Friday Ephemera
Hardcore rave banana. || Baby cannon. || Good doggo. || Feet detected. || Underwhelming loaf. || Today’s word is rethink. || Slow-motion ocean. (h/t, Things) || Unfortunate phrasing. || “Its smell is compared to that of a dog, with the texture of breadcrumbs and the appearance of ping pong balls.” || Parental discipline of note. || Pamela didn’t realise what would subsequently happen to her curtains. || Context is for weaklings. || Car mine of note. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus) || Cooking with wool. || There’s a lot of it about. || The evolution of the scrollbar, a visual guide. || The statistical value of a dog’s life. || At last, a baby head Theremin. || Seedlings and chess. || And finally, festively, you want one and you know it.
Nope, not crying. Just some wine from David’s shot glass flung in my eye. Definitely not crying.
Thanks Darleen.
Christmas decorations may go up the day after Thanksgiving (which, because Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of the month, means that decorations may go up anywhere from the 23rd to the 29th of November). Traditionally they are taken down on New Year’s Day, and any that have not been removed by that time should no longer be lit at night.
However, I don’t live terribly far from New Orleans, and we have adopted some of the traditions of the area. As a result, the Christmas-themed wreaths on the door stay up until Epiphany, which is the official kickoff to Mardi Gras season, to be replaced by the Mardi-Gras-themed wreaths. On Ash Wednesday, those are swapped for spring wreaths that stay up until it’s hot enough that we can no longer pretend it’s spring. Summer wreaths until the weather cools in mid-October, when the Halloween ones go up; on All Saints’ Day, it’s time for the Thanksgiving ones.
Yes, my wife is fond of different wreaths.
Definitely not crying
I seem to feel compelled to watch it while dicing onions …
Yes, my wife is fond of different wreaths.
Enough of this sappy stuff, a couple of Cthulu wreaths.
Also Снегурочка, which beats a Rockwell Christmas in my book.
The switch of the superstition to the 5th of January seems to be fairly recent, maybe even 20th Century.
Hardly a superstition? In the western Christian tradition Christmas season ends with 12th Night/ Feast of the Epiphany/ Little Christmas/ Nollag na mBan (Women’s Christmas)
In the James’ childhood house, it was Mass on the 5th of January followed by the taking down of the decorations.
The decorations went up only a couple of days before Christmas. Usually the same day as we collected the turkey- reared, despatched and sent by train from deepest West of Ireland by our grandmother. Each year she promised that she would send a goose the following year but, foolishly, we children always wanted a turkey.
Muldoon, the linked tentacle wreath is actually close enough to the Real Thing that I might be able to sneak it in on the side door. The front doors are a matched pair for a very formal house, so those are right out, but we are less formal at the tradesmen’s entrance.
She’d probably get a huge kick out of it when I explained the thing. Extremely dark, somewhat subtle humor is the glue that holds our marriage together.
“Hardly a superstition?”
The superstition that it’s unlucky not to. (Mind you, bear in mind that I was brought up presbyterian. It’s more or less all superstitious Roman innovation to us.)
This.
Via Damian.
Praise the Lord:
Because we’ve missed her contributions to human happiness.
This. Because parents mustn’t expect to be responsible for their own children.
Via Julia.
I have a question for the heathen rabble. At what point in the month is it acceptable to go full-on Christmas tree?
As as former apprentice in Santa’s workshop I am able to give an authoritative answer to our gracious host’s query : The tree is procured during the week leading up to Cristmas EVE on a conveniently moonlit night when the farmer’s Alsatians have been surreptitiously sedated. The tree is brought indoors on the 23 of December and tarted up the same evening during ritual bickering about the placement, distribution and orientation of glitter (vertically, of course), Norwegian flags (garlanded horizontally, obviously) and baubles. The bickering and resentment can be enhanced by liberal consumption of Aquavit and sugary sweets. The goal is to not be on speaking terms by bedtime.
The next day is the 24 of December and that’s the day Baby Jesus was born so that’s why proper people celebrate Christmas on that day and not the day after. Like we don’t celebrate the new year on January 1’st.
The tree is kept indoors for 12 days and recycled as firewood on the 13’th day of Christmas, when all the other decorations are also put in storage. There should be no more than 2 weeks of Christmas so as not to dilute the chrismosity. These are the Christmas rules as laid down by Santa himself.
Merry Christmas to all the witty and wonderful patrons of this blog-bar!
from a Journeyman Wood Elf
Cressida Dick, the very model of a modern major city cop, strikes again.
Meanwhile, at Cambridge, a couple of malnourished students haz a sad over a mess hall painting, of course the admin caves.
Did someone mention “a Rockwell?”
I thought Darleen was this Rockwell.
Interesting video, back story and color film of the Pearl Harbor attack shot by a USAAF MSG and his wife.
Next generation of snowflakes in the pipeline.
I have an uncomfortable question…this tree that Norway has been gifting y’all for Christmas every year as thanks for de-Quislinging them, does it frequently look this sparse?
I smell a globalistic warmering / austerity rat.
Re Pachbel’s Canon
My dream is that one day we will develop the technology to perform it with actual cannons. Until then, this will do. Sigh.
My dream is that one day we will develop the technology to perform it with actual cannons.
Fired by church canons.
My dream is that one day we will develop the technology to perform it with actual cannons.
Here I am, trying to nail some class into you heathens.
It’s the Augean bloody Stables.
I have a question for the heathen rabble. At what point in the month is it acceptable to go full-on Christmas tree?
Full on? Never. There’s no need for that sort of shit.
A nice tree, in the corner, decorated with some sort of adult restraint, is good.
Excessively decorated trees and houses, with wreaths on the doors, everyone wearing Christmas clothes, etc is just silly IMO.
But my real venom is directed at “Christmas” music. I don’t subject visitors to my house to my taste in music, because they probably won’t like it. Why must I be constantly subjected to their taste in shops and at work? It is one of the very few things that makes me hate people.
The terms “Christmas” and “adult restraint” belong nowhere near each other.
And speaking of Cthulhu, for the uninitiated I’ll just leave all of this here.
Darleen’s larval snowflake:
Single mom.
Only child.
Anyone want to cover either of those bets?
I thought not.
It’s the Augean bloody Stables.
Nothing a bent river or two couldn’t fix.
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/see-you-after-jail-guys-art-world-stunned-after-man-eats-120000-banana-duct-taped-wall
“An attendee tried to cheer him up by handing him a banana.”
Feel the warm glow of feminist ideas.
“An attendee tried to cheer him up by handing him a banana.”
Oh, not the first time, bascially . . .
Feel the warm glow of feminist ideas.
“We should think of fetuses as a side-effect’
Ugh. They sound like vampires.
Oh, not the first time, bascially . . .
There’s a similar story, too, about when John Lennon and Yoko Ono first met. One of her exhibited items was this apple, see….
Ugh. They sound like vampires.
Ms Torres, quoted above, describes herself as a “general do-gooder,” and has denounced those who disagree with her statement as “misogynists” and “anti-intellectual.” And so, the distinction between feminist and person with sociopathic tendencies is once again finer than one might wish.
I think I see the problem.
And it’s not, as implied, “the Tory government.”
Socialism, baby.
Via Damian.
But my real venom is directed at “Christmas” music.
Your name is mud.
But my real venom is directed at “Christmas” music.
[ Digs out the Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer version of Baby, It’s Cold Outside. ]
But my real venom is directed at “Christmas” music.
Does David’s correction booth play Jingle Bell Rock on an endless loop?
His name is Mud, too.