Tag Archives: Holiday

Halloween Apartment Ambiance – TV Pumpkins

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I just discovered the Halloween version of those holiday yule log videos!

Cozy Cottage is one of many YouTube channels that offer Halloween themed ambiance videos. As you can see from the photo above, this does a great job of turning my living room centerpiece (the TV) into an effective Halloween background ambiance machine – lightly spooky music included.

For something with general background music (mostly elevator style Jazz and the ambiance instrumentals generally played at local coffee shops) then check out Coffee Shop Ambiance, which has a long list of coffee shop inspired backgrounds for every season of the year, including a Halloween themed shop filled with jack-o-lanterns (above).

Over at Martia’s Muses, there’s a lovely ‘green witches’ house‘ (See above). I’m not sure why it’s called a ‘witches’ house. It’s just an old-fashioned kitchen filled with pumpkins, apples, and other cooking supplies – not even jack-o-lanterns. This image is accompanied by outdoor rain (or is it a fireplace?) and forest sounds mixed with a little music. Once again, the channel has a long list of seasons and scenery to choose from.

For just a fireplace with a crackling fire (no music or outdoor noise) then go to Rainy (above) or Escape Ambience.

Side note: I love this fireplace image. However, I grew up with a fireplace that my family used very regularly, so I have to be careful to refrain from thinking about what I’m looking at. Anyone experienced with fire will immediately note that everything about this image just screams FLAMMABLE and fire OUTSIDE the fireplace and DANGER! In the real world, I would never allow this to happen. Yet, it’s very pretty and cozy and seasonal and not real; so, I will use it until the thinking part of my brain can stand it no longer.

After looking through all of those channels, YouTube starts generating suggestions for similar channels with the same service – background music/sounds with holiday and seasonal scenery. I honestly did not know there were so many! It makes sense that this niche exists, it’s just not something I ever went looking for on YouTube before.

Personally, I tend to you the regular streaming services, like Netflix, for a yule log video during the holidays. If you’d rather use Netflix, then I recommend the Witcher fireplace. It’s not specifically designed for Halloween, but it works.

Holiday Season Tree – Halloween

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Last year I decided to try decorating the Christmas tree for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and New Years. It may sound odd, but it works extremely well. Here are a few arguments for pulling out the tree on October 1st and changing up the decorations on the day after each holiday.

  1. Artificial trees are expensive. Even the cheap ones are $100+. I’ve seen some listings for close to $1000 and I’m sure there are more expensive options out there. If I’m going to spend the same amount of money (or more) that I spent on my new couch for a holiday decoration, then it only makes sense to find ways to use it more often. Why let it collect dust in storage for 11 out of every 12 months?
  2. Options for decorating an apartment. As an apartment dweller, the amount of space I have to decorate during the holidays is minimal. All apartments have rules and limitations on what can/not be done to their walls and in the area just outside your front door. In addition to that, general space in an apartment tends to be limited. Finding a spot for the tree is a challenge, but it’s less of a challenge than trying to find places for statues, Knick knacks, wall hangings, etc. Most people have a spot where the Christmas tree is set up every year, so taking that space and putting that same tree in that designated spot is reasonably easy. Plus, there’s always under the tree! In the photos below, you’ll see how things that can’t be placed on the tree, can be placed under it, and the whole thing works visually while remaining contained in a manageably small(ish) area.
  3. Storage: Ornaments are small and tree lights and other decorations don’t take up much space. That, combined with the tree that is already taking up storage space, is a lot easier to coordinate than a misc. collection of holiday specific decorations.
  4. Themes: Ornaments are available in every possible style and theme. It’s easy to find characters from movies, old cartoons, TV shows, legends and myths – practically anything you can think of has been turned into an ornament by someone, somewhere. I’ve started keeping track of the things that I address/represent during each distinct holiday. Since the theme changes each month, beginning October 1st and ending the first week of January, that provides plenty of room for growing a meaningful (to me) collection of ornaments based on each holiday’s theme. As time goes on, I have the ability to change those themes by changing a few ornaments – while keeping the space taken up in my storage area to a minimum.

For an example, here is this year’s Halloween tree. It’s heavily focused on Halloween themed shows that I like, costumes, trick or treating, dragons, and transformations. Last year I covered the entire thing in little plastic monarch butterflies, but they were a bit transparent, and the colors weren’t bright enough, so they just blended into the tree. Now I have a few brightly colored ornaments that represent butterflies, moths, and bees, which works.

In the future, I intend to add homage to the Salem witch trials and witch burnings in general.

I really like the way ancestors are honored during the Mexican Day of the Dead holiday, but I have not figured out how to transform that general concept into my heritage and traditions. Someday I will, most likely, start adding ornaments that honor people on my genealogical family tree.

Homeless Holidays

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I hated holidays in shelters. The shelter atmosphere always seemed to drain every ounce of holiday spirit from me. Every holiday, we had to sit in a room full of strangers and put on fake smiles pretending to be happy. Thanksgiving had rolled around and the only thing I was thankful for was my mother was still alive. I was thankful for my legs too.

The good thing about Thanksgiving is food is usually more abundant. Not in our current shelter, though. We had to travel down to another sister shelter nearby along with other homeless families, stand outside like a herd of sheep, and wait for them to let us in as everybody drove past and stared at us. Standing there wasn’t ideal, but we didn’t have another choice.

–My Way Home: Growing Up Homeless in America by Michael Gaulden

From the preface:

This memoir covers the latter part of my homeless journey, ranging from age fourteen to seventeen, predominately my high school years. The horror of my homelessness is what I call it. Allow me to take you down my path and to walk in my footsteps along my own hellacious underground railroad. If you are reading this in the midst of your own overwhelmingly challenging journey, it is you for whom I write….It is you whom I urge not to quit. I know your pain and through my pain, I wish to give you strength. For everyone else reading this, please understand my story is only one of millions of other homeless people.

Orphaned Misfit Holiday

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Back at the apartment, Roxy was hanging up our stockings and making invitations to our annual Christmas Eve dinner party for friends who don’t visit family for the holidays. She’d rented a deep fryer and Guitar Hero, and had a Charlie Brown tree in every room. The holiday season fuelled Roxy, filled her with kindness for all the local orphaned twenty-something misfits. I just wished the holiday was over. In January, I can start over, I thought, along with everyone else.

–Holding Still For As Long As Possible by Zoe Whittall

This novel won the Lambda Literary Award: Transgender. A review can be seen HERE. More award winners can be found on the Amazon.com  Lambda Literary Award: Transgender listing.

Book Review: Letters from Santa and the Ice Bear

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JRR Tolkien took Christmas pretty seriously. He took the time to write complete letters to his children in the name of Santa. He even created a strange, spindly and unfamiliar (to his family) form of handwriting, so the children wouldn’t know they came from dad.

There’s also a collection of fun personalities that live with Santa, including the Polar Bear, who is both hapless and mischievous:

“Still [Polar Bear] is all right now—I know because he has been at his tricks again: quarreling with the Snowman (my gardener) and pushing him through the roof of his snow house; and packing lumps of ice instead of presents in naughty children’s parcels. That might be a good idea, only he never told me and some of them (with ice) were put in warm storerooms and melted all over good children’s presents!”

And very pleasant neighbors:

“The Man in the Moon paid me a visit the other day—a fortnight ago exactly—he often does about this time, as he gets lonely in the Moon, and we make him a nice little Plum Pudding (he is so fond of things with plums in!).”

In several others, the North Pole is attacked by goblins who actually wage war on the Christmas castle, but find all of Santa’s helpers are far better versed in combat than one might assume – particularly the bear. The goblin wars are exciting, but they are an unusual (and vaguely violent) perspective on Father Christmas, which made them feel a bit odd at points. If you’ve read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, than these stories will sound very familiar.

“I had to blow my golden trumpet (which I have not done for many years) to summon all my friends. There were several battles—every night they used to attack and set fire in the stores—before we got the upper hand, and I am afraid quite a lot of my dear elves got hurt…They have rescued all my reindeer. We are quite happy and settled again now, and feel much safer. It really will be centuries before we get another goblin-trouble. Thanks to Polar Bear and the gnomes, there can’t be very many left at all”

The dates on the letters range from 1920 to 1943, so Santa’s struggles with WWII are detailed in several.

“I am so glad you did not forget to write to me again this year. The number of children who keep up with me seems to be getting smaller: I expect it is because of this horrible war, and that when it is over things will improve again, and I shall be as busy as ever. But at present so terribly many people have lost their homes: or have left them; half the world seems in the wrong place.”

From both a historical and biographical perspective, this portion of the letters are fascinating – to an adult. I attempted to explain the historic significance of those dates to the children in my life and they just stared at me with blank confusion.

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My only complaint about the hardcover version  centers on the illustrations. Tolkien included several pictures, illustrating the North Pole and the antics of the Ice Bear. The hard cover edition provides glossy, full-color reproductions of the handwritten letters and all illustrations, but the size of the book is slightly large than a pocket novel (about the size of an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper folded in half), so these reproductions are hard to see.

What I wish they had done was a large format, full color, 3-D version similar to the Ologies books, such as Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons (Ologies) by Dr. Ernest Drake (Author), Dugald A. Steer (Editor).

This super-fancy format would provide ample room for showing off the letters and illustrations, including little envelopes with copies of the letters included. The Dragonalogy book’s secret pockets with letters in both English and in runes are fascinating to children and just-plain-fun for us stodgy-old-adults.

There are many more quotes from this book already posted to this blog, including those mentioned above.

Book reviewed: Letters From Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien

Book Review: Snowballs Make the Best Gifts

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Most holiday-season picture books focus on Santa Claus and the joy of giving, or receiving gifts. It’s a heart-warming experience wrapped up in a neat little box covered in pretty paper and a bow.

The best thing about this book is the way Santa Claus delivers the best possible gift to  Yukio, the main character – an EPIC snowball fight! It’s not a toy or clothes or even a much-needed tool or box of supplies, it’s an activity!

The children in my life simply loved the snowball fight between a village of ninjas (and their ninja children) and a mysterious red-suited samurai who turns out to be the jolly-old-man himself. The best part? Santa reveals his identity through a letter left for Yukio, under the tree:

Dear Yukio,
I hope you enjoyed the EPIC snowball fight. I made it just for you.
Sincerely,
Samurai Santa

The story is fun, well-told and full of action and adventure. There’s a happy ending and an entire community of kids who enjoy the best snowball fight of their entire lives! So, in that respect, it’s an excellent book to read during the holidays – just for fun.

However, the book also opens up the concept of gift giving as an action instead of a thing. Sometimes the best presents don’t have wrapping paper or boxes or a place under the tree. Sometimes they are the time we spend with each other.

It’s an all-around excellent story.

–Samurai Santa, A Very Ninja Christmas, by Rubin Pingk

Holiday Book Review: Life of Santa

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This has got to be one of the best holiday season biographies I’ve ever read. Actually, it may be the only holiday-season biography I’ve ever read, since most biographies do not frame their life experiences within the context of a single holiday.

Sal Lizard is a man who spends a significant portion of his life, rear round, playing scheduled and impromptu Santa Clause performances and he is considered one of the best Santa Clause performers in the United States. His body shape and beard are real. The he actually looks so similar to Santa Clause in his regular everyday life that he frequently walks into large toys stores, to take a look around and to familiarize himself with the names and titles of anything new to the toy market, and children will start running up to him with a toy in hand, excitedly informing him that “THIS is want I want this year!”

This biography is filled with stories and anecdotes that include his introduction to the world of Santa Clause performance, many experiences interacting with people while in character and the way playing Santa Claus changed his perspective on life and the way he behaves day-to-day.

An excellent illustration of the way being Santa Claus changed his everyday life was the story of the young single mother who was to poor to buy her child a Christmas gift or a Christmas tree. She’d simply resigned herself to working through the holiday season (she was a food service worker) and not participating in the celebration. There would be no Christmas. Sal decides to help her out directly (he finds gifts for her daughter – mostly used but in excellent condition) and works with some friends to secretly deliver a tree to her front door. While those gestures are wonderful, the funny part is the fact that things just worked out that he knew this woman through his work and he changed jobs immediately after delivering the tree. So, from the woman’s perspective, this kind stranger who just happened to look exactly like Santa Clause hands her a bag full of gifts, delivers a tree to her door (in a locked building) while she is at work, and then vanishes off the face of the earth. When the woman called the company Sal had been working for, to thank him for his generosity, his former employers played along and told her the truth: He left and never came back. (shrug) Can’t tell you where he went, he was only here a few weeks.

My retelling of this story does not do it justice. It actually made me laugh out loud while getting all holiday-season warm and fuzzy inside. Correction, the entire book  achieved those goals. It’s a good-feeling biography that is simply filled with wonderful holiday-season inspired moments that encompass everything from laughter to tears.

If you are looking for a good book to read this holiday season, look no further than Being Santa Claus. It’s simply wonderful!

Quotes from this book can be seen HERE.

–Being Santa Claus: What I Learned about the True Meaning of Christmas by Sal Lizard, Jonathan P. Lane

Children Are Important

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“Every child is special, every child is important, and every child deserves our respect. No child’s opinions or ideas should ever be stifled or ignored. Because ultimately, as Santa knows, the smallest among us can sometimes make the biggest difference.”

–Being Santa Claus: What I Learned about the True Meaning of Christmas by Sal Lizard, Jonathan P. Lane

The Allure of Santa Claus

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“I think that for both children and parents, Santa Claus represents a welcome distraction from the harsher realities of life that many of us have to deal with. Children can tell Santa Claus their hopes and dreams the same way they might wish upon a star. And most parents wouldn’t ever want to dash those dreams or put limits on their children’s innocent optimism. Even in tough economic times—perhaps especially then—Christmas and Santa Claus represent a shining ray of hope. Sure, Santa might not give a child everything he or she wants, and honestly, I don’t think that many children truly expect that. To their little minds, though, it can’t hurt to at least ask, right?”

–Being Santa Claus: What I Learned about the True Meaning of Christmas by Sal Lizard, Jonathan P. Lane

Santa’s Lists Have Power!

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“Santa’s lists of naughty and nice may be the stuff of legend, but from what I’ve seen, when Santa Claus is around, nobody wants to take any chances.”

–Being Santa Claus: What I Learned about the True Meaning of Christmas by Sal Lizard, Jonathan P. Lane