I see that it mentions St. Lucia as one of the celebrations.
(My very favorite Christmas movie among many favorites.)
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Radishes. You can tell because the color is somewhat radish.
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Watched the Peanuts and Emmet otter last night… I love the songs so hard…
And this is always hilarious… 
Today, I’m gonna wrap gifts for the hubby since he’s out of the house and make cookies. I’m gonna do some gingerbread, the Rocky Road Sohla did for cookie week and then the peppermint shortbreads from cookie week…
Lookie! Yo-Yo Ma and Allison Krause!
Enjoy the shortest day of the year all!
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They have that at IKEA. No joke, a couple of years ago I was looking for new chairs and suddenly there was a little procession working its way through the store, candle wreaths and singing, the whole jazz. Quite nice, actually.
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Still miss you, sinead… what a voice… what a force of nature…
Also…
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In the Interest of Poor Taste, Here Are 12 Hilarious Videos of Christmas Trees Exploding in Flames
I don’t know about “bad taste”, because a) the danger is real and b) I really like those demonstration fire videos. The only thing better are demonstration/training fires in real life. I’ve experienced some - if you want to see what the face of guilty pleasure looks like, watch a firefighter light something up.
The most memorable demonstration was touring the training facility in Gelsenkirchen. They have a concrete house, looks like it’s from a Monopoly set only a lot bigger, equipped with remote controlled gas burners and smoke generators. Firefighters from all over the state train there. They can create quite a lot of different scenarios. Smoke, darkness, flashovers, and so on. The supervisor operating the remote control is with the group that trains. They don’t give instructions, but they change the parameters throughout. Oh, you think you’ve put the burning sofa out and can turn around and check the next room? Think again! Fun! About one third of the trainees need a new coat afterwards. They gave us the turned-down version for tourists, but it was very impressive, especially the simulated flashover. (“Crouch down. Anything below one metre is safe. Ready?” Click, whoosh, flames jumping down from the ceiling. Memorable.)
Second place goes to the Innsbruck FD. Sitting at a table in the first floor of Weinhaus Happ while having lunch I watched them giving a public christmas tree fire safety demonstration. Only they had a spruce which must have been felled that very morning - they could not set it on fire. At least not until dousing it with some flammable liquid or other and attacking it with one of those little flamethrowers roofers use.
Anyway: keep an eye on your trees and stay safe!
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One year mom decided the gigantical blue spruce outside our house needed a hardcore pruning, and we also needed a Christmas tree, so…
She got out the ladder, leaned it up against the tree, climbed up, and sawed off the top of it - about 10-12ft worth. She had to saw off the base a few times b/c wouldn’t be able to get it into the house, let alone stand it up once it was inside. We were still in the dinky suburban house at the time, so no 10-11ft ceilings.
It was pick-y as hell - blue spruce are pretty, but their needles are pretty sharp and pretty stabby - decorating it was a very painful process. Our hands were covered with tiny red dots where we’d been poked; very different from the Douglas firs she usually bought.
But it smelled ever so heavenly and never dropped a single needle! It didn’t drop a single one as we dragged it out to the trash, and of course we’d left it up much longer than was our habit.
Yes, you can cut the top off your pinely tree and have it for Christmas. It’ll look weird AF for a few years, but it figures itself out and surprisingly quickly grows back to look as if it had never been decapitated.
People driving by would hit the brakes and s t a r e at it as they crawled past. Idiotic school"mates" teased me about our fucked up lookin’ tree, and I told them we had a beautiful Christmas tree that dropped no needles, and the tree’d be fine.
Mom knew how to prune.
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After we had a child, my husband wanted some holiday traditions that are just for us. We decided on driving around, listening to holiday music, looking at lights, and sipping hot cocoa. We did that tonight and found a little gem in a nearby neighborhood
We were not the only ones to park and walk the block admiring the lights!
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Every year, tiny Rochester, Michigan’s tiny downtown goes all out for The Big Bright Light Show.
Craig Drive and Pine Street in Orange County, Coliforniyah
St Augustine, Flaaarida
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Christmas cushion covers from amazOMG
Featuring a William Morris wannabe pattern
With very judgemental cardinals
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We always get warned to stay away from Downtown Detroit.
Meh, we parked at Cobo Center and walked a couple miles around Downtown Friday night and never had to run for cover.
Very windy and very cold but very enjoyable plus anytime my wife gets to pet a horse its a win.
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Downtown detroit looks amazing!
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And happy birthday to you!
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