Christmas Countdown - 2008
- Thread starter Crown 84
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Holiday -- what a wonderful gift you four daughters are giving your mother today! And -- what a great night you will have tonight!! Aren't any of the sisters going with you tonight? Are you the most Christmassy one in the family?
You know it was weird. We had a fabulous October, weather-wise. One little skiff of snow -- a teaser, really -- back around the 12th and then it was just spectacular the rest of the way. Halloween morning dawned brilliantly as the tree in our front yard was simply on fire with color. Then, as the sun went down the winds picked up and those leaves came down on the trick or treaters. When it was completely dark it started to rain....and it hasn't let up since.
It was like the season changed just like that. The forecast for election day is rain changing to snow. Fall is much too brief.
It was like the season changed just like that. The forecast for election day is rain changing to snow. Fall is much too brief.
Jff - Yes!!!! Fall is much too brief!!! Hereby requesting long long falls. Ending with a sparkling, fluffy magical snowfall for everyone in the world on Christmas Eve.
<raising hand>
I have a question.....
As I'm reading, I'm into February now, I see people replying to someone named "Dom" yet I have yet to see posts from this mysterious "Dom".
Is he like an imaginary friend that I don't know about or have his posts been deleted or something???????
Or....am I just off my rocker! LOL
I have a question.....
As I'm reading, I'm into February now, I see people replying to someone named "Dom" yet I have yet to see posts from this mysterious "Dom".
Is he like an imaginary friend that I don't know about or have his posts been deleted or something???????
Or....am I just off my rocker! LOL
Oh you guys, I was so proud of my sisters today...we listened to Christmas music while cleaning at my parents & it wasn't even my idea!!!!! :wiggy: It was actually my 2nd oldest sisters idea...she is the biggest Christmas nut in the family, second only to ME!!! 
SparkleNana, my sisters all love Christmas, just not quite to the extent that I do. My sister who I mentioned above is close to loving Christmas as much as me, but some years she has the Christmas spirit more than others...this must be one of her "on" years!! Lol!! This sister is going to the Christmas Shoppe tonight, but she is going with her neighbor ladies. My Mom is going to go with me & we will meet her there! I told her I would help her spend her money! :grin: My other 2 sisters are busy tonight. I can't hardly wait!!
I have been wondering about Dom too. I looked for one of his old posts yesterday & they all seem to be gone & he's not on the member list anymore?!?!?!?!
SparkleNana, my sisters all love Christmas, just not quite to the extent that I do. My sister who I mentioned above is close to loving Christmas as much as me, but some years she has the Christmas spirit more than others...this must be one of her "on" years!! Lol!! This sister is going to the Christmas Shoppe tonight, but she is going with her neighbor ladies. My Mom is going to go with me & we will meet her there! I told her I would help her spend her money! :grin: My other 2 sisters are busy tonight. I can't hardly wait!!
I have been wondering about Dom too. I looked for one of his old posts yesterday & they all seem to be gone & he's not on the member list anymore?!?!?!?!
This reminds me of a news story from last winter:
When snow falls in Baghdad
The last sentence in the article is a reference to the James Joyce story "The Dead":
Wencenslaus -- what a beautiful post!
What in the world does it mean?
What in the world does it mean?
Well … you clicked through and read the article about the day last winter when it snowed in Baghdad, right? The last sentence of that article refers to the quotation from James Joyce.
If you're asking what that quotation from "The Dead" means, the short story (first published in 1914) is about a thirty-something Irishman who with his wife attends a festive dinner party with family and friends during Christmastime, perhaps a Twelfth Night feast on the eve of the Epiphany. Nothing that evening seems to happen as he expects it to, and several incidents leave him feeling shallow and pretentious. When preparing to leave the party, he sees his wife on the stairs, absorbed in thought, as a man sings a song in another room. He stares at her for a moment before he recognizes her as his wife.
Later that night, back at their hotel, he presses her for her thoughts. She tells him that she was thinking about a boy she once loved. Despite his being sick, when it came time for her to leave for convent school, he traveled through the rain to her window, and although he got to speak with her again, he ended up dying within the week. The husband has his own epiphany, realizing that this was probably the love of his wife's life. Once again, he begins to feel his own insignificance in the larger world of the living and the dead — which is how the story ends with that paragraph I quoted.
The snowfall can be interpreted several ways: simply God's healing grace; or with the snowfall's travel from the darkness to earth, a metaphor for how something out of the dim past can alight on us, as the wife's memories did; or with the description on how the snow falls the same whether over land or sea, hill or plain, a metaphor for the complete indifference of fate; or as the narrator says, our quiet journey from life (the heavens) to death (the earth). Regardless, it is one of the most haunting endings in literature.
Director John Huston's last movie was an adaptation of the story, starring his daughter Angelica Huston, with Donal McCann. The final scene.
If you're asking what that quotation from "The Dead" means, the short story (first published in 1914) is about a thirty-something Irishman who with his wife attends a festive dinner party with family and friends during Christmastime, perhaps a Twelfth Night feast on the eve of the Epiphany. Nothing that evening seems to happen as he expects it to, and several incidents leave him feeling shallow and pretentious. When preparing to leave the party, he sees his wife on the stairs, absorbed in thought, as a man sings a song in another room. He stares at her for a moment before he recognizes her as his wife.
Later that night, back at their hotel, he presses her for her thoughts. She tells him that she was thinking about a boy she once loved. Despite his being sick, when it came time for her to leave for convent school, he traveled through the rain to her window, and although he got to speak with her again, he ended up dying within the week. The husband has his own epiphany, realizing that this was probably the love of his wife's life. Once again, he begins to feel his own insignificance in the larger world of the living and the dead — which is how the story ends with that paragraph I quoted.
The snowfall can be interpreted several ways: simply God's healing grace; or with the snowfall's travel from the darkness to earth, a metaphor for how something out of the dim past can alight on us, as the wife's memories did; or with the description on how the snow falls the same whether over land or sea, hill or plain, a metaphor for the complete indifference of fate; or as the narrator says, our quiet journey from life (the heavens) to death (the earth). Regardless, it is one of the most haunting endings in literature.
Director John Huston's last movie was an adaptation of the story, starring his daughter Angelica Huston, with Donal McCann. The final scene.
Yes, sad but true, Dom and his posts are no longer with us. We wish him well.
I'm determined to read every post in this thread. I spent a very good portion of yesterday here. (I should have been finishing up my housework!)
Time to get ready for work, but I will be back this afternoon.
I think I'll skip w/i and a couple other things just to come here and read more on this thread! I will catch up, I will catch up, I will catch up......
Time to get ready for work, but I will be back this afternoon.
I think I'll skip w/i and a couple other things just to come here and read more on this thread! I will catch up, I will catch up, I will catch up......
Wenceslaus --- Wow! What an incredible post! Thank you so much for taking the time to explain. Boy, that evokes powerful emotions!
JayIsh
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Days to the Season: 10 (Incredible! Look how close we are to single digits!)
Days to Christmas Day: 52
Days to Thanksgiving Day: 24
Sorry for my lack of a post yesterday...The time got away from me and by the time I could have posted it was almost today...So I waited...I hope I have not disappointed our friend Crown by missing a day...
But look at that countdown??? When you think that we begin this on the first of January and that seems like such a short time ago!!! I'm looking forward to the minute by minute countdown that happens the night before the big day...Many of us meet in real time and countodwont he minutes until the arrival of the season...
Crown is off battening down the hatches and winterizing their cottage...another sure sign that Christmas is just a breath away!!!
Although Monday's are rarely my favorite day of the week, I hope everyone has a happy one!
Jay
Days to Christmas Day: 52
Days to Thanksgiving Day: 24
Sorry for my lack of a post yesterday...The time got away from me and by the time I could have posted it was almost today...So I waited...I hope I have not disappointed our friend Crown by missing a day...
But look at that countdown??? When you think that we begin this on the first of January and that seems like such a short time ago!!! I'm looking forward to the minute by minute countdown that happens the night before the big day...Many of us meet in real time and countodwont he minutes until the arrival of the season...
Crown is off battening down the hatches and winterizing their cottage...another sure sign that Christmas is just a breath away!!!
Although Monday's are rarely my favorite day of the week, I hope everyone has a happy one!
Jay
marvelous Monday Morning Everyone! Wow, 10 days till the season starts, anybody started listening, and I mean really listening to Christmas music yet?
The season truly is fast approaching, and in four weeks (the week of Thanksgiving) the rest of the world will catch up with us.
I must confess, I am not in full swing yet, and wont be till the results of the election come in......which dont necesseraly come in tommorrow, but when they do......Christmas here I come. That's the down side to being a political junkie, the season is somewhat put on hold.
Anyway, have a great day, listen to some Christmas music, tis almost the season!
The season truly is fast approaching, and in four weeks (the week of Thanksgiving) the rest of the world will catch up with us.
I must confess, I am not in full swing yet, and wont be till the results of the election come in......which dont necesseraly come in tommorrow, but when they do......Christmas here I come. That's the down side to being a political junkie, the season is somewhat put on hold.
Anyway, have a great day, listen to some Christmas music, tis almost the season!
Caseydbell - Me too! Me too! I am a political junkie too! Well, it is ONLY every four years. (Although this one lasted for two years - but who is counting? I know, everyone is counting!)
But tomorrow! Tomorrow! The exit interviews! The frantic calls from precincts which have run out of ballots? CNN has a nation-wide number for people to call to report problems. (8,000 calls so far.) CNN is urging people to take their videocameras to the polls to document problems.
One newscaster called it the greatest show on earth tomorrow. Apparently the whole world is watching this American election. Such exciting, charismatic figures. McCain, Obama, Pallin - Biden? (Well, maybe Biden is not charismatic - but he isn't chopped liver either. His foot-in-the-mouth events alone are riviteing!)
The 2000 election took - what? - a month to get the results? The 2004 took 24-hours. And THEY didn't run out of ballots and voting booths.
Obama is certainly very different from George Bush. if Obama is elected -- it is so fascinating that the same country could elect such different politicians, one after the other!
I will be watching as much as I can tomorrow!
But tomorrow! Tomorrow! The exit interviews! The frantic calls from precincts which have run out of ballots? CNN has a nation-wide number for people to call to report problems. (8,000 calls so far.) CNN is urging people to take their videocameras to the polls to document problems.
One newscaster called it the greatest show on earth tomorrow. Apparently the whole world is watching this American election. Such exciting, charismatic figures. McCain, Obama, Pallin - Biden? (Well, maybe Biden is not charismatic - but he isn't chopped liver either. His foot-in-the-mouth events alone are riviteing!)
The 2000 election took - what? - a month to get the results? The 2004 took 24-hours. And THEY didn't run out of ballots and voting booths.
Obama is certainly very different from George Bush. if Obama is elected -- it is so fascinating that the same country could elect such different politicians, one after the other!
I will be watching as much as I can tomorrow!
hello fellow mmc'ers!
i have been food shopping today and i couldn't resist hanging out in the christmas isle. i wanted all of the lovely chocolates and cakes they had to offer but i had to resist! come december i will be piling my shopping basket high!
to cheer myself up for not being able to buy all those christmas goodies, i bought some toffee muffins for me to eat with my coffee tomorrow morning cheesy
i have been food shopping today and i couldn't resist hanging out in the christmas isle. i wanted all of the lovely chocolates and cakes they had to offer but i had to resist! come december i will be piling my shopping basket high!
to cheer myself up for not being able to buy all those christmas goodies, i bought some toffee muffins for me to eat with my coffee tomorrow morning cheesy
Good afternoon Christmas gang!!! :hi:
I am so excited for this election to be over!! I like to be informed, but when it gets to this point in the race I've heard enough! If it's my choice, I'll have the food network on tomorrow here at work so I don't have to listen to it all day!! BUT my boss will probably have Fox News on (just like every other day) unless he has running to do! Fingers are crossed!! Lol! I'll just be praying for the best man to win...the one who is going to do what is best all the way around for our Country!!
I hope you all are having a great day!!
I am so excited for this election to be over!! I like to be informed, but when it gets to this point in the race I've heard enough! If it's my choice, I'll have the food network on tomorrow here at work so I don't have to listen to it all day!! BUT my boss will probably have Fox News on (just like every other day) unless he has running to do! Fingers are crossed!! Lol! I'll just be praying for the best man to win...the one who is going to do what is best all the way around for our Country!!
I hope you all are having a great day!!
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