modest one-story home in this Kansas City suburb with more than a thousand figures housed in display cases that go up to his rooftop.

Babick, 69, said his display requires a month to set up and draws some 250,000 visitors each year based on a vehicle-counter he installed on his street.

“It’s a gigantic Christmas present to everyone — from me,” Babick said in an interview.
But some neighbors say Babick’s Yuletide creation has become too popular. Cars, limousines and tour buses sometimes block the street and driveways. Visitors trudge across their lawns, with some pausing to relieve themselves.

“There are too many people any more who don’t have respect for others,” said Bob Myhre, who lives two doors down.

In response to complaints from some 30 residents, police made Babick’s block temporarily one-way and put up no-parking signs, but that has not stopped visitors from parking in private driveways.

“We’re not anti-Christmas, nobody’s anti-Christmas,” said Myhre, who has a modest light display on his home.

Jessie Novak, who lives across the street, said the traffic drawn to Babick’s display is bothersome but tolerable.

“I would move if it wasn’t there,” Novak said of the display. “I know it’s crazy and out of the norm, but I really enjoy it. It would beat any store window in New York.”

Babick tries to keep cars moving and picks up litter nightly, saying he understands neighbors’ concerns.

“There are only a couple of Grinches in the whole bunch,” he said.

“We do have a lot of frowns turn to smiles,” he said. “What I really like to see is the kids — the laughing and the smiling. That’s my reward.”

Since there are no laws on the books to stop this guy, or the dude down my block with the singing Santa that sounds like Satan Claus, I guess we’ll just have to grin and bear it. After all, the holidays are supposed to be about Peace, Goodwill and prayers for a power outage.

In the meantime, I know you well enough to know that you want to watch a pretty video with lots of winking, blinking lights. So, here you go.

Now get off my lawn and go away.

Don’t worry. This isn’t the beginning of some treacly drudge about Christmas Around the World or anything like that. If you’ve been paying any attention at all you know that treacle is the farthest thing from my mind. Beer? Babes? Oh yeah, they clutter up my frontal lobes. But not treacle.

My good friend Rob Pongi, think of him as Japan’s answer to Nude Hippo’s producer only with more nudity, has been catching me up on Japanese Christmas traditions and I think it’s only fair that I share.

While many of them would be instantly recognizable to any Westerner, such as the Christmas tree, the gifts, the music (for the most part) and so on, there are others that seem to have spawned from some alien clime.

The decorated Godzilla on the front page would be a nice Example “A.”

Another Japanese tradition, which I think should immediately be adopted world wide, is where women dress sexy as hell and try to seduce men. I don’t know about you but that would put a boat load of jolly in my Ho Ho Ho’s. Certainly it would add a whole new dimension to the phrase “lay the gift under the tree.”

Yet another one would be the enslavement of innocent electric eels who are forced to power Christmas lights. Then they’re turned into soup

Reuters reports on this shocking trend.

An aquarium in Japan is shocking visitors with its Christmas display — using an eco-friendly electric eel to illuminate the lights on its holiday tree.

Each time the eel moves, two aluminum panels gather enough electricity to light up the 2-meter (6 ft 6 in) tall tree, decked out in white, in glowing intermittent flashes.

The aquarium in Kamakura, just south of Tokyo, has featured the electric eel for five years to encourage ecological sensitivity.

This year, it added a Santa robot that sings and dances when visitors stomp on a pad.
“We first decided to get an electric eel to light up a Christmas tree and its top ornament using its electricity,” said Kazuhiko Minawa, on the public relations team for the Enoshima Aquarium. “As electric eels use their muscles when generating a charge, we also thought to get humans to use their muscles to light up parts of the tree and power Santa.”

Visitor Sumie Chiba was fascinated with the display but questioned the practicality of eel energy for domestic use.

“If this was possible, I think it’s very nice and extremely eco-friendly,” she said.

Another minor difference would be the, almost , complete lack of any religious significance since Christians barely qualify as a minority in Japan. That helps explain why they have Hoeiosho, a Buddhist monk, distribute gifts to the children, instead of Santa Claus. After all, Santa’s based on the real life St. Nicholas who never visited any Asian countries. It also doesn’t help that his life story’s kind of a downer; parents die of the plague, prison time for preaching the Gospel, etc. Sure he did a lot of nice stuff but it’s still a depressing read.

So, Hoeiosho it is.

Anyway, back to the important stuff; hot little elves hoping to grab a ride on your sleigh. Colin Joyce from the Telegraph UK spent some time in Tokyo to try and understand, and maybe take advantage of, this development.

Get yourself a wonderful boyfriend by Christmas; Best Christmas date spots; Christmas for lovers – the magazine headlines tell the story: all a Japanese girl wants for Christmas is the perfect date.

In a country where less than one per cent of the population is Christian, Christmas has been reinvented as the most romantic time of the year.

For many Japanese women being taken to an expensive restaurant on Christmas Eve is a crucial indicator of success, while having to go shopping with female friends marks one as a “loser dog”, the Japanese equivalent of a Bridget Jones singleton.

As you can see, the stakes are high for Japanese women this time of year. No one wants to be the “loser dog” instead of the “happy reindeer.”

In case you want to help some Japanese woman have a joyful Christmas, there are cheap flights still available.

Who says these blogs aren’t helpful?

In keeping with my, inadvertent, Christmas theme, I thought I’d take a minute to talk about some of the time honored traditions that make people feel good this time of year. While many folks are stunned when they find out that baby Jesus wasn’t born under a glowing pine tree and there’s not one single mention of the little drummer boy anywhere in the Gospels (neither synoptic nor gnostic), the stories still live on.

One tradition has become a staple of the holiday season; caroling. Or, to be more historically accurate, wassailing. Now, speaking as an Irish cliché, this is one tradition I understand. Like all well conceived ideas, this one was spawned by drunks with rocks. Nothing says “Happy Holidays!” to me more than the thought of staggering by people’s homes and demanding booze. Let the kids keep the watered down version of candy and costumes for Halloween, I’m sticking with the grown ups and threatening anyone who doesn’t fill my cup.

Monica Garske from AOL News takes a joyous look at the history of caroling.

Christmas caroling has long been a favorite tradition of church groups, elderly choirs and children, but did you know that the first groups of carolers were nothing but a bunch of rowdy drunks?

That’s the tune from David McKillop, senior vice president of programming for the History Channel, who recently talked to AOL News about the network’s upcoming holiday special, “The Real Story of Christmas,” premiering Nov. 29 at 9 p.m. ET.

The TV special examines the surprising historical origins of our most bizarre Christmas customs, including why some of us go door to door singing holiday songs to any strangers who will listen.

McKillop said the origin of caroling dates back to the pagan celebration of the winter solstice, when Christmas was regarded as a festival of pure joy and drunken revelry. Oh, and prayer was involved somewhere in there too.

According to McKillop, groups of poor medieval carolers would go around to houses singing and begging for food and drinks, threatening to throw rocks through the windows of anyone who refused to give them a handout.

They literally “went medieval” on people.

“They would get very, very rowdy. Eventually, the drunken revelry got too out of hand, and Christmas was banned for years in America in the 16th and 17th centuries,” explained McKillop.

Sheesh. Sounds like an episode of “Carolers Gone Wild.” If you don’t open your door to singing strangers this year, no one will blame you.

McKillop said those same ancient winter-solstice celebrations — which usually lasted 12 days — gave rise to the tradition of burning a yule log, often mentioned in classic Christmas songs.

“People would try to find the biggest log possible to burn in a fireplace, to keep the light and warmth going during the 12 days of the feast,” he said.

Another fun fact: Santa Claus wasn’t always so chummy and cheery. In fact, he was kind of a downer who ran with a bad crowd.

McKillop said the St. Nick of old European legend was said to be accompanied not by elves but by an impish little devil creature named “Krampus” who beat up and kidnapped naughty children.

“If kids were bad, Krampus would leave them bad gifts. I think that’s where the idea of giving people coal for Christmas first sprouted. That Krampus was mean,” said McKillop.

Garske and McKillop take a look at quite a few other traditions, so make sure to read the whole article.

So, this holiday season, when you’re hanging with a sexy, little, elf, drinking yourself into oblivion and trying to convince all who are unfortunate enough to listen that you’re really a tenor, just remember that you’re honoring a centuries old custom.

And if anyone doesn’t like it, throw a rock at them.

Tis’ the season for Christmas wish list’s, sleigh rides and Santa’s little helpers.  With that said…Why not elf yourself? (Wow, I really feel like we are blowing thru the holidays here!)  It’s easy, it’s fun and somehow year after year it’s still amusing! Who doesn’t like seeing  themselves as a crazy, whacked out dancing elf?  Better yet, add grandma and some of your buds to the mix for a knee slapping jolly ol’ laugh.  In case you’ve been living under a rock, you just log onto elfyourself.com or the Office Max website.  Whichever you prefer.  However, I must add if you visit the Office Max website you can see yours truly!  Yes, that’s correct I am officially the Office Max Elf for 2 years in a row.

You can check me out on the website or in the Office Max stores nationwide.  It’s hard work, but someone had to do it.  You think I’m joking?  I almost ran out of the auditions because I thought I clearly showed up at the wrong place.  After two days of Office Max auditioning break dancers they decided to throw a few dancing models into the mix.  Granted,  I could not spin on my head, but I could bust out some pretty elf-like leaps, jumps and moves.  After feeling like a complete lunatic, I was beyond excited to make the cut and shoot with Chicago’s top photographer; Brian Kulhmann.  I was one of one of 5 elves to be in Office Max’s biggest holiday ad campaigns.  (And the only model mixed with professional break dancers!)  After two elf costume fittings, an entire day spent jumping and dancing in a velvet elf suit, it didn’t turn out too shabby.

The best part is that the Office Max creative directors told me they couldn’t have imagined a better elf than I.  It was my “elf personality” that won them over.  Wow, I’m totally an elf…who knew?  I guess I will just take that as a compliment and run with it.  Happy Elf Yourself Day!  Now, get out to Office Max for a good laugh at my photos.  (At least my grandma likes them!)