Category Archives: holiday

Holiday entertainment… naughty and nice

December 20, 2011 By in Cookies and Bars, holiday Tags: , , , 2 Comments
Holiday entertainment… naughty and nice

There are loads of sites to get all the latest and newest, and the traditional holiday flicks and music. Here are our family (and adult only- ok… not that kind of adult) favorites.


Although Charlie Brown Christmas show is classic and we love it, we don’t always watch it. But, the soundtrack officially kicks off our season.  This year it accompanied our holiday sugar cookie baking and decorating. I LOVE this CD and usually OD on it the first day because we listen to it over and over for about 5 hours. But then I’m ready for it again in just a few days.Cookie extravaganza… They didn’t quite look like the magazine ones….they were better:-)

Here’s a couple more fav’s…

 Starbucks Holiday tunes from 2009

Then for films… I’m going out on a limb here and starting with the naughty/nasty. Don’t watch Bad Santa with the kids! It’s raunchy funny and only for the thick skinned.  Then comes nice…..Nativity, A Christmas Story, Elf and the classic Miracle on 34th Street. Not pictured- A Christmas Carol and It’s A Wonderful Life… (of course)

And lest we forget these classics….. Here’s the original 1966 Grinch (with Boris Karloff, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolf, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Frosty the Snowman.

Ok. That’s it for now. We head to Spain tomorrow for 2 weeks. I’m hoping to get a couple posts and pics out while we are on the road. I mean those tech savvy peeps are doing it. Why can’t I. umm… because I’m a wee bit behind that curve. But I’m adding that to my 2012 resolutions. Get on top of that curve!

Happy Holidays

PS – Here’s one more Tim Allen film that’s fun.

St. Petri Weihnachtsoratorium and steak tartare

December 18, 2011 By in Culture, Hamburg, holiday Tags: , , , 3 Comments

Sankt Petri Choir, Hamburg on Saturday Dec 17th,2011

Saturday night we partook in a very traditional German event, the Bach Weihnachtsoratorium. Here’s the wiki entry for Bach’s Oratorio. And here is a little idea of the 2 hours spent at St. Petri Kirche, downtown Hamburg. (this is a Dresden choir)

Dresdner Kreuzchor – Weihnachtsoratorium (Johann Sebastian Bach)

Granted 90% of the time, well at least 75% of the time, I listened intently, feeling my cultural integrity expand by the minute. I even read along with the German passages in the program. Though I will say, there was the tendency to repeat the same 3 sentences over and over to stretch out the show.. go Bach.

The other 10-30% of the time, I thought about blog posts and what I would order at Cafe de Paris. I quickly came to Steak tartare and Frites. Really though I don’t mean to sound like a cultural cow. It was beautiful.

We also spent the evening with 5 other couples. This was our first real couply social event. Yeah us!

Choir concert

December 16, 2011 By in Hamburg, holiday, My life Tags: , 2 Comments

Our choir sang today at Santa Fu prison in Hamburg. We all met with smiles at the S-bahn (train) in Blankenese and made our way north about 45min. We stepped off the train in Ohlsdorf into a light slushy rain, randomly cursing the weather amongst ourselves. We walked 15 maybe 20 minutes in one large group to the facility. We stepped inside the first entrance, handed over our passports and placed all our possessions in lockers. We sang a few warm up notes while waiting to be led in small groups through the scanner to another room. Each time, the door closed and locked behind us. All but one of the choir were chatty and a little nervous, unaccustomed to visits to correctional facilities. The exception was Stephen, a defense attorney who works with some of these inmates. He set up the gig for us. I would say the majority of our conceptions of prisons had been provided by the media and movies. About 30 minutes later, after each of us had been separately taken behind a curtain to be searched, we walked back outside across an inner courtyard, up another set of stairs and locked doors to the hall and dining room. We were debriefed with a little history about the prison and inmates and the fact that these men were only allowed to see their children in an open setting once a year at Christmas. This is what struck my heart. Continue reading →