Christmas Countdown - 2008

[Holiday]

:hi: I hope you all had a good Friday!!! Just wanted to pop in & say "hey!" :smile:

 

[BooksNChristmas]

Merry Everything, Miller 4,
Where is the Christmas Village? What's the scoop on it? Thanks!!!

It's basically a Christmas Bazaar that is held annually at the fairgrounds here. It's a ton of merchants with all sorts of stuff. Handmade items, ALOT of Christmas related items, etc. It has been several years since I last went to it and I just decided this year, "Darn it! I'm going!"

 

[RadioJonD]

Happy Seventh Anniversary Christmas.com’ers!

Well, we hit another milestone so soon after entering the Season! This one is largely overlooked.

On November 15, 2001 a forum came along where a few of us would meet for the first time! Christmas.com was certainly the first Christmas forum for me! Now, I have found evidence suggesting that the C.com forums were around as far back as December 1998. However, the archive links are all dead. These forums or discussion newsgroups looked to be seasonal only. One could subscribe to updates http://tinyurl.com/5fq8q3 From the web site in 1998:

Christmas Interactive
Christmas.com has created a place for you to share your thoughts about Christmas with others from around the world. In participating, please be respectful while keeping in mind the family nature of this site. We reserve the right to cancel any posting in our groups for any reason. Everything is logged. There will be children who will read this as well as adults, so please be mindful of your comments. Enjoy!!

In 2000 there were places to post Christmas messages as articles without the benefit of a reply. http://tinyurl.com/68y6wu

Beginning in 2001 the forums again were brought back in the format of which we would become familiar. Since November 15, 2001 is the earliest date shown with zero posts, I would say that that was the starting point from which some of us began to join. - http://tinyurl.com/5cqbxt

There was a countdown started for the 2002 Season by a member named wishman35. Our own sgrover started a countdown for 2003 - http://tinyurl.com/5zsur7 and our own savingstar (more active at ChristmasTalk) started the 2004 countdown - http://tinyurl.com/64j7on

In 2005 savingstar started another countdown as did Crown 84 shortly thereafter - http://tinyurl.com/6xr7gr Of the two Crown’s survived to the end of the year. This is the format we follow today!

Our last look at Christmas.com before the rug was yanked out from under us is from August 14, 2006 with Crown again taking the helm of the 2006 Countdown Thread – http://tinyurl.com/5brdsv

So, Happy Anniversary you Christmas.comers! Here’s the jumping off point to comb the archives for yourselves! - http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.christmas.com Don’t forget to share what you find!

Of those of us still around, snowberry holds the distinction of being the longest continuous poster! – http://tinyurl.com/3akkha She was there almost from the start!

Some of the others (in no particular order):

snowberry Registered Since Nov 17, 2001 8:01 AM - http://tinyurl.com/67s5lg

Binger Registered Since Dec 15, 2002 7:47 PM - http://tinyurl.com/68ddet

Crown 84 Registered Since Dec 18, 2003 8:07 PM – http://tinyurl.com/6qrjfm

savingstar Registered Since Sep 2, 2002 8:12 AM - http://tinyurl.com/5m4sox

sgrover Registered Since Aug 6, 2002 1:55 PM - http://tinyurl.com/58k2ks

cedarfarm Registered Since Aug, 2005 7:36 AM - http://tinyurl.com/6foy9s

susie_johnnylee Registered Since Aug 1, 2004 11:51 AM - http://tinyurl.com/6qjrne

chillywilly Registered Since Jul 15, 2004 10:54 PM - http://tinyurl.com/6rnaa7

gustavobastos Registered Since Dec 14, 2004 5:52 PM - http://tinyurl.com/69fgu7

gracie Registered Since Feb 11, 2002 7:33 PM - http://tinyurl.com/6zhje9

cherie Registered Since Jan 10, 2004 3:50 PM - http://tinyurl.com/6znyw3

Holiday Registered Since Jul 17, 2002 11:21 AM - http://tinyurl.com/5tqtn3

JayIsh Registered Since Feb 26, 2004 5:28 PM - http://tinyurl.com/5o27wd

lightitup Registered Since Sep 11, 2004 8:09 AM - http://tinyurl.com/5qk48k

Auntie Mistletoe Registered Since Nov 21, 2004 11:44 AM - http://tinyurl.com/6q3e2w

RadioJonD Registered Since Apr 19, 2004 9:05 PM - http://tinyurl.com/297aph

I know I have left some out! I apologize! I didn’t think there was that many of us still here, but there is. To add your Christmas.com profile, find a thread/post with your name on it and click on your name. Add yours to the list!

Some of you I have known four and a half years now! Others I have met there, in between, and here. Thanks for being a great group to hang out with in our corner of the internet World! Ya’ll are the best!

 

[BooksNChristmas]

That is so cool! I know all the "antique" members will be thrilled to see it. I hope that I will be able to look back here someday and see the longevity of my membership. The nostalgia will be wonderful!

 

[AuntieMistletoeDear]

) I'm back ... and all caught up in the excitement.

Thanks for a wonderful Day 1 post, Jay!

Thanks for all the cheer and participation reaching the start of the season and yes I noticed 12 users had all posted with a time stamp of 12:00 a.m. too, Crown!

It was great to have my pillow with me at the conference, still found myself suffering at least five hours of sleep debt.

Great to have an official proclamation for the start of the season, Mr. Westover.

Thanks for the stroll RJD. I have a confession to make.

When I first posted at Christmas.com, I had no idea I was joining a forum. I didn't even know what forum was. I only had a computer for a year prior to that and mainly used it to type my stories out and do searches for various things of interest. When I discovered Christmas.com, I wanted to share my father's Christmas Miracle story and had to go through a quick registration process in order to do so. I was amazed and delighted to discover that there were people who thought about Christmas during the year - I wasn't alone in that. A special relationship emerged.

My father received his five year clean bill of health (in October) after we nearly lost him to cancer back in 2003 and is happy he doesn't have to go back for anymore follow up visits.

I guess I have my father to thank for unintentionally helping me find a wonderful group of Christmas wackos from all over the world. My family thanks y'all too! Without you, they'd have to listen to me chat about it all year.

I want y'all to know, although I couldn't be here with you as you welcomed the season's arrival here in this very special thread, I was thinking of you at ...

4:36 p.m. 6:15 p.m. 8:42 p.m. 11:15 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. 1:11 a.m.

So, I was with you in spirit!

I enjoyed catching up on the posts while eating two tiny Clementine oranges. My husband surprised me with my very own box when I came home. He and O'Malley missed me. It was only two and a half days, but hey we're still best friends after all these years and being away from each other is never easy. (Moreso for my husband than for the cat.)

Cheers Christmas lovers!

Happy posting, Happy reading!



Now I'm off to slumper land. It's not slumber for me, this sleep will be soooooo deep I have to rename it slumper.

Good Morning - and Good Night!

 

[mac55]

Speaking of Christmas Village, in Montreal there is a store called Ogilvy's and every year, they launches a huge Christmas display window. It's the start of the Christmas season for Montreal really. In case you are interested, here are few links with some previous' years pictures. I will try and go this year and post some pictures.
The unvailling of this year's display is this morning. It draws a huge crowd, so I will wait a week or two before going.

http://www.bonjourquebec.com/qc-en/05nov_ogilvy0.html

Someone even posted a 2min youtube video from 2 years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEW0trn_zpE

Cheers!!

ML

 

[Maureen]

Are you in Montreal itself??? I lived for 7 years in St Eustache and we go over every 2nd year for Christmas - which techincally should have been this year but with house repairs and the car repairs, we'll be staying here eating toast on Christmas day!!!

 

[christmasgranny]

Good morning, everyone.
I work every third Saturday, and this is it. Things are starting to slow down as the building season is ending.
Nothing longer than slow days at work!!
Fortunately, I only work until 2.
Afterward, I'll watch 2 of my grand-daughters while their parents Christmas shop.
Yesterday, dh had some teeth pulled and slept all day (which is why we mostly celebrated my birthday on Thursday.)
He goes back in a couple weeks and gets the rest pulled and then he'll be able to get his bottom plates.
He'll be a happy camper.
Have a great weekend.

 

[Crown 84]

Nice bit of research, Radio!

I was at C.com earlier than that, though. If you could check under my original name of Crown 85, you can get the date I joined. I remember the board went down for a long time and when it came back up, I could no longer get in as "Crown 85". Tried to re-register using that name but it said they already had such a member and would not allow it. So I had to lower the number by one to get back in.
(BTW, if you could find my original "Crown 85" registration date, I would be curious to know it! Thanks.)

OK, Good Morning, friends!
Welcome to to DAY 3 of our wonderful, incredible 2008 Christmas Season!

How did you mark your entry into the Season?
I always start by switching over to Christmas music and Christma movies full time - I don't listen to or watch anything else!
Started the music with the Glenn Miller orchestra's "In the Christmas Mood II", and watched the classic "Holiday Inn" to start a string of Christmas movies.

But the count goes on!:
Days to Christmas Day: 40
Days to Thanksgiving Day: 12

A surprisingly warm one here in Raleigh at this hour with the thermometer standing at 66.
Won't last, though. The weather service says we will be down into the 20's by some time next week. BRRRRRR!!

Have a Stupendous Saturday, everyone!
And I hope your Weekend is off to a Wonderous start.
(You know we only have one more weekend until Thanksgiving!)

 

[Crown 84]

:hi: I hope you all had a good Friday!!! Just wanted to pop in & say "hey!" :smile:

Carl appreciates that, Holiday, and says "Hay" back.
(That camel!)

 

[RadioJonD]

Nice bit of research, Radio!
I was at C.com earlier than that, though. If you could check under my original name of Crown 85, you can get the date I joined. I remember the board went down for a long time and when it came back up, I could no longer get in as "Crown 85". Tried to re-register using that name but it said they already had such a member and would not allow it. So I had to lower the number by one to get back in.
(BTW, if you could find my original "Crown 85" registration date, I would be curious to know it! Thanks.)

Sometime when you have a lot of time to kill help me dig! - http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.christmas.com I am still looking for any earlier forums that may be archived.

I remember there being a period when the board was down. I wasn't there but everyone talked about not being able to log in. That was because before 2001, the forums were probably seasonal. At least it seems that way. I don’t think the owners of the name back then ever intended them to be all year round. In fact, the forums were only a way to get people to come in and look at the advertising. Christmas.com was a commercial venture through and through. They just didn’t know how to handle a bunch of people for which Christmas isn’t confined to a short season!

I’ll keep digging to see what I can find!

 

[Ms_Speedy_Elf]

RJD ,what is it your digging for and I'll gladly help you dig?

 

[RadioJonD]

RJD ,what is it your digging for and I'll gladly help you dig?

Christmas.com forum threads prior to 2001. They were there, maybe as far back as 1998. Although I wasn't there, I am interested in finding some of the earliest posts by some of our current members!

 

[SparkleNana]

Crown_84 -- you marked the beginning of the Season with very elegant selections of Christmas music and Christmas video. It is good to celebrate!

 

[SparkleNana]

HEY ---0 MALFUNCTION -- MALFUNCTION

I just tried to welcome new member snowgirl68 and the board wouldn't let me welcome her. She has zero welcomes. I don't think anyone can welcome her. She will feel horrible! Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SparkleNana]

OH ----- NEVER MIND!!!!!!

A little further on, I saw that there was another thread for Snowgirl68 with lots of welcome messages!

 

[Crown 84]

Wow, Radio!
You won't believe it, but (inspired by your post) I checked out the web archive site. After just a few clicks, I found the original post (Jan 2, 2004) I made proposing the idea of a season count!
Two posts later, Binger seconded it, and the idea just slowly caught on from there.

http://web.archive.org/web/20040811....jsp?forum=16&thread=1105&start=15&msRange=15

 

[clarebear]

Hello all, hope you are all having a great weekend so far :dance:

 

[bhenson]

not doing much this weekend but it is going good so far!

 

[pinkini]

today has been so busy! i cannot wait for tomorrow... i will be making some christmas presents, baking some bread, and going for a walk in the gardens.