I REALLY AM a Christmas Geek!!

I always knew that I was a Christmas Geek...hence the title of this blog...but I just took the obsession to a new level.

I posted a picture of all of the gifts that I just wrapped on Facebook. LAME! But not. I think that Facebook is a place to post things about who and what you love...and I love...CHRISTMAS (I know, I know, as if I haven't said that enough...) It may be after 2:15 am on DECEMBER 24th, but this is so worth it.

I did really well shopping; it's pretty much done except for one small gift that I need before January 9th. Not to mention I'm broke from all of the presents I bought...but we'll deal with that when necessary. It took me so long to wrap tonight that I listened to my playlist in its entirety and I still wasn't done. I also had choir practice for Midnight Mass tomorrow!!

Tomorrow (well, today technically)--I probably like Christmas Eve better than Christmas Day. When I was a kid, there was no comparison, but as we grow older we learn that there is so much more to this time of year than what presents you'll wake up to. Then again, not like the presents aren't special and not like I'm not looking forward to them! OK...I can't wait. But I love giving almost more than receiving presents.

Two of my favorite entities of all time happen on Christmas Eve: Midnight Mass and 24 Hours of A Christmas Story which is my favorite movie of all time. Midnight Mass is just glorious; I cry every year and I love to sing the music that we have in our Christmas repertoire. The feeling that comes over me during that whole service is unlike any other feeling that I have ever experienced.

As for my favorite movie of all time, I refuse to watch it in its entirety until Christmas Eve. I sleep in front of a television so I can watch it all night long. My dad loves it too which makes it even more special. I even own A Christmas Story Monopoly.



that's one of the ecards that you can send on tbs.com to promote the marathon!!

Ooh...it's 2:32AM...and I need to grab a quick shower before I have to sleep and get up in 6 hours for my manicure and delivering gifts! MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE to my fellow Christmas Geeks!

CHECK IT OUT!!

My cousin just sent me this...I CRIED!!

http://ecard.ashland.edu/index.php?ecardYear=2004adm

For the Christmas Geek in All of Us

I wrote this about a year or so ago, December 7th 2008, to be exact. It's actually where I got the idea for this blog from, hence its title. It's something that really means a lot to me.

Just to see if anyone else can relate...

Sometimes a sense memory brought on by a song can be so beautiful.

I'm listening to Christmas music on Lite-FM through my computer (since I'm not home and I can't listen to it for real) and Anne Murray's version of O Holy Night came on. My parents used to play Anne Murray's Christmas CD all of the time when I was a kid...and just hearing that version of the song allowed me to go so far as smell my mom's hot apple cider from Williams and Sonoma. I spend so much time thinking about the negative and not enough time remembering everything that was great from my childhood.
And Christmas is quite possibly the best time of year for this...because when it was Christmas, EVERYTHING was great. There were miracles...I honestly believe that.

We used to have these great cassette tapes called "Christmas Through the Years" that played all of the traditional Christmas music by all of the traditional artists who sung them...like Jingle Bell Rock done by Bobby Helms and Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee. Kate Smith sings a song on there called Christmas Eve in my Hometown (which I was able to find on iTunes) and it also had Christmas in Killarney (also in iTunes) but I can't find the whole collection anymore. We bought the Time-Life Treasury of Christmas some years later, and while that was great, I still loved those cassettes more, along with the Anne Murray CD and Nat King Cole's Christmas CD. I'm honestly sad that I can't find those cassettes anymore...ours are so old that the quality isn't great anymore...but maybe I'll look in ebay.

And a story that I've told recently...when I was six or so years old, some of the kids in my class told me that Santa wasn't real. My parents took action immediately and my dad insisted that I was going to have proof that Santa existed. They bought a Santa suit and filmed my dad on Christmas Eve bringing presents into our living room. And when I asked how the camera knew when to turn on...they thought quickly and said "it's floor activated!" My father, a known health freak, even hammed it up for the camera while eating those delicious chocolate chip cookies and rubbed his belly..made out of pillows!
I truly didn't put two and two together about how this was my father impersonating Santa until three or four years later...I totally bought it!

One of the best things about Christmas is how some things about it may change from year to year but the feelings are still the same. My mother and I still make cookies, every year..and Gauri loves those cornflake wreaths! We still go to Target on Black Friday every year and K and Bevin joined us this year to make it more fun. I still watch A Christmas Story every year, and if Gina and Joe are around I watch it with them! We go to Midnight Mass every year. And new traditions, like the Salve christmas concert, make the season...for lack of a less corny word...brighter.

It will always be the most magical time of the year..and it will always make me feel so full. <3

For your listening pleasure

I just found this song....it's probably been around a very long time, but seeing as I am considerably young (I'm going to be 21 next WEDNESDAY!) I'll let myself off the hook for not knowing it. I joked to a friend today that the only reason why I know the voices of Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, and Andy Williams is Christmas music. We were playing 'name the artist' with XM's Holiday Traditions.

So, without further ado...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FlMScropOc
there's no video, just the song...and a very pretty Christmas card picture! (speaking of which, I do need to finish wriing those).

The Christmas Geek's Christmas Music Playlist

So...if you are interested in a (if I do say so myself) a great list of suggestions for tunes at that next Christmas party, they are RIGHT HERE. Yours for the taking. I've combined some old and new, some classic versions and artists with a few newer ones. But don't ever settle for the newer remakes of old Christmas classics...because, well, let's just say the authenticity is LOST.

Without further ado...The Christmas Geek's Christmas Music Playlist:

1. Elvis Presley--If Every Day Was Like Christmas
2. Aaron Neville--Please Come Home For Christmas
3. Darlene Love--Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
4. David Bowie and Bing Crosby--Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy
5. Nat King Cole--The Christmas Song
6. Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town--EITHER Bing Crosby with The Andrews Sisters (which is the version that you hear in the distance during a scene in "A Christmas Story") OR Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band...depending on your mood and your crowd.
7. Kate Smith--Christmas Eve In My Hometown
8. David Foster--Carol of the Bells
9. Dan Fogelberg--Same Auld Land Syne (yeah, I get it, I'm an old romantic)
10. Anne Murray--O Holy Night
11. Stevie Wonder--Someday at Christmas
12. Band Aid--Do They Know It's Christmas
13. Dean Martin--A Marshmallow World
14. Frank Sinatra--The Christmas Waltz
15. Kenny Rogers and Wynonna Judd- Mary, Did You Know?
16. The Waitresses--Christmas Wrapping
17. Trans-Siberian Orchestra--Christmas Canon
18. Louis Armstrong--'Zat You, Santa Claus?
19. Stevie Wonder--What Christmas Means To Me
20. Frank Sinatra--Silent Night
21. The Killers--A Great Big Sled
22. Rob Thomas--A New York Christmas
23. Vaughn Monroe--Let It Snow


The order could more than likely be altered a bit (Let It Snow doesn't exactly belong at the end of a playlist containing songs like Do They Know It's Christmas)but I really love all of these selections. I also could have listed MANY more, but I do have to get up in a few hours. LOL!!

Also, some of my favorite Christmas albums are: the A Very Special Christmas series, the Time-Life Treasury of Christmas, even the NOW That's What I Call Christmas series. And, of course, my personal favorite, Christmas Through The Years, which was available for purchase through Reader's Digest during the 80s. My parents had the cassette version when I was a kid and though they rarely play anymore, I won't let them get rid of those albums!!

Enjoy the tunes!!
Gracie
The Christmas Geek

Let There Be Lights

HEY HEY HEY! It's DECEMBER!

December 25th is rapidly approaching--but I'm actually trying not to think about that. I want to prolong the season as much as humanly possible. And by doing that, I wish my excellent higher education institution would give me more time off so I could get ready for Christmas and participate in more Christmas-oriented activities. But que sera sera...I had to miss Christmas in Rockefeller Center for the first time tonight. I've NEVER missed it. :-( Hopefully, someone DVR'd it for me (seeing as poor college students don't have DVR...sigh...)

What I HAVE noticed: IT BECAME CHRISTMASTIME OVERNIGHT! I was in my homeport of New York City last weekend for the Thanksgiving holidays and there was the Tree. While not lit yet, the magic was still ever-present. I also got a first look at the Saks windows this year; they are based on a lost personaifed snowflake who enters the city and learns about Christmas there. Cliche? Yes, but at this time of the year...what isn't? Isn't that how it's supposed to be?

Light displays on front lawns have added to the feeling of Christmas truly being in the air. I drove around my college town both yesterday and today just to scope them out (one of my favorite pastimes-of course, with Christmas tunes playing on the radio. XM/Sirius satellite radio has Holiday Tracks {XM 4} and Holly {XM 23} as great stations.). A new favorite decoration of mine this year: oversized "lights." They are shaped like Christmas light bulbs, but are placed in the ground because they are big enough to be. I've also seen more white than colored lights so far...which is dissapointing because I'm more partial to the colored lights. The usual lighted reindeer are still ever-popular, and while I was at home some of the displays that I grew up with are still perennial. My parents and I always take people by this one house; I swear, the guy has over two hundred plastic Christmas figurines on his front lawn.

For now, right in the midst of end-of-semester madness, ANY lights will do.

Please feel free to share your favorite outdoor decorations!! What displays will be up at your homes?

Happy decorating!
Gracie
The Christmas Geek

Welcome!!

Many people love to countdown to Christmas Day. I'm honestly not a fan. If Christmas Day is closer, that means the season is ending. So therefore, I'm going to open this blog by counting down to going home for Thanksgiving (as Thanksgiving is a part of the Christmas season)...and the countdown stands at 2 DAYS! For the rest of the college students like me, safe travels-- I know this weekend is the busiest travel weekend of the year.

WHY I'M STARTING THIS BLOG: if you know me (and I'd imagine that most people who are reading this know me, at least at this point), you know that I have a true passion for Christmas. The fact that my birthday is on December 16th may have something do to with it, but I honestly believe that I just love Christmas...and I mean everything about it. I love the time spent with people who you really love and love you. I love the idealism behind the whole season. I love giving and receiving gifts. I love going out on Black Friday (and that countdown stands at 5 DAYS...the commercials shown on ABC Family gave me a heads up!). I love watching the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center being lit (and as a native New Yorker, I'm clearly biased ^_^). I love sharing old memories of Christmases past. And of course, Jesus, my reason for the season...and whatever your reason for the season may be. I want to share with the world why I love Christmas, and just what I love about it. I could never squeeze all of that into one post.

Think about it: Why do you love Christmas? What memories, good or bad, do you have? Please leave your comments; I'd love to read them.

Okay...I think that's all for tonight. I spent too much time watching "Snowglobe" on ABC Family that my packing for my journey home from college, the solo that I'm audtioning for in Handel's Messiah, and oh goodness, that paper that I have due, all got abandoned tonight!!

Blessings,
Gracie
The Christmas Geek