I love it, Kira's Mom! It would be perfect for a recipe book. I plan on making gingerbread men for treat bags this year.
That's such lovely, neat work. I didn't realise that the tradition of sending Chrismas cards was falling out of fashion. I like sending cards to people I don't see much of and like to keep in touch with.
I think one of the reasons they are falling out of fashion is because people now keep in touch with people they don't see much through the internet. When I was a kid we used to get Christmas cards full of descriptions of what happened in that family's life that year, how the kids were doing, the big changes that happened. But now you can find all that stuff out by looking at updates on Facebook, so to send out a card with that information would be kind of redundant. I'm not sure if the change is for the better or worse, but it's different.
Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love the decorations, the atmosphere and all that. I love giving gifts and getting gifts. I'll probably start hunting around for stuff soon. Usually I shop for stuff on amazon.com as they have great sales near the end of November. We'll have to see. I also can't wait to put up my Mulder Christmas avatar!
I love Christmas, too, but when I was studying and working retail jobs Christmas lost its appeal thanks to the overall bad mood of the public. A friendly customer always made my day because they were so rare. Thankfully I haven't worked retail over Christmas for years. Now I love Christmas again. Kira's Mom, your stitching is lovely and it's good to meet another cross-stitcher. I do more knitting than cross-stitching nowadays but always have a few stitching projects on the go. I'm great at starting projects but not so great at finishing them. I still send quite a few Christmas cards because my family all live abroad and few of the older generation know how to use a computer. Receiving cards makes me happy, too. What I think is a waste of trees, though, is the way my husband's family members all give cards to each other when they live within 6 blocks of each other see each other several times a week. Also I don't like the assumption at my place of work that everyone gives cards to everyone else. I don't give out cards but bring in some baking instead, which tends to go down well.
Y'know, my experience of retail over Christmas made me love it more. I worked for a larger stationer about 10 years ago, and all the cards, and paper and decorations we were selling really got me to fever pitch by the time Christmas came! What I didn't like about Christmas in retail were the customers with bad attitudes, and my employer's policy of ripping down all the Christmas decorations etc on Christmas eve afternoon and the mad rush to get the post-Chrismas merchandising out ready for the sale. Really gave me a "peeping behind the curtain" sensation, and of course made me realise that it's all such a retail sleight of hand.
-47 As much as I love it, I don't think I'm gonna be able to endure seeing that Santa film with Dudley Moore as the helper who sells out to a toy corporation again in it this year. I might manage that Arnie film about the kid and the action figure.
Speaking of Christmas films, what is your mandatory Christmas viewing? I don't watch any films regularly, but have a list of Christmas specials that I always watch on DVD. These include The Snowman, Father Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original cartoon, not that gawdawful movie), and The Flint Street Nativity. Also I'm a happy girl if any of the Royle Family Christmas specials are rerun.
^ A Christmas Story. Damn i love that movie. And not quite a "christmas" movie, but i always watch "White Christmas" and of course "It's a Wonderful Life". Although i do want to smack Zoo Zoo in the head everytime she chirps, "Teacher says every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings".
I love Home Alone despite all its flaws, mainly because of the great soundtrack (John William's version of Somewhere In My Memory)
Required Christmas viewing? Well, for us, Christmas season doesn't officially start until we watch Christmas Vacation. Other required viewing is White Christmas, A Christmas Story, Home Alone, Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Mr. Kreuger's Christmas.
There are a few I like to watch if I come across them: Scrooged, Curly Sue, A Christmas carol (with James Stewart, of course), Trading places... love all that stuff.
In my media database x-mas viewing is a category all by itself The two first Die Hard films are in it, as is Bad Santa (which is my favourite -maybe because I didn't discover it till last year), There's an x-mas-ep. of Matador Which no x-mas should be without, and while strictly speaking not x-mas-TV; The so-called NBC-TV-Special (Note that unless otherwise specified it is assumed that you talk about the special with The King whenever you talk about 'The NBC-Special'! ). There's the x-mas-ep. of Nana (Danish kid's TV-series for adults (or was it an adult series for kids?)) and No x-mas season should be without Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (not very good, not even cheesy enough to be good, but somehow it managed to load itself onto my x-mas-viewing-list Doctor Who specials also belong into the season: before the 24'th I watch the old ones and then there's usually a new episode on Boxing Day BIG fan of Zoƫ Wanamaker, so I usually put on the My Family-specials
Oh! -I totally forgot to mention The Star Wars Holiday Special. That is cheesy enough to be funny! ETA: [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9OxJ0QepAU[/yt] [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXIlTkKjpis[/yt]
Now that you mention it, I haven't seen tinsel (a.k.a. icicles) around for a while. I really like it. Would go looking for some for this year, if it weren't for the kitty issue.