Days Until Christmas

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Advent Calendars

The anticipation of Advent is often more fun than the reality of Christmas morning. Advent calendars are a great way to get the anticipation started.

Leslie Harpold focuses on her memories of Christmas. Each day has a memory, a link, and a recipe, poem or animation. This is my favorite of the calendars I've found so far. Last year she asked readers to contribute; here's mine. Leslie Harpold passed away the weekend of Dec. 9 and 10th, 2006. Take a look at her fantastic calendars while the domain remains active. She was an amazingly talented woman.

Penelope Schenk's Advent calendars are geared towards younger children, but are enticing enough for grown-ups.

Yes, all those one-use web sites are really simplistic, but they can be very clever in a very simple way. If you spend most of your time inside or in the car, do you really need to know more than whether to carry an umbrella? Here's one to answer the question "Is it Christmas?"

Christina Preuss's quotes of German philosophers

Büchelberg's Christmas window displays ...

... and Neuenhof's window displays

Paper calendar from Design*Sponge. Simple, easy-to-find materials.

Starting with a calendar on empty thread spools, send someone on a treasure hunt!

Cute and clever: a calendar from gum packs.

Recycle bin Advent calendar, or all you need is a glue gun, some markers and an overflowing recycle bin — and who doesn't have an overflowing recycle bin?

Games and Toys on Line

With global warming, there's less and less chance of a White Christmas each year. Why not make your own snow? No mess, no fuss, no cleanup!

Even without a white Christmas, you can still build a snowman. And you won't get cold and wet, but can still enjoy some hot cocoa.

This gingerbread house is all the fun of decoration your own house, without the mess or calories. Years ago I'd hoped I could get my Flash and design skills up to this, but this would be hard to beat!

Normally, Flash games skate right on by my awareness. This year, I set out to find some really cute, not-too-challenging, fun, wintry games. What better than a game that combines the fun of ice skating with the danger of hot cocoa? Challenging, but you can always reward yourself with some hot cocoa.

It might look like a word game to you, but it's actually helping to feed starving children. I'm up to level 47 and have donated 1,840 grains of rice as of yesterday night. As my husband said (well after we should have been in bed) "Stop! The people who read dictionaries must stop! They found my weakness." But first, I just want to get to 2,000 grains...

I'm more of a smoker woman myself, but it's amazing what you can do with a nutcracker on the web these days.

How-tos

These cards from Evil Mad Scientist Labs are the last word in geeky. When Flash animations are a dime a dozen, it's the hardware nerd who really shines.

Geeks will want to control their lights with a programmable logic controller. Christmas brings out the kid in geeks!

Tired of mailing pictures of the kids? Tired of mailing pictures of the cat with the caption "no kids yet"? You can still make your own Christmas cards in Photoshop (or the Gimp). These also look like great tutorials for anyone who misses Aldus Freehand and Adobe Illustrator.

Everyone has a digital camera now. And they all seem to have more features than you can use, but the pictures are just as good (or bad) as the ones you took years ago. But, if you know what you are doing, you can take a good Christmas photo, even of something tricky, like Christmas lights.

We holiday-obsessed geeks get unnaturally excited when we can decorate our electronics. In addition to the backgrounds, screen savers and desktop widgets, Firefox can be decorated for the holidays. Be in the Christmas spirit even while browsing www.ScroogeAndMarley.com!

Nothing says Christmas like making paper ornaments and trees. Cannon has hundreds of free three-dimensional designs to print, cut and paste together, from the simple to the intricate. Pop-up book artist Robert Sabuda offers a couple dozen designs for do-it-yourself pop-up cards.

I found this flash animation on a games site, but it's more of a turkey tutorial. Thankfully, it takes less time to view than it will to defrost and roast the bird.

Crafts

This craft is particularly timely, as the news reminds us every day that it is cold and flu season, and have we washed our hands yet? These little glycerin soaps made in an ice cube tray will make the job less onerous — and us less odorous.

Zakka Life has been in my blog rotation for over a year. She posts recipes, decorating ideas and crafts so simple even I could do them. If the crafts aren't thrilling enough, check out her recipes, which are often of Japanese home-style food that can be made in America.

If you live in a cold enough climate — and as I write this winter finally arrived in Philadelphia, you can make wreathes of ice with some Christmas greenery, a tube pan, a strong ribbon and freezing outdoor temperatures.

I love crafting, but have even less time to craft than I do to clean. This is the craft for me, candy canes from a sheet of paper. The other needed supply is a red marker.

Make your own Advent calendar!

Charities

Child's Play is a charity started by two geeks to provide games to children's hospitals. It was started to show that gamers are not the anti-social slackers so often portrayed in the media.

It might look like a word game to you, but it's actually helping to feed starving children. I'm up to level 47 and have donated 1,840 grains of rice as of yesterday night. As my husband said (well after we should have been in bed) "Stop! The people who read dictionaries must stop! They found my weakness." But first, I just want to get to 2,000 grains...

Tales of the Season

Everyone has produced a holiday special, yet lists of top holiday specials still feauter the same core: Charlie Brown, Rudolf, Santa, Frosty. That's because most of them are pretty awful. More interesting is a list of 10 of the last successful specials.

I'm old enough to remember seeing Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing their Christmas duet when it first aired on Crosby's Christmas special. My father loved Crosby and his generation of crooners and we must have watched Crosby's special every year, but I remember nothing else from them. I searched for the song desperately for years. Of course, after I found it on a lone album, it was on every compilation the next year.

It was like this for me returning to my mother's, too.

The Independent of London asked a handful of British authors to write their memories of the holidays.

Not surprisingly for a centuries-old holiday, many superstitions have cropped up around Christmas. Snopes is there to debunk them all! One story that is not a superstition is the Christmas truce of World War I.

Learn the secrets of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer! Always suspected that the version shown today was a bit shorter than what you remember from childhood? Wondered at the effect of the special on Burl Ive's career? Now you can find out.

In Germany, the Christkind comes on Christmas Eve to leave a present for children. On December 6, Saint Nicholas comes to fill the shoes of good children with nuts, fruits and candy. The half-year I lived with my godfather and his wife, I put out a size-ten boot!

Some backstory of A Charlie Brown Christmas. I do so miss waiting all year for those specials. It's not special if it runs every night in December!

Cats Fei: A Cheesemas Tale. Available only through the Wayback Machine

A variant on "Yes Virginia," for the Microsoft supporters.

Mimi Hiller pays homage to her grandmother and the joy of family traditions as she converts her Bubbe's recipes from "handfuls" to "cups." Having worked with many of my own grandmother's recipes, I tell you this is not an easy job.

Some offices underdo the decorations, and some overdo it.

More for the adults, Suck satirizes Suess.

History & Traditions

If you've read Grimm's fairy tales, you know that German culture of centuries past has a wide mean streak. In the tales the world is cruel, but the wicked are eventually horrifically punished. Disney did a lot of whitewashing. Of course, there couldn't be a man to bring gifts to all the good girls and boys, without there being some creature to punish the naughty. That creature is Krampus, a rather horrifying, goat-like figure, who still prowls early Christmas festivities in southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

Let's put the Zhu Zhu in perspective: we all remember these toys, but how many are still must-haves? Many have become classics, but there's a demarcation line somewhere in the 80s: while the customers became more desperate, the toys became less worthwhile.

America is so big, that we often forget we can find other countries and cultures without crossing an ocean.

The song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", first sung by Judy Garland and made famous by Frank Sinatra, is a bittersweet little song that ends on a note of hope.

I'm the first to admit that my Christmas- and food-obsession has been a bit one-sided, concentrating on the German-speaking cultures. However, Mexico's Radish Night tradition (December 23) recently came across my radar. Now that's playing with your food.

Christmas in Armenia is celebrated in January, like many other branches of Christianity. This page says that January 6 is actually the older, traditional date of celebrating Christ's birth.

A quick look at Christmastime in Germay, including popular foods, traditions and the all-important Christmas markets.

Christmas in wartime describes holiday baking in England during World War II.

Scotland has an unusual Christmas tradition: until recently, it was ignored. Instead, the New Year was the main winter celebration until recently when Christmas was once again celebrated in Scotland.

The German Christmas markets are one of my favorite traditions: Glühwein! toys! decorations! All outside in the crisp winter air.

A timeline of food history, from water through tear-free onions.

Even more resources are available from Food History News on line and through their newsletter. The also offer an extensive, searchable directory of food history museums world-wide. The German Bread Museum is one of my fondest memories from Ulm, Germany.

Richard Sellmer Verlag, one of the first calendar publishers, offers a history of printed advent calendars and museum. I'm still looking for the calendar I had as a child -- a scene of baking and domestic harmony, of course!

Bill Nelson has a passion for antique electric Christmas lights. His site, showcasing his personal collection, explores the history of this Christmas tradition. My father had the Disney light set featured here, and he nearly set fire to the house with bubble lights like these. (They get very hot when left on all night.)

Solstice Origins

How Christmas Works [Commercial]

White Christmas predictions from STORMFAX [Commercial]

Santa Claus Through the Ages, where you will also find a varied dozen of holiday recipes.

Miscellaneous Good Stuff

I am a Doctor Who geek, both old series and new series. I have a favorite Doctor (Pertwee) and three favorite companion (Liz Shore, Sarah Jane Smith and Turlough), but not a favorite villain, unlike some fans.

After two months of the same one hundred songs on the radio, everyone is ready for a break. The fine folks at MetaFilter have a couple suggestions for holiday music.

Smashing magazine's Winter Wonderland photography feature from 2008.

By now you have you tree, or will be getting one soon. If you've bought a live (not cut) tree, you need to know how to care for it.

When I asked all my hip, music-loving friends for recommendations for the next big song, a.j., a former WKDU DJ, recommended WOXY's holiday feed. If a punk, post-punk, indie or any other altie-flavor band recorded a Christmas song, you'll find it here, along with Frank and Ella. Best of all, if you like it, you can buy it from that page! Sure, there are some real clunkers, but that's what the mute button is for. (There's an iTunes feature: mute until this song is over.)

Our cat was sedentary enough by the time we put up our first tree, she had no interest in investigating it. To be honest, as a rescued barn cat, she was convinced that any expenditure of energy would result in immediate starvation. Not like these cats, who should really cut back on the 'nip. Notice that the grey cats match the blue and silver tree decorations.

Absolutely crackers I cannot improve on that pun.

The National Museum of American History has Julia Child's kitchen as an exhibit. Watching The French Chef with my mother (along with The Electric Company and Sesame Street) is one of my earliest and happiest memories. The exhibit is also on-line at NMAH | What's Cooking.

Check out the CPI -- Christmas Price Index -- as calculated by PNC bank.

My favorite baking and cooking sites.

The Cygnus Tree was one of the best sites, but is no more.

Cecil Adams (of the Straight Dope) finally settles the Santa question, explains that X-mas thing, talks about Christmas nostalgia, peers back into the mists of time for the origin of gingerbread, weighs in on the wise men, and tells the tale of spices and the islands named for them.

Next to baking, shopping for and even looking at new cookware, bakeware and utensils is one of my favorite things. I am not alone in this obsession. And now we know where they come from.

New for 2010!