Hot Cocoa Kind of Day...

Have Yourself a Soggy Little Christmas

December 2015 has been moderate, weather-wise. No bitterly cold temperatures, and very little precipitation. We're having some precipitation today, though...

View from my patio, 8:45 this morning.

According to the National Weather Service, there is some chance that the rain will turn to snow later this afternoon, and they're now saying there's a 50 percent chance of snow tomorrow morning, although it is not projected to amount to much (less than an inch, and it will melt off by day's end).

Barring a Christmas miracle, there will be no White Christmas in my neck of the woods this year. I can live with that...

"So you're saying our annual Christmas Eve snowball fight is canceled?"

Looks that way, old friend...

Christmas Movies & TV Shows

It is less true now than it used to be, at least in Hollywood, but it is safe to say that almost every popular story will eventually be turned into a musical. Some stories are
so popular they spawn multiple musical versions. That has certainly been the case with Charles Dickens's classic A Christmas Carol, which has seen so many musical adaptations that it is difficult to keep track of them all.

Original 1970 "one sheet" poster

Shortly before Thanksgiving my senior year in high school (1970), Scrooge arrived on movie screens across the country. The consensus of opinion among the people
I hung out with was that the filmmakers were hoping to repeat the success of Oliver!, the 1968 movie musical based on Dickens's Oliver Twist that won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

With a screenplay and Oscar-nominated score by award-winning composer and playwright Leslie Bricusse, the film was one of the more faithful movie versions of the original story, and features a remarkable performance by 34-year-old Albert Finney as the title character. And while it may not have achieved quite the level of acclaim as Oliver!, it is generally regarded as the best musical version of the beloved story.

Among the film's many pleasures is a song called "I Hate People." For a humbug like me, that song is practically an anthem!

"You're not a 'humbug,' you're the most sentimental person I know."

It's not too late for me to put a lump of coal in your stocking...

Later Today

One of the things
I love most about World Market is that they have cool food and beverage stuff that you just can't find in any other store.

When I get around to making myself some hot chocolate later today, I'll be choosing one of these favorites from their collection...

"Are you going to get those little marshmallows to go on top?"

We'll see...

An Exaggeration, But Not By Much

From the indispensable comic strip Non Sequitur, by Wiley Miller, which you should read every day, as I do (even though Wiley is a squishy liberal).

Until Next Time...

My most favorite Christmas carols and hymns are the ones that moved me so deeply as a young boy that it was a struggle to sing them with my Catholic school classmates in choir without being overcome with emotion. One of the most difficult of these for me was always "O Holy Night."

Sheet music, 1947

It is a charming bit of irony that the Christmas poem upon which the song is based was written by an avowed French atheist, Placide Cappeau, to celebrate the renovation of a local church's organ in 1843. It was set to music by composer Adolphe Adam in 1847, and translated into English lyrics by John Sullivan Dwight in 1855.

Although there are any number of stirring individual performances of the song, my favorites are all choral versions, as they remind me of those happy days in Catholic school getting ready for the annual Christmas concert.



Today's send-off is a performance of the song by the Hillsdale College Choir that is as gorgeous visually as it is musically. Enjoy...