What special thing do you associate with the Holidays?

Last night I was given an Deschutes Jubal Ale after my lab, then this morning I had a Gevalia Royal Winter Roast for breakfast (no Kippers tho)

It sort of made me think that most of these sorts of products are new, but reflect an "Old World" traditions of special products made for "The Season"
It seemed like until the late '80s most stuff was just the same product with special packaging.

What sort of thing, good or bad, reminds you of this time of year? TV specials? (That one movie with the kid with the glasses?) Parades? The smell of trees in the house? Yams? Spicy cookies, or products with pumpkins and Cinnamon?

As a child my Granny had tons of classy magazines (Atlantic and New Yorker...)and they had magnificent adds in them that made me feel like christmas was really happening in some big Eastern city, but not in the Mojave Desert, or Huntington Beach. Old saved magazines where the adds for COKE had illustrations of Santa, and it was the only colored thing in the National Geographic...THAT was what floated my boat. It just seemd so warm and sentimental.

what about you?

Honestly?

the only thing that comes to mind this morning is a holiday meal with all of effort and expense that went into it... going very well, everyone enjoying themselves... until my sister, as if on cue, ruins it by causing some sh*t. This year leaving my wife (who slaved for days making everything from scratch) in tears after said sister left. Same sister, every year. Ahhh memories.

Am i bitter? yes!

But it's nothing that mom's sugar cookies can't fix. Or Heat Miser. or Hollyridge Strings recording of Jingle Bell Rock because the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade has used that as it's theme song for as long as I can remember (it's track 9 on Christmas Cocktails Vol.1, if you care) I'm also a sucker for the original Leroy Anderson arrangement of his classic Sleigh Ride.

Most of all? the 1970 disco-matic tree-top star we have that I was lucky enough to get handed down to me.

-Z

On 2005-11-24 10:10, Gigantalope wrote:
What special thing do you associate with the Holidays?

BOOZE! :D

It's not holiday season for me until I smell baked gingerbread... there's just something about gingerbread cooking in an oven that trumps pumpkin pie for me every time.

Our family used to make gingerbread houses when all 6 of us were together at my grandmother's house. She had supplies for all the kids and anyone who wanted to participate. These days the original 6 kids now have a total of 14 kids of their own. It's not really a holiday until a Godzilla-esque extremely violent sneak attack befalls someone's almost completed gingerbread mansion. There are tears, accusations, and usually a dog running around with a ginger roof in its mouth. Several individuals are given a 'time-out', and then the kids give it a try.

We get christmas beetles around this time of year. To me, they always signal Christmas is just around the corner.

Christmas day means driving around all day in stupendous heat trying to keep all of the family happy. My standard christmas day for the last 5 years has consisted of 6 different family events in the one day. Acting merry, then drving to get to the next one. Act merry and repeat. No booze cause I am driving all day. This year, Boxing Day I am going to the drags - at least I got something to keep me going through the day. I dont mind the family thing, but 6 in the one day is too much.

What reminds me most of the Holiday season is the distinctive Baltimore phenomenon known as the train garden. The yearly tradition of creating a tiny village beneath the Christmas tree, complete with miniature plastic buildings and inhabitants, encircled by an electric railroad is something that I eagerly anticipate sometime in mid September! Sure to those outside of Maryland and Pennsylvania this phenomenon would be referred to as a model railroad, but unlike a model railroad a Christmas train garden is not concerned with maintaining authentic or consistent scales. It’s not unusual to see a person twice as large as the Hot Wheel cars on the improvised roadways… that’s what makes it fun. Local fire departments and malls spend 6-8 months erecting these displays, that are open to the public for small donations, and you can just go and marvel for hours. This year I’m totally psyched because my son is finally old enough to appreciate train gardens and I’ve already set aside two Saturday’s in December to go and spend some quality time together taking in these tiny worlds. Besides they are as much a holiday tradition in this part of the country as hanging stockings or singing Christmas Carols.

I'm already getting into the X-mas spirit every morning when I sip my fresh-brewed "Wintry Blend" coffee (from Trader Joes, laced with cloves, cinnamon and other spices); and the creamer I put in it is one of the new creamers in eggnog (for those of us too cheap to get a seasonal latte at starbucks every day) - the new creamers also come in gingerbread and pumpkin.

yay!

hot lookin'chicks in even hotter lookin' santa lingerie...

What I really miss is Dean Martin's Christmas Special. Jolly old Dean, nice and tight with an Old-Fashioned in his mitt, welcoming a guest like Nat "King" Cole, singing a jazzy "Jingle Bells" while a bunch of long-legged babes in sexy Santa suits dance in the background. That's what I miss.

I like the jack o' lanterns.

did I mention the hot chicks in sexy santa ensembles??

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Misfits!! Loved them then, love them now. Last year's Misfit Mantle:

Now that I've spent another Thanksgiving in Rhode Island, I'll always associate the holidays with Nibbles the Giant Termite disguised as Rudolph:

all my family being drunk and asking me to play the guitars...

Putting on "Nightmare Before Christmas" dvd on.

TBird.

... watching the evening news playback tape of burger-bloated, double-wide spastic shoppers beating the crap out of each other to get half priced george foreman grills and shitty tv's at the local "sprawl"mart... geez, that's enough to keep the "christ" in christmas... xmas rules...

... happy holidaze...

On 2005-12-01 17:24, Tipsy McStagger wrote:
did I mention the hot chicks in sexy santa ensembles??

Martha Stuart towells at K-Mart ROCK!!! thick and cheap!!

SCROOGE! (especially the 1951 Alastair Sim version)

Sports Night. Yes, Sports Night. It's become an integral part of my bizarre, single girl holiday tradition. My brother gave me the DVDs a few years ago for my birthday, and I watched them a few weeks later while decorating the house for Christmas. A tradition was born. It's just not Christmas for me without all 45 episodes Sports Night. Quo vadimus.

My drunk father tossing our Xmas tree out the front door and down the steps because he felt that we were ungateful sons on b**ches.

GOOD TIMES

Be careful... the tikies are watching

[ Edited by: MTKahuna 2005-12-13 16:24 ]