Category: Holidays

Christmas Music

On iTunes I have 469 tracks identified as Christmas music. I’ve created a playlist with them that automatically drops a track off after it’s been played. At this writing I have 369 left to hear this year. 🎅

The types of music vary widely from Classical to Country, Jazz and New Age, but include of course the usual standards of which I suppose Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” is the archetype. (Of the 469 tracks, 12 are in fact versions of “White Christmas” including two copies of Bing.)

I have a lot of favorites. I grew up in Catholic schools, so am nostalgic when I hear the carols, and have several albums of guitar versions by artists like John Fahey and Eric Williams. I particularly like Christmas in Santa Fe by Ruben Romero & Robert Notkoff, Winter Dreams by R. Carlos Nakai & William Eaton and Navidad Cubana by Cuba L.A. — it gets you dancing around the old árbol de Navidad.

And no collection is complete without Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas.

But when it comes down to it, this may be my favorite. It’s an OK video but the point is to enjoy Clyde McPhatter and Bill Pinkney’s bass.

Farolitos

Those bags with sand and candles that are a New Mexico Christmas Eve tradition; the correct name for them is farolitos.

Often farolitos are called luminarias. Lumanarias traditionally were actually small bonfires.

Farolitos (literally “little lanterns”) replaced lumanarias (“altar lamps”) as towns became more densely populated. The purpose of both was to light the path to midnight mass.

Farolitos are the coolest Christmas decoration ever, especially when whole neighborhoods line their sidewalks, driveways and even roof-lines with them. (Electric versions are common and can be found throughout the season. The real deal are candles and displayed only on Christmas Eve.)

Buy some sand (for ballast), some votive candles and some lunch bags and bring a beautiful New Mexico Christmas Eve tradition to your neighborhood this year. Get your neighbors to join you. You could become famous if it’s never been done in your area. And the kids love it.

Most ‘Popular’ Christmas Songs

According to Billboard, “the most popular seasonal songs, according to all-format audience impressions measured by Nielsen BDS, sales data compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and streaming activity data from online music sources tracked by BDS” —

Mariah Carey’s 1994 classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You” tops the inaugural chart this season.
. . .
Given their many years of serving as soundtracks to holiday cheer, several decades-old favorites populate the latest Holiday Songs top 10. Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” decorates the list at No. 2, followed by Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)” (No. 3), Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” (No. 4) and Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” (No. 5). Ives’ chestnut tops Holiday Airplay with 23 million in listenership.

I Think I’ll Have Dinner Today at Alice’s Restaurant

Where you can get anything you want.

Thanksgiving Day brings us a rare moment of coming together. A tradition that crosses boundaries. No, it’s not eating supper with family or even watching football. For radio fans and programmers alike, today’s holiday is best celebrated by the playing of one song, Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant.” That song, which was originally released as the 18-minute “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” will be heard today ….

The song, which is usually broadcast in either the original album track form or the even longer 30th anniversary live version, relates a Thanksgiving story. In it, Guthrie talks about enjoying a Thanksgiving feast with friends in Stockbridge at the title restaurant. After that, things get weird. The singer relates taking out the trash and, having no place to legally drop it because of the holiday, dumping it illegally. This leads to a long, shaggy-dog tale of being arrested for littering that turns into both an anti-Vietnam War protest and a statement of human rights. Somehow, by the end, he has turned the song into a statement that in union there is strength. And the best way to demonstrate that communal strength? Everyone, as listeners know, must sing along with the familiar refrain: “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.” As the singer points out, if we can pull ourselves together to do that, we can change the world.

The Boston Globe [subscription required]

A live performance from 2005. Audio only of original recording.

Alice Brock — the actual Alice.

The Pilgrims and the Made-Up Americans

This is Mack’s first Thanksgiving in school, so of course he’s hearing the public school version of the First Thanksgiving story. Some teachers don’t use the correct name for the indigenous people near Plymouth — Wampanoags — or even the preferred generic term — American Indians. They use the presumed politically correct term — Native Americans.

That’s what the teacher says, but what do the children hear?

Mack’s mother Jill reports:

“At school, Mack is learning about the first Thanksgiving. He came home today with a short story about it, which I asked him to read to me. It went well until he got to the first reference to what he called the ‘Made-Up’ Americans.”

First posted in 2006.

The Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after have a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

From the only contemporary account of the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving, a letter by Edward Winslow dated December 11, 1621.

And this from the conclusion to a thoughtful and thorough article in The Christian Science Monitor (November 27, 2002).

There are many myths surrounding Thanksgiving. Here are nine things we do know are true about the holiday.

1. The first Thanksgiving was a harvest celebration in 1621 that lasted for three days.

2. The feast most likely occurred between Sept. 21 and Nov. 11.

3. Approximately 90 Wampanoag Indians and 52 colonists – the latter mostly women and children – participated.

4. The Wampanoag, led by Chief Massasoit, contributed at least five deer to the feast.

5. Cranberry sauce, potatoes – white or sweet – and pies were not on the menu.

6. The Pilgrims and Wampanoag communicated through Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe, who knew English because he had associated with earlier explorers. [In fact, Squanto (or Tisquantum), had spent several years in Europe and England.]

7. Besides meals, the event included recreation and entertainment.

8. There are only two surviving descriptions of the first Thanksgiving. One is in a letter by colonist Edward Winslow. He mentions some of the food and activities. The second description was in a book written by William Bradford 20 years afterward. His account was lost for almost 100 years.

9. Abraham Lincoln named Thanksgiving an annual holiday in 1863.

Pass the Cranberries, Please

For some reason earlier today NewMexiKen got to thinking about his very first day of work. It was Thanksgiving 1960. The place was the Cliff House restaurant in Tucson. At the time, the Cliff House was considered one of the best restaurants in town — great menu plus a wonderful view of the city from its foothill location on Oracle Road. The chef was known simply by his first name, Otto.

Thanksgiving was a very busy day at the Cliff House. I started at noon and got off sometime around 10:30. I was the dishwasher’s second assistant. The dishwasher, who on a regular shift worked just by himself, needed all the help he could get on Thanksgiving. He sprayed the loose residue off the plates and out of the cups and glasses and loaded the racks to go into the machine. The first assistant took the clean dishes out of the machine and got them back into circulation. My job was to clear the trays as the busboys brought them in, scraping the uneaten turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes off the plates into the garbage pail. For more than 10 hours. For $1 an hour.

I did well for my first day of work, being reprimanded only once — by Otto himself, no less. I was throwing out the uneaten dinner rolls instead of returning them to the bread warmer. In chefly like fashion he blew his top, but calmed down when he realized no one had told me differently (and I was a nice deferential kid whose mom was a waitress).

As the day went on into evening, however, this fine restaurant developed a mini-crisis. The Cliff House ran out of cranberries. Now there is one thing a restaurant must have on Thanksgiving and that is turkey. And there is one thing a restaurant must serve with turkey and that is cranberries (or cranberry sauce). And someone had miscalculated and none was left.

It was the dishwasher’s second assistant who saved the day. As the dirty dishes came in from the dining room I not only rescued the dinner rolls, I now also recycled the cranberries. From each plate I corralled the dark red glob and scraped it into a bowl. Periodically Otto would come over and switch out my trove with an empty new bowl. He’d take the cranberries I had reclaimed and scoop them (not so generously as earlier) onto some eager gourmand’s plate.

Amazingly I still love cranberries (especially cranberry relish).

First published seven years ago.

Veterans Day

Veterans Day originated as “Armistice Day” on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a federal holiday beginning in 1938. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation in 1954 to change the name to Veterans Day as a way to honor those who served in all American wars. The day honors living military veterans with parades and speeches across the nation. A national ceremony takes place at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

From 1971 to 1978 Veterans Day was celebrated on the fourth Monday in October.

I really liked 2010’s poster.

Today Ought to Be a Holiday

Labor Day as a national, legal holiday had an interesting evolution. The legalized celebration of Labor Day began as individual state celebrations. In 1887, New York, New Jersey and Colorado were among the first states to approve state legal holidays. Then other states joined in to create their own state Labor Days. Finally, in response to a groundswell of support for a national holiday celebrating the nation’s workers, Sen. James Henderson Kyle of South Dakota introduced S. 730 to the 53rd Congress to make Labor Day a legal holiday on the first Monday of September each year. It was approved on June 28, 1894.

U.S. Department of Labor

The first “Labor Day” was in New York City at Wendel’s Elm Park at 92nd Street and 9th Avenue on Tuesday, September 5, 1882.

By 10 a.m., the Grand Marshall of the parade, William McCabe, his aides and their police escort were all in place for the start of the parade. There was only one problem: none of the men had moved. The few marchers that had shown up had no music.

According to McCabe, the spectators began to suggest that he give up the idea of parading, but he was determined to start on time with the few marchers that had shown up. Suddenly, Mathew Maguire of the Central Labor Union of New York (and probably the father of Labor Day) ran across the lawn and told McCabe that two hundred marchers from the Jewelers Union of Newark Two had just crossed the ferry — and they had a band!
Just after 10 a.m., the marching jewelers turned onto lower Broadway — they were playing “When I First Put This Uniform On,” from Patience, an opera by Gilbert and Sullivan. The police escort then took its place in the street. When the jewelers marched past McCabe and his aides, they followed in behind. Then, spectators began to join the march. Eventually there were 700 men in line in the first of three divisions of Labor Day marchers. Final reports of the total number of marchers ranged from 10,000 to 20,000 men and women.

With all of the pieces in place, the parade marched through lower Manhattan. The New York Tribune reported that, “The windows and roofs and even the lamp posts and awning frames were occupied by persons anxious to get a good view of the first parade in New York of workingmen of all trades united in one organization.”

At noon, the marchers arrived at Reservoir Park, the termination point of the parade. While some returned to work, most continued on to the post-parade party at Wendel’s Elm Park at 92nd Street and Ninth Avenue; even some unions that had not participated in the parade showed up to join in the post-parade festivities that included speeches, a picnic, an abundance of cigars and, “Lager beer kegs… mounted in every conceivable place.”

U.S. Department of Labor

It’s a Roman Holiday

The roots of St. Valentine’s Day lie in the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was celebrated on Feb. 15. For 800 years the Romans had dedicated this day to the god Lupercus. On Lupercalia, a young man would draw the name of a young woman in a lottery and would then keep the woman as a sexual companion for the year.

Pope Gelasius I [492-496] was, understandably, less than thrilled with this custom. So he changed the lottery to have both young men and women draw the names of saints whom they would then emulate for the year (a change that no doubt disappointed a few young men). Instead of Lupercus, the patron of the feast became Valentine. For Roman men, the day continued to be an occasion to seek the affections of women, and it became a tradition to give out handwritten messages of admiration that included Valentine’s name.

American Catholic

The moral of this story, of course, is never give celibates a say in holidays or anything else.

The Kiss

From a New Yorker interview with Sheril Kirshenbaum, author of The Science of Kissing in 2011.

In a good kiss, our pupils dilate, which is one of the reasons we close our eyes, our pulse quickens, and our breathing can deepen and become irregular. But we’re also hard at work on a subconscious level. Scent plays a really powerful role in whether it’s a good kiss or not. Women are actually most attracted to the natural scents of men who have a different set of genes called the major histocompatability complex that codes for immunity. We’re most attracted to people whose MHC genes have a lot of diversity from ours—the advantage of that would be if you reproduce, that child’s probably going to have a stronger immune system, and so be more likely to survive to pass on their genes. This isn’t something that we’re consciously aware of, but we do seem to know if something feels off. And actually, more than half of men and women—fifty-eight per cent of women, fifty-nine per cent of men—report ending a budding relationship because of a bad kiss.

. . .

Over and over, around the world in different studies, kissing was reported as much more important to women. I ended up calling Gordon Gallup, an evolutionary psychologist at SUNY Albany, and talking to him about why this existed. When we got down to it, it has a lot to do with reproductive biology, because men, from a strictly biological standpoint, are a lot less picky when they’re choosing a partner, whereas women invest much more time and energy into reproduction. We’re fertile for a much smaller period of our lives, so it’s really important to figure out whether someone would be a good genetic match. So when we’re up close and personal with someone, kissing them, we’re actually more sensitive to things like taste and smell and really engaging all of these senses as we kiss.

. . .

Martin Luther King Jr.

… was born in Atlanta, Georgia, 83 years ago today (1929).

Many may question some of King’s choices and perhaps even some of his motives, but no one can question his unparalleled leadership in a great cause, or his abilities with both the spoken and written word.

There are 10 federal holidays, but only four of them are dedicated to one man: one for Jesus, one for the man given credit for the European discovery of our continent, one for the military and political founder George Washington, and one for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
December 10, 1964
Library of Congress

New Year’s Day

New Year’s Day was first celebrated on January 1 in 45 B.C.E. when Julius Caesar reformatted the Roman calendar. It has been the first day of the year in most countries since the 17th century (1752 in Britain and its colonies).

January is derived from the Latin Ianuarius, which itself is derived from the Latin word ianua, which means door, and Janus the Roman god of gates, doorways and beginnings.

Best line of the season

When I was a child, I tell my offspring, my brother and I often would receive just one present at Christmastime, typically an individual crayon. It wouldn’t even be a full crayon, but merely a stub. Still, we’d be grateful and would pretend that “brown” was our favorite of the 64 Crayola colors. We would talk about how great this crayon would be if only we could afford paper.

Joel Achenbach (2005)

Christmas Music

On iTunes I have 468 tracks identified as Christmas music. I’ve created a playlist with them that automatically drops a track off after it’s been played. At this writing I have 106 left to hear this year.

The types of music vary widely from Classical to Country, Jazz and New Age, but include of course the usual standards of which I suppose Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” is the archetype. (Of the 468 tracks, 12 are in fact versions of “White Christmas” including two copies of Bing.)

I have a lot of favorites. I grew up in Catholic schools, so am nostalgic when I hear the carols, and have several albums of guitar versions by artists like John Fahey and Eric Williams. I particularly like Christmas in Santa Fe by Ruben Romero & Robert Notkoff, Winter Dreams by R. Carlos Nakai & William Eaton and Navidad Cubana by Cuba L.A. — it gets you dancing around the old tree.

And no collection is complete without Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas.

But when it comes down to it, this may be my favorite. It’s a nothing video. Just enjoy Clyde McPhatter and Bill Pinkney’s bass.

Farolitos

Those bags with sand and candles that are a New Mexico Christmas Eve tradition; the correct name for them is farolitos.

Often farolitos are called luminarias. Lumanarias traditionally were actually small bonfires.

Farolitos (literally “little lanterns”) replaced lumanarias (“altar lamps”) as towns became more densely populated. The purpose of both was to light the path to midnight mass.

Farolitos are the coolest Christmas decoration ever, especially when whole neighborhoods line their sidewalks, driveways and even roof-lines with them. (Electric versions are common and can be found throughout the season. The real deal are candles and displayed only on Christmas Eve.)

Buy some sand (for ballast), some votive candles and some lunch bags and bring a beautiful New Mexico Christmas Eve tradition to your neighborhood this year. Get your neighbors to join you. You could become famous if it’s never been done in your area. And the kids love it.