A new minimalist short film has been released depicting the birth of Christ in a more Biblical way. The Nativity story has been so romanticized in film, song and the written word for so long it is refreshing to see the story set back in a more original context. The result is a richly human […]
Stress at Christmas is a fact of life. In fact, it could be called a time-honored tradition. In our ongoing exploration of Christmas past we stumbled upon this poem, titled The Christmas Nightmare, written by Carolyn Wells and published in newspapers for Christmas 1900. It could have been written today: On the night before Christmas […]
While America debates Christmas Creep the UK celebrates with early Christmas light displays and an annual contest for the best Christmas commercial. One of the most anticipated ads every year comes from a department store chain called John Lewis, who has a history of schmaltzy yet entertaining commercials. This year’s video introduces a baby fire-breathing […]
Big in the news today, November 14th, is word of a Home Owners Association in Texas making a family remove their Christmas decorations because they are up “too early”. The letter was received by the family on November 4th. That news has kicked off a furious media rush of stories and opinions about Christmas Creep […]
Dean Martin has a new Christmas release. Well, kinda. It’s another posthumous appearance by Dino – yet another “old wine in new bottles” approach to Christmas music. This time, he’s animated. Take a peek…and a listen: This is the latest release in bringing the classics of Christmas music to a whole new generation through animated […]
The media is making a firestorm out of a new holiday outrage some are calling The War on Thanksgiving. Silly as it all seems the rhetoric of politics never has a down season. There are several polarizing modern talking points about Thanksgiving this year: • PETA doesn’t want you eating animals for Thanksgiving…because they are […]
Rehya Stevens is back for Christmas 2019. This year her new offering is featured in the new Disney Christmas flick, Noelle. Titled Tis the Season the song has a retro-pop feel powered by Rehya’s strong vocals. The song is upbeat, traditional and Disneyesque. Rehya sparkles as a Disney princess should. Her 2018 album featured a […]
A new survey is making the rounds on news media today that declares a large percentage of people begin holiday activities much earlier than thought. According to Minted, 43 percent of Americans think it’s suitable to put up holiday decorations before November 1. The poll of 2,000 Americans discovered people start their holiday preparations pretty […]
Each decade seems to produce a dominant performer in the popular music of Christmas. In the 1970s that performer was John Denver. Born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr in 1943, John Denver first rose to fame as the lead of The Mitchell Trio. As a late sixties folk-singing anti-government group The Mitchell Trio was slightly out […]
As peace broke out in 1945 a literal race began to get the world at war back home for Christmas. Historians have called the Christmas of 1945 the biggest celebration of Christmas ever. In the below edition of the Merry Little Podcast we discuss how the years of 1941-1944 changed Christmas. It was an unprecedented […]
The miracle of the Internet and modern musical technology gives us music that simply wasn’t possible hundreds of years ago when God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen was created. Bear that in mind when you listen to this more accurate rendition of the song by a single man carrying four different parts. This song is one […]
Honestly, this has not been a great year for the non-musical Christmas video. Usually we get a host of Christmas light videos, Christmas pranks or Christmas-themed story telling coming out of YouTube but this year has been fairly boring in that realm. Until now. What follows here could be the Christmas-Video-of-the-Year. This is where glitter […]
