Merry Christmas, everybody! - A very special Christmas collection - UPDATE from France

We hope that you will all have wonderful days, with lots of joy, good food and nice presents. And even if you don't celebrate Christmas, you will hopefully have a relaxing and good time.

Here in our house we are looking forward to a big lunch, having had our meat fondue yesterday evening, like every year. My mom is a master cook as well as a master housewife, so we always get spoiled at Christmas.

We got some very nice presents yesterday, and Kathleen got one of her heart's desires, which was a superb WMF frying pan with (extra!) lid. ;-)

In contrast to the traditional music collection I posted yesterday, I would like to present very different songs today. There are some very special Christmas performances out there - songs and interpretations you won't necessarily hear on the radio. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, we can beam them into your home right away. Kathleen and I hope that you will enjoy them as well!

Here we go:

Ray Charles, "Merry Christmas Baby", 1979:

John Lennon: Happy Christmas (War is Over)

Louis Armstrong narrates "The Night Before Christmas":

Dean Martin: Let It Snow!

Tom Waits: Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis

Nat King Cole: O Holy Night (this is one of Kathleen's favourites!)

Ella Fitzgerald: Christmas Song

Louis Armstrong: White Christmas

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UPDATE (by Regina)

FESTIVE GREETINGS FROM FRANCE

We're not having very heavy snow at the moment, but it looks very pretty, anyway. We had a great day with our British friends. Lots of good food, a lot to drink, Trivial Pursuit (my team won!) and great music. It was a very good Christmas. We hope Palingaters had a good time as well.




I can't post big pictures like Patrick does (duh!), so please click on the pictures for a larger version.

I'll leave you with some lovely children's voices singing an old favourite:

White Christmas in Germany, very white... - Open Thread - UPDATE!

Hi everybody,

Kathleen and I are spending Christmas with my parents at their home in North Germany, and somebody has obviously been dreaming about a white Christmas, because Germany is covered under a huge blanket of snow, and it's especially "bad" in North Germany right now. Well, it's a huge joy for the children, that's for sure. It feels a bit like being in Alaska, just without the mountains and the wildlife.

Speaking about Alaska: We don't plan to publish posts during Christmas about our usual "object of desire", which means: Palin-free time for the next days! :-)

I am sure that the queen of mean will find some cunning ways to push herself into the headlines again very soon, so we will certainly not run out of material after Christmas until New Years Eve. After all, she doesn't cope very well with not being the center of attention.

In Germany we have the tradition that everybody receives the presents already on the evening of December 24, Christmas Eve ("Heiligabend", "holy evening"), so we will have our big gathering pretty soon. Other members of my family will be here as well.

We do hope that you all have a joyful and relaxing Christmas time!

Finally, here are some pictures I took earlier today - enjoy:

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UPDATE:

What would Christmas be without traditional Christmas songs. ;-)

In order to spread even more Christmas atmosphere into your living rooms all over the world, I would like to post three clips with traditional German Christmas songs. The performers are two of Germany's most famous boys' choirs - the "Dresdner Kreuzchor" and the "Leipziger Thomanerchor" (Johann Sebastian Bach served as director of the Thomanerchor from 1723 to 1750). Most of the members of the choirs live in their special boarding schools, and many of them continue to become professional musicians after they leave the choir.

Stille Nacht (Silent Night), Dresdner Kreuzchor:

Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen, Dresdner Kreuzchor:

Macht hoch die Tür, die Tor macht weit, Leipziger Thomanerchor:

Enjoy!

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