"CHRISTMAS" Thread - 1500

[mistletoe misfit]

Friday night we attended our first of the season Santa Claus Parade. It was a very nice small town parade. Full of lights and floats and bands. They handed out candy to the children and glow sticks. One of the floats threw stuffies out to the crowd. That I have never seen before. At the end we received a free bag of chocolate chip cookies.

Today is the Toronto Santa Claus Parade. We wont be able to watch it live, but they are re-broadcasting it at 7:00 tonight. YAY! Watching it is an annual family Christmas time event.

[mistletoe misfit]

This year they are showing the parade live online. If anyone is interested they start at about 12:45 today. Here is the link http://shows.ctv.ca/SantaClausParade.aspx

[Noel+]

This year they are showing the parade live online. If anyone is interested they start at about 12:45 today. Here is the link http://shows.ctv.ca/SantaClausParade.aspx

Thanks for posting the link to the parade for all us Christmas lovers, MM! Your little parade in town also sounded wonderful!

[Noel+]

Today at church we're collecting the last of the Christmas Angel gifts and Operation Narnia from Samaritan's Purse boxes for distribution across the city/world. Now that spirit of giving is truly Christmas!

[CandyKane]

We had our Thanksgiving dinner at church today. It was delicious!! Turkey, ham, and all the trimmings. We had a ton of leftovers so I got the night off from cooking for the family. I'll condsider that an early Christmas present!

[CandyKane]

Hopefully I'll get some time this week so I can stop by our church and put the kids Christmas tree up. We have lots of beautiful new ornaments and they always have such a great time decorating it.

[CandyKane]

Today's mail brought one Christmas catalog.....and three seed catalogs. hmmmm

[CandyKane]

I got several black Friday sales flyers. It's tempting but I'm still gonna sit it out this year. Any Christmas shopping I do on black Friday will be online.

[Noel+]

No Christmas catalogs or packages arrived today - kinda a sad feeling.

Ah, well I have packages to wrap and cards to write!

[CandyKane]

I feel really far behind because I haven't written out one single Christmas card yet. Can't wait for Thanksgiving and the Macy's parade because that will give me a much needed boost of holiday spirit.

[CandyKane]

•If you counted all the gifts that were given in the song “Twelve Days of Christmas” you would realize that the number of gifts being presented were 364 in total, thus a gift was given for each day of the year.

[CandyKane]

•There is a special act in Britain that actually makes it mandatory to go to church on Christmas day. The act that is deemed the Holy Days and Fasting Act still exists, however, not so much enforced. Additionally no vehicle of any kind is to be used to get to the Christmas service.

[CandyKane]

Religious symbolism of The Twelve Days of Christmas
(The 12 Days of Christmas)

1 True Love refers to God
2 Turtle Doves refers to the Old and New Testaments
3 French Hens refers to Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues
4 Calling Birds refers to the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
5 Golden Rings refers to the first Five Books of the Old Testament, the "Pentateuch", which gives the history of man's fall from grace.
6 Geese A-laying refers to the six days of creation
7 Swans A-swimming refers to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the sacraments
8 Maids A-milking refers to the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing refers to the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping refers to the ten commandments
11 Pipers Piping refers to the eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming refers to the points of doctrine in the Apostle's Creed

[Noel+]

•If you counted all the gifts that were given in the song “Twelve Days of Christmas” you would realize that the number of gifts being presented were 364 in total, thus a gift was given for each day of the year.

I remember learning that in school and it changed my perspective about the song from bored to inspirational!

[CandyKane]

The Wassail Song unlike other Christmas carols does not celebrate the nativity. The Wassail Song celebrates the New Year! "Wassail" is an olde English word for a toast similar to "Good Health" and the wassail is the content of the glass or goblet ( spiced or mulled wine or ale) The author of the lyrics is unknown but the tradition of going wassailing dates back to 12th century England. The composer of the music to the wassail song is also unknown.

[CandyKane]

We were under a tornado watch for most of the night, but thankfully we didn't get any rough weather. Just some much needed rain. I'm especially thankful my Christmas decorations didn't get blown away.

[CandyKane]

Just started working on my Christmas cards. I'll have a few of them ready to mail out Friday.

[mistletoe misfit]

DH and I bought the children the movie Home Alone today. When they got home from school we gave it to them. And of course we had to watch it right away. Fun Christmas movie! We have seen it many times over the years on tv. Now we can watch it any time. YAY!
Have great night CAY friends!

[mistletoe misfit]

We got a light dusting of snow over night. Looks Christmassy!
The sun is starting to come up and it will probably be melted away in a few hours. But we are enjoying waking up to it this morning.
Happy almost Thanksgiving!

[Jolly O'Leary]

Snowing now and for the forseeable future. The snow arrived in October this year, 2 months early. I asked my Swedish husband if that meant it would arrive in August next year, June the year after that, and so on until we were in a Narnia winter. He laughed when I told him that this is what people think Sweden is like ALL the time.

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas...........OH; I have a question for our northern and Canadian members. Do you still decorate for THanksgiving with a 'fall' theme or do you just go into winter?