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Visitor Statistics for this Christmas blog, 2007

As Christmas Day in the Pacific NW draws to a close, I thought it might be mildly interesting to post the visitor statistics for SimplyXmas, recorded over the last month–

25,349 hits total, as of 12-26 06:40 GMT (12-25 10:40 PST).

To all those who visited, I thank you for stopping by, and I hope you found something here that was useful, informative, interesting, or entertaining. I very much enjoyed writing this blog, and have every intention of doing it all over again, next year.

The events calendar here lists some local events up until the 6th of January, the traditional end of the Christmas season, with Epiphany. Here in America, it’s pretty much over for most people on the 26th, but in places like Spain, it continues up until Epiphany–in fact, Christmas Eve and Christmas day are not even the traditional present-giving days in some countries, Spain being one of these.

Since it’s not yet midnight here, on the West Coast of North America, let me say, one more time: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Day!

Santa Training College, 1968

Monty Python’s Eric Idle, narrates the sketch from the 1968 Christmas version of “Do Not Adjust Your Set,” aptly named “Do Not Adjust Your Christmas Stocking”–

Click on the screenshot to load the video.

Queen Elizabeth’s first-televised Christmas message, 1957

I saw this morning that Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas message will be airing on YouTube this year, as it did last year. This year marks the 50th Christmas that the Queen’s greetings have been broadcast.

Let’s jump back in time 50 years (five years before I was born) and have a look at the Queen’s first televised Christmas message, from the land that gave us Victorian Santas and figgy pudding.

Click on graphic to load the video–

I chose this screenshot because I think Liz looks very blue-blood/regal/highbrow in it. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer, 1948

Directed by Max Fleischer.

Classic Christmas Cartoon: Little Audrey in “Santa’s Surprise”

A Classic Disney Silly Symphony: “The Night Before Christmas” (1936)

Classic Christmas Cartoon: “Hector’s Hectic Life”

“The Night Before Christmas,” Rankin and Bass, 1974

This 22 minute cartoon originally aired on CBS in 1974, and aired there for years before migrating to ABC Family.

Tom and Jerry: “The Night Before Christmas”

“Christmas Comes But Once a Year,” 1936

A Max and Dave Fleischer cartoon, in which “Grampy” (a Betty Boop character) saves Christmas for a group of orphans.

Christmas Eve!

Name that Christmas Tune

These are riddles, of a sort. Based on the description given of a song, you must guess its real title.

For the answers, click on “read more” at the bottom of this post.

Can you name these Christmas songs?

1. Oh member of the Round Table with circular missing areas.

2. Boulder of the tinkling metal spheres.

3. Wanted in December: a pair of upper, forward incisors.

4. A psychiatrist’s luxury apartment.

5. The lad is a diminutive percussionist.

6. Sir Lancelot afflicted with laryngitis.

7. Decorate the anterooms.

8. Cup-shaped instruments fashioned of a whitish metallic element.

9. Oh small Israeli urban center.

10. Distant in a haybin.

11. We are Kong, Lear, and Nat Cole.

12. Duodecimal enumeration of the passage of diurnal intervals in the Yuletide festival, terminating in Epiphany.

13. Depart and vocally transmit information upon an orographic locale.

14. Our fervent hope is that you thoroughly enjoy the Yuletide season.

15. Listen, the Cherubim and Seraphim are proclaiming tunefully.

16. As the agrarian guardians of the woolly ruminants protected their charges in the nocturnal period.

17. I perceived a triad of buoyant conveyance platforms.

18. Jubilation to the totality of the terrestrial sphere.

19. Do you perceive the longitudinal waves which stimulate my auditory sense organs?

20. A joyful song of reverence relating to hollow metallic vessels which vibrate and produce tintinnabulation when struck or shaken.

21. Parent was observed osculating a hoary, unshaven teamster.

22. May the Deity bestow an absence of fatigue upon cheerful and refined human males.

After Christmas Tips

From Chris Pirillo (a Seattle denizen) of ChrisPirillo.com. Personally, I can identify with his “gray and raining” comments, as I’m sure certain readers can. But that’s the Pacific Northwest. Part and parcel of the package. I still wouldn’t trade it.

Clips from from Trading Places

One of my all-time favorite holiday movies.

Caution: Uncut original. May offend some viewers. 

Practically Perfect, like Poppins

Martha Stewart’s Holiday To-Do List

December 1

Blanch carcass from Thanksgiving turkey. Spray paint gold, turn upside down and use as a sleigh to hold Christmas cards.

December 2
Christmas season kickoff party with King’s College Boy’s Choir.

December 3
Using candlewick and hand-gilded miniature pine cones, fashion a
cat-o-nine-tails. Flog gardener.

December 4
Bake a pallet of festive cinammon rolls.

December 5
Get new eyeglasses. Grind lenses myself with jeweler’s rouge and cornmeal.

December 6
Fax family Christmas newsletter to Pulitzer committee for consideration.

December 7
Send Christmas cards to sisters in prison.

December 10
Align carpets to adjust for curvature of Earth.

December 11
Lay Faberge egg.

Tinsel Toons, #5

Christmas Spice

The most highly prized variety of the cinnamon family of evergreens, Sri Lanka Cinnamon. All the cinnamons are varieties of Laurel.

Nutmeg is not a true nut, but rather the pit of an apricot-like fruit; both the husk and the pit are spices in their own right. The hard inner nut yields nutmeg, the softer, outer shell yields the spice mace, which has similar flavor to nutmeg, but milder.

Peppermint. This should be a familiar sight to many readers, since it grows virtually anywhere in North America, and absolutely thrives in the Pacific Northwest. It grows like a weed, in fact. There are many, many different varieties of mints, as browsing through a well-stocked garden center, particularly in the spring, will demonstrate.

Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds Sing “White Christmas”

From Paramount Pictures 1942 hit, Holiday Inn. This marked the motion picture debut of the now immortal “White Christmas.”