Grand Ole Opera

For madamab

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A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim

(Embedding is disabled, but click on the screen a second time and it will open the clip on YouTube in a new window)

Make the jump to see the rest of the movie

Holiday Open House

Come on in, Conflucians and PUMAs.  Let’s have a party.  Bring your dreidls and your mennorah, your glass ornaments and your tinsel, your holly and ivy, your uwole and libations.  Muslims can break out their Eid dishes if they feel so inclined even though they celebrated back in October.

What are we celebrating?  Well, I’m guessing that the winter solstice was a period of suspense for ancient peoples.  Would the sun come back?  What if it kept on going south and never returned?  The tiny, perceptible incremental lengthening of the day must have been a cause for a huge sigh of relief.  But there was still a long winter ahead.  Better fatten up and hang with your friends while you wait it out.

During this last year, we have certainly done a lot of fattening up.  I’m still working off the blog pounds.  But we have also made a lot of friends both here and at PUMAP.A.C., NO WE WON’T, and dozens of other pro-Hillary sites who knew a good thing when the saw it.  We were right but right doesn’t always mean we will be rewarded.  Still, it’s good to know that we have each other in the time ahead.  We’ll stick together and show the rest of the country the Morality of Good Citizenship.

So, come in out of the cold and dark, raise a cup and shout a merry “Wassail” and celebrate.

Rico is joining us for our party.  He made a Wassail in advance.  The recipe below serves 6 but with the magic of the internet, there seems to be plenty for everyone.   Here’s the recipe:

English Wassail

Ingredients:
1 pint water
1 cup honey
4 cloves
3 sticks cinnamon
2 lemons thinly sliced
1 bottle medium dry red wine

Turn this recipe into a puzzle! [click]

Directions:

Boil together water, honey, cloves and cinnamon for five minutes. Add two lemons thinly sliced and allow to stand for 7 or 8 minutes. Add a bottle of medium dry red wine and heat slowly until just below boiling point. pour into a jug and serve hot.

This recipe from CDKitchen for English Wassail serves/makes 6

Of course, you can have anything you like.  Florence brought a Reuben Dip.  I made some peppermint bark.  What did you bring?

Purty Christmas Music – Enjoy!

I’m not a Christian, but I LOVE Christmas music. So, as my holiday gift to you, here are some of my favorites:

“O Holy Night“, sung by Dame Joan Sutherland (yes, that is a high “D” at the end! You go girl!)

“Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah, conducted by Robert Shaw

“Riu Riu Chiu“, Christmas Carol, performed by Capella Gloriana

“It Came Upon A Midnight Clear,” performed by Ella Fitzgerald

and of course:

“White Christmas,” performed by Bing Crosby (and written by nice Jewish boy Irving Berlin)

May your days be merry and bright!

Jeebus Was a DFH Moonbat Librul

I was raised in one of those fundie churches.  I’m not gonna say which one, but we thought Baptists were gonna burn in Hell for having too much fun.

I stayed in that church from Pre-K to high school.  I left the church shortly after the preacher’s daughter took me out back and showed me the holy ghost and since then I’ve only been back for an occasional wedding.  But what I learned while I was there is a lot of the reason I’m a liberal.

Happy Xmas (War is Over)

Not this one – the other one