The holidays are in full effect, so tell us: What's your favorite holiday song? Bonus points if you share it with us!

EDIT 2:  As I went through my collection of Christmas Carols I was going to post Sleigh Ride, by the Ventures and then I saw this and had an Aha moment and this is the one - Santa Claus by Thee Headcoatees:

Santa Claus

Thee Headcoatees

EDIT:  I take back my answer, first I almost posted Sinterklaas Kapoentje, then decided on "The Misers" but I re-decided, and I really hate to admit it as I stopped liking REM years ago, but Christmas Griping has to be the best Christmas Carol ever....

Christmas Griping

R.E.M.

I am a big fan of the MR. MISER brothers...

I have a few songs tagged Christmas Carol in my library...

Christmas Carols

annoying jack

It’s Jef’s birthday soon and, being a man of simple pleasures, he has only requested one thing – an insanely hot chilli sauce. He already owns a bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce, which makes me cry just to look at it and has a tongue-in-cheek message on the side claiming it can also be used to strip waxed floors and remove grease stains from driveways. At least I hope it's tongue-in-cheek. This is the even stronger sauce Jef wants to add to (his half of) dinner:

It's called Mad Dog INFERNO

Chillis are measured on the Scoville scale, a measure similar to the Beaufort and decibel scales. Mad Dog 357 Special Edition measures 600,000 Scoville units. For comparison, a mouth-burning Scotch bonnet peaks at 325,000 units and the pleasant warmth of a jalapeno clocks in at a mere 5000 units. If a jalapeno is a gentle breeze, this sauce is a hurricane. If a Scotch bonnet is a noisy workplace, then this sauce is a jet engine. Taking off in your FACE.

Jef originally requested this sauce which, at a brain-shattering four million Scoville units, needs to be added to food using a pipette. I refused on the grounds that I will have no food in the house that could kill a child. It is basically a terrifying weapon that should be dismantled by specialists and the original recipe destroyed. IT SHOULDN’T BE.

So happy birthday, Jef. Happy throat-burning, eye-watering, finger-blistering birthday.

One hundred years ago today the fastest pacing race horse of the day, DAN PATCH, ran his last race.  Dan was fleet footed and quick as hell.  You can watch his story -  The Great Dan Patch at the Internet Archive.

Learn more about Dan at the Dan Patch Historical Society.

Dan Patch: Photo property of deckernet.com

1 comment

Black Friday is the unofficial kickoff to the holiday shopping season. When are you planning on beginning your holiday shopping?
Sponsored by Best Buy. Find holiday gifts for everyone on your list.

Never... I'll be visiting Reverend Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping (formerly known as the Church of Stop Shopping) and Buy Nothing Christmas instead...

Where did I say...?

Wow.  The title of this book is too long for blog header title... 

Letters from a cat: published by her mistress for the benefit of all cats and the amusement of little children (Helen Hunt Jackson: 1880, c1879).

Letters from a Cat

but the printing was pretty bad, and they were signed by 
Pussy's name ; and my mamma always 
looked very mysterious when I asked about 
them, as if there were some very great 
secret about it all ; so that until I grew 
to be a big girl, I never doubted but that 
Pussy printed them all alone by herself, 
after dark. 

I haven't read it yet, I did leaf through it yesterday and was so enchanted, but I didn't have the time to actually read it, but now it's first on my list

Came across the website of the great Tom Robinson with donational free downloads of all his solo stuff.
Love the words to Back in the Ould Country recorded on tour in Ireland - I saw him in the Purty Kitchen in Dun Laoghaire. If memory serves me well a drink sodden event!

Back In The Ould Country

I had guinness with a Hot Press photographer in a Dublin pub
He wore a crucifix and a short fat beard
Showed me pictures of Gavin Thursday, Three Men And A Dog
With the Joshua Duo stood around looking weird

Met a Sid Vicious lookalike and he was six foot four
Had spikes on his dog collar made of solder
He was sitting in Bewley's caff in a dirty old gaberdine mac
He was 17 but he looked about ten years older... that was

Back in the Ould Country, back in the Ould Country
Back in the Ould Country, back in the Ould Country

10am one Sunday, Diceman hadn't been near his bed
And he was gargling creme de menthe just to keep awake
He'd been rolling through night, and got ossified in Sides
He look so smashed and happy it made my day, that was

Back in the Ould Country, back in the Ould Country
Back in the Ould Country, back in the Ould Country

Headed into Limerick on the Clonmel road
In a beat-up rented Nissan with no brakes
Saw a Garda on the beat with two size 13 feet
Ten convent girls and a nun on roller skates... that was

Back in the Ould Country, back in the Ould Country
Back in the Ould Country, back in the Ould Country

Billy Whiskers - Frances Trego: A story of a goat's adventures.

Little Black Mingo - Helen Bannerman: A companion book to Little Black Sambo.

Maida's Little Shop - Inez Haynes Gillmore:  A once lame girl now needs to do something with herself, so she opens a little shop and has nice times with her neighbors.  Very adorable.

Railway Children - Edith Nesbit: A family torn apart, a move to the country, secrets and activities at the Railway Station.  A very engaging read.

How Ethel Hollister became a CampFire Girl - Irene Benson:  Ethel's uptight gold-digger mother wants Ethel to have nothing to do with the CFG, but Ethel manages to get involved anyway and has the best experiences.

Marjorie Dean, HS Freshman - Pauline Lester:  Marjorie has to move schools.  Many trials and tribulations are rewarded with life-long friends.

Jack of both Sides - Florence Coombe:  A Boy's school story.  One boy, Jack, shows both sides of the school they can get along.

The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp - Katherine Stokes:  This was a GREAT read.  A group of girls motors out to the mountains for a holiday and meet all kinds of characters and have exciting, and mildly unnerving happenings happen around them.

The Motor Maids' School Days:  Katherine Stokes:  Not as good as Sunrise Camp, but enjoyable just the same.  A typical school story.

The Outdoor Chums, The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club - Quincy Allen:  I was so certain I'd read this, but upon going back to it and reading the first bit, I don't recall this story at all.

The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army -  Margaret Vandercook:  A group of young women become Red Cross Nurses in WWI and end up in war ravaged Russia.  A predictable, but yet engrossing read.

And how can I not list favorites that I read more than a month ago?

The Bobbsey Twins - Laura Lee Hope:  A group of 2 sets of twins, brothers and sisters all, have mysterious adventures and exciting vacations.

The Scotch Twins - Lucy Fitch Perkins:  One of a series of TWINS books set in different geographical regions.  This one, of course, was Scotland.  I ADORED this book.  LOVED IT!

Grace Harlowe - Jessie Graham Flower: A school story of Grace and her chums.  (I've read the whole HS series, but not college or the Overland Riders themes)

The Outdoor Girls - Laura Lee Hope:  A group of young women form a camping, and tramping club and go neat places and solve mysteries and have assorted adventures.  The Outdoor Girls is MY FAVORITE SERIES so far...

Ruth Fielding - Alice B. Emerson:  Orphan Ruth goes to live with her Uncle and goes off to school and other places.  My second favorite series... so far...

Other books I've read in the past 6 months:

A Little Miss Nobody; or, With the Girls of Pinewood School - Amy Bell Marlowe:  Loved it!

Boxcar Children - Gertrude Chandler Warner:

Trixie Belden - Julie Campbell:

Adventure at Brackendale - Linda Peters:

Strawberry Girl - :  I found some of her other Regional stories in the library (I was amazed to find them!) but they were awful.  Not nearly any of them as great as Strawberry Girl.  Disappointed.

I know I've missed a few books that I can't place now, but at least I have this mostly complete list and it seems every time I go back to the Series Bookshelf at Gutenberg there are several new serieses (is that right, serieses?) listed, I'll be happily reading till I'm wearing Coke-Bottle lenses.

The thing to do as a kid on Saturday morning in the 70s was get up early, grab a bowl of cereal and some Pop-Tarts and park yourself in front of the TV for Saturday Morning cartoons.

I can distinctly remember two sounds (and a song....  Saturday morning was over and it was time to go outside and play when you'd hear the theme song to American Bandstand) - the Screen Gems bumper, and the In The News theme from CBS. 

Listen, watch and be transported back....