Category Archives: Holidays

Lingering Lights & St. Nick’s Chopper

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This is the real mid-winter, about half way between December 1 and March 1. Whatever pleasure the December holidays might have bestowed is long gone, and weeks and weeks of cold lie ahead. Very little snow so far this year, however, only a bit more than last. Odd.

There are still a few houses displaying Christmas lights. Strangely enough, the only one on our block to retain their lights has downsized their display. During the height of the holidays, it’s one of those places with lights strung all around, bright figures in the yard, and a couple of inflatables. Now all they’re showing is one string of white and one string of blue along the roofline.

In the holiday décor Go Figure category this year: inflatable Santas in helicopters. I saw more than one of those. One chopper piloted by Kris said on the side, Ho Ho Helicopter. Does a helicopter really fit into the Santa story? It would have to be a pretty quiet helicopter, otherwise he’d wake everyone. And St. Nick might be in danger in areas of civil unrest and a repressive regime that uses helicopters. (If I had a rocket launcher, that jolly old elf would die…)

Crystal Pepsi Girl

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Twenty years ago for the 92/93 New Year’s, Yuriko and I were in Boston. We spent some of New Year’s Eve downtown, including a short visit to the Massachusetts State House. Out in front of the building, PepsiCo was busy marketing a new drink, Crystal Pepsi.

Even then, the detachable pop-top was a thing of the past, but the costume wouldn’t have worked without it. I returned to Japan shortly afterward and thought little about Crystal Pepsi. Years later I learned that it was a famed new-product flop.

Reading about that flop now, I found an interview with Yum! Brands CEO David Novak in Fast Company in 2007. He’s credited with creating Crystal Pepsi, and when asked about the flop, his money quote is: “People were saying we should stop and address some issues along the way, and they were right. It would have been nice if I’d made sure the product tasted good.”

Vain Bibble Babble

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Back on a work schedule. Full schedule, that is, because work didn’t quite stop, even between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Yuriko’s back at work, too, even though her employer is Japanese and were this Japan, the New Year’s holiday would last through the third.

The Christmas tree still lingers, but oddly enough the dry tree-removal schedule this year has the tree out on the curb on the morning of January 7, so the last day of the tree being up coincides with Twelfth Night. Not that I’m particular about that, but Epiphany does seem like a good time to clear away the last of Christmas.

I saw the following on a sign at a grocery store today: Miss Your Twinkies? It was advertising a house-brand cream-filled sponge cake. Judging by the box, at least, they looked very much like the product of the defunct Hostess. But I decided I didn’t miss Twinkies all that much. And besides, they won’t be gone all that long.

Here We Go Again

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The New Year came in here with the noise of minor fireworks set off in the neighborhood. Technically illegal in Illinois, but it’s a ban than no one cares about twice a year. I insisted that we turn down the TV so we could hear actual noisemaking, rather than the televised noisemaking, at least for a few minutes.

I watched about 20 minutes — the circa 11 p.m. CST minutes — of the Ghost of Dick Clark Rockin’ from the Beyond New Year’s Eve Special, or whatever they call it now. The presence on the show of dimwit Jenny McCarthy, who’s a hazard to public health, was off-putting.

Got up late this morning. I had work to do prepare to file stories for tomorrow, but I tried to go slow. The day was sunny but very cold. At one point I went out driving with Lilly so she could drive along some more low-traffic streets. I watched a couple of episodes of I, Claudius on my computer, which I haven’t seen in 20 years or so; it’s not just for PBS anymore, and boy is it still excellent TV. We had a fine New Year’s dinner after dark. All in all, it was a good way to start a year.

From Two Thousand to Twenty

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The New Year holiday, as it’s done in Japan, means cleaning up the day before (today), eating certain things, and hanging out at home (tomorrow). That and visiting the temple or shrine of one’s choice. Japanese religious establishments are a little thin on the ground here in the northeast suburbs, but we’ll do all the other things.

The last day of 2012 will be notable for Lilly as the day she took a test at the Illinois DMV and got her learner’s permit. That was in the morning. In the afternoon, I let her drive the older of our cars – with me in the passenger’s side, as specified by the permit — around her high school’s parking lot, and then for a short drive on some lightly trafficked neighborhood streets. She seemed to take to it.

Now is also the time when the year goes from “Two Thousand” to “Twenty.” Mostly. The change will be complete by 2020, but it’s well on its way.

Christmas Morning ’12

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Christmas morning isn’t quite the land rush it used to be, but the girls still want to open their presents as they always have. Ann had some trouble going to sleep on Christmas Eve, but that was because she’d slept late that morning, rather than excess excitement for Christmas morning (though there was strong anticipation).

Gift cards, clothes, a little money, toys for Ann, a lot of sweets—it was all in the mix.

This year on Christmas and on the Sunday before, I managed to catch a few hours of a radio show devoted to Christmas music oddities hosted by two guys called Johnny & Andy on WDCB, the public radio station at the College of DuPage. I’d heard them years ago, maybe even these shows, since this year’s seemed to be rebroadcasts from earlier years.

So I got to hear “Solar System Simon, Santa’s Supersonic Son,” by one Francis Smith, which I haven’t heard in years. I’d forgotten how bluegrass-like it was. I’m also happy to report that when you Google that title, mid-2000s BTST entries turn up. Space Age Santa songs seemed to form a short-lived, and little remembered, subgenre of Christmas songs ca mid-1950s. Johnny & Andy even played a song of that exact name by I-forget-who-and-am-too-lazy-to-look-up (that guy records a lot of songs).

Other Christmas recordings played by Johnny & Andy included elf songs, Cajin-themed holiday tunes, Christmas polkas, and songs that tried to capitalize on the monster success of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” all in vain. One involved putting a light on Dasher’s tail, another had two reindeer named Percival and Chauncy becoming Donder and Blitzen, and one parody included the line, “Rudolph is lazy, tired, and has been fired.”

Even Gene Autry recorded other reindeer-themed songs, such as “32 Feet – 8 Little Tails,” and “Nine Little Reindeer,” which aren’t exactly forgotten, but hardly the hit Rudolph was. Then again, Autry recorded a lot of Christmas songs.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

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A fine Christmas to all. Back again on Boxing Day or so. This year the holiday’s a little sad, but a drop of melancholy has its place in the occasion even in ordinary years. The season’s endless commercial messages deny that, of course, but to quote the Dread Pirate Roberts, “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

I like this version, the one that introduced the song, especially for the line, which was dropped in later versions: “Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.”

Christmas Tintinnabulation

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Ann wanted to go to the library last night, and when we got there we chanced on a performance of the Random Ringers, a handbell ensemble. They were playing in a part of the Schaumburg Township Library sometimes given over to movies and small concerts, with about 50 people watching.

The ringers were more than half finished when we got there. Ann wasn’t especially charmed by the music, but I insisted on staying for a few songs, because I liked them—especially the large bells. The handy “Major American Handbells Sizes and Weights for Diatonic Pitches” says that the bells can weigh as little as 7 oz. or more than 18 lbs. I’m not sure the largest of the Random Ringers’ bells were at the large end of that scale, but they looked big enough to be weapons.

The Random Ringers include 12 performers and a conductor, Beth McFarland of Mundelein, Ill. “Random Ringers is a community-based choir and not affiliated with any religious environment, but most members ring in their own churches,” says the concert program (leaflet, really). “Members hail from the North and Northwest suburbs and practice in Arlington Heights each Monday night.”

We heard “Welcome Christmas,” “Good Christian Men Rejoice,” “He is Born” and “Silent Night.” A fine tintinnabulation, it was.

Mariano’s Fresh Market

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This year’s Thanksgiving meat: beef ribs. We discussed other choices, with the more standard fare rejected, though I wouldn’t have minded brining a turkey again. Obtaining the last of the items for the meal on Wednesday night meant visiting the new Mariano’s Fresh Market at Golf and Barrington roads, which has been open about a month. It’s the latest Chicago-area store by the chain, which is owned by Milwaukee-based Roundy’s Supermarkets.

I hadn’t been there before, but I’ll be back. It can’t quite replace Ultra Foods, since Mariano’s isn’t a discounter, but it’s a good combination of an ordinary grocery (around here, that means Jewel and Dominick’s) and an upmarket chain like Whole Foods, without Whole Foods prices. Or so I thought on first inspection. We’ll see if that holds up. Also, there are plenty of interesting brands I’ve never seen before, so the place merits further exploration.

Best purchase: a coconut cream pie for Thanksgiving dessert. Pretty much like the pies you can get at Bakers Square, but without the ordering in advance for a holiday, and at roughly the same cost. Best product that we didn’t buy: canned Spotted Dick, in the section selling British products. Enough to make me laugh, since I was once a 14-year-old boy, and he hasn’t completely gone away.

Hub-UK.com tells us that “Spotted Dick is a steamed suet pudding usually made with dried currants, hence the ‘spotted’ part of the name, which is traditionally served with custard. Why it is called ‘Spotted Dick’ is not exactly clear. There is a similar pudding called Spotted Dog which is made using plums rather than currants but it would seem unlikely that Dick is a corruption of dog.”

I wonder how I never saw Spotted Dick at the grocery store we used to patronize in Ealing years ago, where I did see Mr. Brain’s Pork Faggots.