Erlene requested this, wanted to be sure we didn’t leave it out–The First Noel, sung by the Kings College Choir at Cambridge, England. “Born is the King of Israel…” And He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Month: December 2018
Doggy Merriment
Yet another cold, grey, rainy day around here… Ah, to be a dog in snow! Don’t you find their merriment infectious? Dig the creative way one dog finds to get down a flight of chilly, icy stairs. Not to mention the dog who volunteers to shovel the walk.
Special: ‘Deck the Halls’ with Christmas Lyrics
http://lnwhymns.com/HymnTunes.aspx?ID=121
I couldn’t find video of this, so to hear it, you’ll have to open the link and click the Play button.
Deck the Halls is an old Welsh New Year’s carol, but the version above is called The Lord Has Come and has Christmas lyrics instead. It’s less than two minutes long, but worth it.
If anybody out there knows where to find a video presentation, I’m all ears.
100,000 on the Year–Is That Possible?
So far this year, this blog has 88,000 views with one month left to go. So if we can get 12,000 views in December, we’ll have 100,000 for the year.
Is that even possible? I mean, the record for a month is 10,000, set this September. Had to do some pretty high steppin’ to accomplish that!
Well, there’s nothing much more that I can think of doing, at my end, to up the viewership. For anything I might achieve, I give God the glory. May our work here be profitable to His Kingdom.
By Request, ‘There’s a New Kid in Town’
This request comes from Susan: There’s a New Kid in Town, by Alan Jackson. Mellow–very mellow.
By Request, ‘For Unto Us a Child is Born’
Requested by Joshua, For Unto Us a Child is Born: part of Handel’s Messiah, sung a capella by GLAD.
By Request, ‘Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming’
Requested by Jan, Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming–a German carol from the 16th century. It’s one of those melodies that many of us know, without remembering where it came from. Hauntingly lovely.
So Where’s the Christmas Candy?!?
Grrr…! Lemme get this off my chest.
I love seasonal candies. I love Christmas candy. So today I went out to Walgreen’s to get some. Several traffic jams and detours later, I arrive to discover that there is no Christmas candy for sale at Walgreen’s this year. There is only chocolate. You know–like anybody can get, every single day of the year.
Oh! But it’s got special Christmas wrapping! I do resent being taken for that big a butterball.
I complained to the store manager. “Look! It’s only chocolate. It doesn’t matter what color wrapping it has! There’s nothing seasonal about it. ”
“But they only stock us with what everybody is buying,” was his comeback. Could it possibly be that people are buying chocolate because there is nothing but chocolate to buy? That seems not to have occurred to him.
Then I drove home through the traffic jams amid the wilderness of McMansions that used to be some rather lovely country, until Democrats got hold of it.
Gary Hart, Revisited
Still a lefty, after all these years…
You probably would have forgotten all about one-time presidential wannabe Gary Hart–if Hollywood hadn’t come along just now with a new movie about what a tragedy it was that this liberal Democrat schlemozzle never got to be president.
I don’t expect to be watching that movie, ever, but the publicity for it made me remember that back in 2005 I reviewed one of Senator Gary Hart’s books. It was only 80-some pages long, but it seemed much longer.
If you remember this guy at all, I’ll bet you remember him sitting with playgirl Donna Rice on his lap, aboard the good ship Monkey Business. Accused of adultery, he challenged reporters, “Catch me if you can!” So they did. Quite quickly. Adios, presidential aspirations.
Hart, sleazy liberal senator from Colorado, introduces himself, in his book, as “statesman, scholar, attorney, writer.” He brags about his humility. (“Ya know, I’ll bet I’m the humblest guy in this country…”) Well, he’s got a lot to be humble about.
From what I’ve read of the movie, the noozies are the bad guys for derailing the Gary Hart Express in 1988. Apparently they hadn’t yet figured out, back then, that they’re only supposed to go gunning for Republicans. That has since been rectified. Today, every “journalist” understands that.
Anyhow, you can read my review of Hart’s book instead of going to the movie.
It’s a lot cheaper, and won’t give you bad dreams about the money you had to spend on popcorn.
The Littlest Mammoth
Mr. Nature here–with a prehistoric animal that lasted into historic times: the pygmy mammoth of Wrangel Island. It was still alive when the Egyptians were building the pyramids.
In all respects except size it was a regular woolly mammoth. Wrangel Island is in the Arctic Ocean, just off Siberia. Today it’s frozen. But a few thousand years ago, mammoths lived there. The ground today is littered with tusks and bones.
Islands are funny. Some animals that are small on the mainland grow very large if they’re on an island for many generations. And some that are large on the mainland grow small if they’re confined to an island. Hence the pygmy elephants and hippos, and giant dormice, of various Mediterranean islands.
Think of a mammoth the size of a pony. And marvel at the work of God’s hands.