Lake Neuron

I had a wonderful Christmas with family. That’s obviously the most important part of the holiday, but since that doesn’t translate well into a blog post, I’m going to brag about my gifts instead.

I wanted to show off a couple of gifts in particular, because they were handmade:

My father made CD cases like this one for me and my three siblings.

My sister-in-law in California knitted hats and scarves for several of us, tied in with one of that person’s favorite sports teams — in my case, you will note the exact colors of the Nashville Predators. I got a Predators collector pin to wear with this as well.

I also got some great clothes, and several great books — an autobiography of movie director Preston Sturges, a Food Network Kitchens cookbook and a book which I didn’t even know existed by Steve Martin about his days as a standup comic and variety performer, from Disneyland to “Saturday Night Live.”

I’ve been following Santa’s progress on the NORAD Santa web site and particularly enjoyed this video:

Weeks and weeks ago, I blogged warning you not to miss “Christmas In Connecticut” when it aired during the holiday season. I was sure TCM would have it on at some time or another.

Well, guess what I missed tonight. I just now saw it in the listings, five minutes after it ended.

Many years ago, a department store in Colorado set up a telephone number for children to call and talk to Santa.

But when the local newspaper published the telephone number, there was a typo. (That happens sometimes.) And so, when children started calling, they reached, not Santa, but … NORAD, the American and Canadian missile defense system.

That gave the guys at NORAD a great idea. After all, they were already set up to track incoming airborne vehicles from the north …. so they set up their own telephone line, allowing them to reassure kids on Christmas Eve that Santa was, indeed, on his way. Now, instead of a telephone line, they have a web site.

On Wednesday, I suggested to a former co-worker that she and her daughter visit the NORAD Santa web site, http://www.noradsanta.org. I meant to come back and post about it here that day, but I forgot about it until just now, when it was the answer to a question on “Duel.”

The tracking feature, of course, doesn’t go live until Christmas Eve, but there’s plenty more to explore at the site over the weekend — games and music and fun features. Plus, there’s a link to download Google Earth, which you will need for the tracking features on Monday if you don’t already have it.

Kids of all ages, up to and including 107, should visit this site.

I saw this just this morning on VH1, and loved it, and then Chris Thomas helpfully posted a link to the YouTube at his blog:

When I was in California in February, my brother and I were talking about music in some context, and I mentioned The Killers, and he acted surprised, as if it was remarkable that an old fogey, six years closer to death than he, would even have heard of them, much less enjoy them. But I like The Killers. I don’t own any of their CDs, but I hardly have anybody’s CDs. And I love all of their singles (”singles” being an appropriately old fogey-esque term).

Well, I suspect that my fellow Mountain T.O.P. board member Sally Chambers has summed it up far better than I can hope to do. (I didn’t know Sally was going to be there, and I’m sorry I missed seeing her.)

What can I say about Handel’s “Messiah” that hasn’t been said by so many others over the years? It’s a glorious, reverent retelling of the Gospel story, with music and art equal to the truth of the tale.

Thursday night was my first “Messiah,” so I have nothing to compare it to, but I thought it was a fabulous performance. All four soloists were great, but soprano Awet Andemicael was particularly so, at once precise and emotional. Even when she wasn’t singing, she seemed not like she was waiting for a cue but like she was lost in the music herself.

I’ve blogged on previous occasions about Schermerhorn Symphony Center’s wonderful acoustics, and they certainly enhanced this experience. If you hear something like the “Hallelujah” chorus through the little speakers in your TV, you’ve not really heard it. In a live performance, especially in this venue, the sound is so much brighter and there are so many different layers to it. If you think you don’t like classical music, you’ve never heard it performed live.

I am no musician, and am very uninformed about composers and styles and what have you. I don’t know what I’m listening to without reading the program notes. But I know the joy of sound that a concert like this one can create.

Some people look at the Grand Canyon or the vastness of space and find proof of a Creator in their beauty, which is quite appropriate. I think that a work like “Messiah” functions the same way. Mrs. Rittenberry, the fourth member of our party Thursday night, is a math teacher, and technically the score to a musical composition can be expressed as just a series of formulae. But to hear something like this in its majesty, it just gives me the awesome sense of God giving one human being the ability to compose it, giving others the ability to perform it, and giving us all the ability to hear it and be moved.

Ben Witherington has a great post on C.S. Lewis’s views on Christmas. Here’s part of a quote from Lewis’ “God In The Dock.” Lewis has said that he approves of a) the religious observance of Christ’s birth, and b) Christmas as an occasion for joy and merrymaking, including simple gifts like Scrooge sending Bob Cratchit a turkey. But he’s less keen on c) giving of expensive gifts, and the commercialization of Christmas in general:

You have only to stay over Christmas with a family who seriously try to ‘keep’ it (in its third, or commercial, aspect) in order to see that the thing is a nightmare. Long before December 25th everyone is worn out — physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no trim for merry-making; much less (if they should want to) to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house.

I hesitate to even try to post this, because I suspect it won’t be on YouTube very long, but my co-worker Brian posted a link to it in the comments of a previous post and I didn’t want you to miss it. It’s from one of the most notorious — and never re-aired — Christmas specials of all time. UPDATE: Actually, it looks like it’s been on YouTube for a year now. Go figure.

May the Force be with you this holiday season.

I’ve been watching — and enjoying — the Saturday Night Live Christmas special in prime time tonight, but the juxtaposition at the end of the show is kind of jarring. They show the notorious “Schweddy balls” skit, packed with double entendres, and then, after a commercial break, they show the most elaborate — and one of the most beautiful — musical presentations ever to appear on SNL: Luciano Pavarotti and Vanessa Williams singing “O Come All Ye Faithful” in both Latin and English, accompanied by a full orchestra and choir. Absolutely wonderful.

This is actually an old special, from a couple of years ago, hosted by Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon, and so it missed including last year’s priceless “Christmastime for the Jews” clay animation with Darlene Love. It still had many wonderful SNL holiday moments, including the lost ending of “It’s A Wonderful Life” and the Martha Stewart Topless Christmas Special. (Don’t ask.) But where was Hanukkah Harry?

DSC_4423

Originally uploaded by jicarney.

Well the Christmas parade was very nice tonight — and there was plenty of it. All three bands sounded great. (I think my alma mater was the best, but I’m obviously biased.) Turnout was great on the square (and everywhere else, if the traffic was any indication when I tried to get across town afterward).

More photos are here.

Me and Santa

Originally uploaded by jicarney.

… there is a John I. Carney. Here’s photographic proof.

I’ll be working my normal shift at the paper this afternoon, and then I’ll grab dinner somehow, and then I will head for the square to photograph the annual Christmas parade.

I haven’t heard for sure, but I assume that all three of our public high schools will have their bands in the parade. When I was growing up, only the big high school in Shelbyville had a band, but now all three of our public high schools have bands, and they all sound great. I’m proud to say that my alma mater, Cascade, won awards at a big band competition this fall. Community High’s band played at our local Nashville Symphony concert this year, and Cascade will play in 2008, with Central presumably on tap for 2009.

I look forward to Dave Barry’s Holiday Gift Guide every year and didn’t realize this year’s was out already until Jennifer let me know. Here’s the lead paragraph:

The holiday season is a time when we should ponder the message of the classic tale A Christmas Carol by the great English writer whatshishame. In this story, the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who cares about nothing but money, is visited in his house on Christmas Eve by three ghosts — the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Vice President Dick Cheney. They make Scrooge see the error of his ways by showing him what the town of Bedford Falls would have been like if James Stewart had never been born.

I’m sitting here watching my DVD of my favorite version of “A Christmas Carol.” I know it’s early in the season, but I just felt like watching it.

Title	Content
Movie:	A Christmas Carol
Director:	Clive Donner
Release Date:	17 December 1984 (USA) / Other Countries
Genre:	Drama / Fantasy
Tagline:	A new powerful presentation of the most loved ghost story of all time!
Plot Outline:	An old miser who makes excuses for his uncaring nature learns real compassion when 3 ghosts visit him on Christmas Eve.
User Rating:	1,994 votes, average 7.6 out of 10
Runtime:	100 min
Awards:	Nominated for Primetime Emmy.
Cast:	...
Others:	Additional Details Close Move Title Content MPAA: County: UK / USA Language: English Color: Color Aspect Ratio: 1.33 : 1 Sound: Dolby Company: Entertainment Partners Ltd. Certification: UK:U IMDBTag: Powered by IMDBTag & imdb.com Sound Mix, Aspect Ratio ...
Photos:	N/A
	Powered by IMDBTag

Monday is the big conclusion of the year-long observance of Bedford County’s 200th birthday. I’m a member of the Bicentennial Organizing Committee.

Today, we had our next-to-last event: a two-hour “Christmas on the Square” climaxing with the first-ever lighting of a newly-planted courthouse Christmas tree.

The newspaper sponsored photos with Santa in the courthouse, and when I was looking around inside Santa, who knows me, invited me to sit on his lap.

Whenever Jimmy Jones gives me the photo, some time next week, I will post it here.

Meanwhile, living alone and not entertaining, it’s been a few years since I replaced my last little artificial tree. I found a dirt-cheap tree with fiber-optic lights among the branches today at Dollar General Market, and I put it up tonight. It’s not much, but it makes things feel a little more like Christmas.