Links and Christmas Stuff

I don’t know about you, but I’m a fan of Christmas. A veritable Christmasphile. The lights, decorations, music, smells–even the cold weather. Clearly a big part of what I like about Christmas is what we, as Christians, are celebrating: the Incarnation, God becoming flesh and dwelling among us. To a lesser extent as well, however, it’s memories of the season from my childhood in England. School lessons replaced with parties and fun activities, Christmas specials on television, school holidays, the decorations in the house, and our artificial tree with white, silver, and blue tinsel for pine needles. Dad would set the tree up and string the lights, then my older brother and I would decorate it. Mum might even hang chocolate decorations that we could eat over the course of the season.

This year is our first Christmas in our new house, and my FirstBorn has done an outstanding job of decorating. We have stockings on the mantel, lights outside, and our frasier fir Christmas tree is adorned with all the lights, glitter, and sparkle you would expect. We even have the traditional cat under the tree:

OK, so Sam just wanted to get in on the act. 🙂

It’s traditional for stores at Christmas to give opportunity for their younger patrons to visit with Santa. As you’re probably aware, however, “Santa” has a rather sinister anagram. This fact is often used in jest, and sometimes it leads to unfortunate typos. This Dillard’s ad has been doing the social media rounds. I don’t know if it’s genuine, but it gave us some giggles:

It was reported a few weeks ago that Greg Lake, singer and guitarist with King Crimson and, most notably, Emerson Lake and Palmer, had died. He was 69 and had been battling cancer. I don’t know much ELP, but there is one song for which I’ll always remember Greg Lake: his 1975 classic “I Believe in Father Christmas.” By way of both commemorating Greg’s passing, and marking the season, here is the video to that song. I have matched it with the original UK single version, which I don’t hear much on US radio. The version more commonly played here is pretty bare-bones, without the choir and orchestra.

Happy Christmas, everyone!