How I hadn’t come across “A Stranger Things Christmas” before this week, I’m not sure.
The video dates to 2016 but we’re in better late than never territory since the penultimate episodes of the series at hand drop today (and the grand finale on New Year’s Eve). While I’m unfamiliar with the work of co-creator Leigh Lahav, I look forward to exploring her channel further because this is absolutely perfect. [3:15]
Related: Happy Feet • Lead the Wild Rumpus, Stark • Coffee and Synchronicity
I brainstormed the following list a few years ago on a lark. While I shared on Twitter and Facebook, I didn’t here at the time because I knew activity would be light and wasn’t keen to have dated Yuletide content atop the front page year-round. Posting it now is relevant to the cultural moment, of course, but also helps ensure that I finally get crackin’ on the blog again so we don’t have to keep looking at…
My Top Eleven Star Wars Holiday Songs
11. “Silent Night, Carbonite”
10. “Here We Come a-Wookieeing”
9. “O Little Town of Walrus Men”
8. “Winter Wampaland”
7. “X-Wings We Have Heard on High”
This post is currently down for maintenance.
Jimmy Fallon returned to Saturday Night Live this weekend — and so did Horatio Sanz, Tracy Morgan, and Chris Kattan, to help him close out 2011 with a rendition of their old standard “Christmas Is Number One”.
Screencap © 2011 NBCUniversal Media.
The last time the song was performed on the show, seven years ago, Sanz was the only one of the four still in the cast, and stopped the tune almost before it had begun when he realized there was nobody to back him up. Until, that is, Kermit the Frog popped up to tell Horatio that his friends would happy to join in... Here’s the video from this past Saturday, to jog your memory, and the previous clip with the Muppets.
Related: Muppet Monday (Nov. 28th) • Emerald Sit-In • Stocking Stuff (2011)
I met Santa Claus last night.
Really, I did; I’ll tell you about it. And the timing was perfect, since the lights have
not been in my favor.
Christmas arrived at The Late Show with David Letterman a day early. Dave is always preempted on Christmas Eve so that CBS can air Mass, but this time the fabled meatball was toppled from the Ed Sullivan Theater’s Christmas tree on the night before the night before the Night before Christmas — when Dave rammed into the tree on a go-kart. He was trying out toys again with Shannon Eis.
A clip of the joy ride is up at the show’s website now; I don’t know how long it will last.
Last week’s Top Ten contest [dead link] at the Late Show with David Letterman website was even more inspiring than usual. If you don’t know the drill you can check out the first post in this category, so without further ado here are...
My Top Ten Little-Known Facts about Santa Claus
10. Born Seymour Klausmann, Brooklyn, 1926
9. Will get you on the “nice” list for twenty bucks and/or a bottle of Jim Beam
8. Goes down more than just the chimney, ladies
7. Eleven months out of the year, crash diets and works as Dumbledore at the Harry Potter theme park in Orlando
6. Holly Jolly Christmas: To you, it’s the name of a Burl Ives classic; to Santa, it’s the name of the gal who takes care of him in the VIP suite at North Pole Dancers
I don’t know when this will get posted so it feels safest to focus my yuletide thoughts
on the morning after.
Many locations have made for a special holiday in my life, but none can match the house way up New Jersey, northwest of New York City, where my father’s parents lived during my first decade. There were decorations, cookies, stockings, relatives, carolers, and gifts under what in memory at least is a majestic tree.
So much could be written about the annual anticipations of Christmas in Wyckoff —
my sister and me standing by the curb to greet Santa, in the company of firefighters,
as they handed out candy to the neighborhood children; trying hard to fall asleep, since we knew that the jolly old elf wouldn’t return to leave presents until we did (but also hoping that his visit would awaken us so that we could finally catch him in the act); preparing for dinner, then waiting for Dad and Grandpa to finish their carbohydrate-
&-tryptophan naps so that we could roughhouse or enlist their help in explaining, assembling, and playing with games and toys opened earlier that day.
For me, though, the afterglow of Dec. 26th was just as magical as the eve of the 24th and the daylong festivities of the 25th.
Christmas is here. I wish you a day of peace.
Image © 2005 David Malki.
Are you perchance dreaming of a Betty White Christmas? The saucy gal, whose
shtick these days melds the randiness of her Sue Ann from The Mary Tyler Moore Show with the cluelessness of her Rose from The Golden Girls to great comedic effect, dropped by The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on Monday night. While the seams showed a bit — I’m guessing not enough rehearsal time to memorize the lines or know what to riff on, hence the slight hiccups in dialogue betwixt her and Craig — she remains a national treasure. [bad link]
