Saturday, December 24, 2011

Night Before Christmas Silliness

If you're a celebrator of Christmas like my family, Christmas Eve was always a frustrating time.  You were soooooo close to Christmas you could practically taste it and it tasted good.  Your fingers tingled from wanting to tear open the wrapping paper on those gifts that had been stacked under the tree for DAYS.  There was also the promise of a stocking filled with candy.  I don't know about in your household, but when I was a kid, Santa always took a perverse joy in putting a large piece of fruit (usually an orange or apple) in the bottom of my stocking.  The fruit was quickly handed over to Mom while we dug into our stockings, looking for our favorite candy.  Me?  Anything with chocolate.


Christmas Eve was usually quiet.  Family gatherings weren't held until Christmas so it was just my brothers and myself wandering around the house, occasionally pausing in front of the tree to think about which gift we wanted to open first.  There were cartoons that still needed to be watched and Christmas albums to play on the record player.  Christmas Eve was the calm before the storm.

So as families around the world prepare to launch into their Christmas Day festivities, I thought I would be leave you with a couple videos to celebrate the season.  The first is a brief clip from my trip to the Cincinnati Zoo Festival of Lights celebration a couple years ago.  The entire zoo is covered in lights of all colors.  There are light waterfalls and light animals and light tunnels.  Not only do you get to spend the evening looking at animals but you see the zoo glowing in its holiday display.  This year when we went the weather wasn't too cold.  However, the year I took the video, the weather was FREEZING.  And for some reason, I decided that we had to ride the little train around the zoo so we could enjoy the lights in a constant frigid breeze.



The second video is of Simon's Cat.  This is one of my favorite ongoing YouTube series focused on this curious but destructive cat.  I will admit that I've had this fear with my own cats, but I've been lucky.  Beyond occasionally sniffing at an ornament, they've left the tree alone.



And the last thing I have is a link to a unique holiday poem.  If you like your urban fantasy, Kim Harrison has written a parody of Twas the Night Before Christmas featuring the characters from her Hollows series.  If you'd like to read it, check it out here.

Happy Holidays!

2 comments:

Traci (aka the Bookbabe) said...

I LURVE Simon the Cat! He's adorable, both in the videos and the two books that have been published. Have a very Merry Christmas, Jocelynn!

Brenda Hyde said...

LOL Simon's Cat is so funny-- because even if our cats don't do what he does they THINK about it:) Fudge, our youngest cat, crawls up the MIDDLE of the tree, and someone doesn't knock it down. She hasn't done it this year yet but I'm sure she will.

I didn't get fruit in my stocking but we ALWAYS got a coloring book, a small box of crayons and one of those huge, candy candy canes--the straight type that no one EVER eats completely.

Merry Christmas!