h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Do you have any little rituals that get you in the Christmas (or other festival) spirit?

--Singing in a Christmas concert in early December

--Putting the Christmas dinnerware patterns on my table

--Some years I go to participate in a "Messiah" sing

--On Christmas Eve, as I drive 100 miles west to meet with my family, I listen to the Christmas music on a classical radio station. The station seems to put on the very best choral music, and the warm, consoling sound makes my journey seem worth it.

I never really feel that I've adequately prepared for Christmas Day, but there's safety in numbers. With gifts from and for about a dozen people under the tree, maybe no one will notice whether I got everyone the best possible gift. Getting together is the real point, and I enjoy it a lot.

I haven't really figured out what makes me feel Christmassy yet. I think the difficulty is that most of my associations with Christmas are not fun things (e.g. driving hundreds of miles to visit family scattered across the country, or the boredom of having to engage in small talk with family members I barely know).

- Choral singing, in a church. This doesn't happen very often but I love it when I manage to do it.

- Lights! Having fairy lights around the house lifts my spirits (I struggle in the dark of the winter).

- A meal isn't a Christmas meal without a party hat.

Yesterday I was at my daughter's Christmas Concert, which really felt festive.
Our shelves are infested with elves which definitely makes the children excited every morning. (They keep leaving Weetabix and cups of water out for them to eat.)

The sheds turning up in Southampton for the annual market.

I've got my own traditions – writing the Christmas crossword.

Getting Christmas cards is always exciting. Is sending Christmas cards dying out, replaced by e-mails, texts and messages?

We'll be doing the 300 mile journey up the M1 to the inlaws next week – hopefully as we drive north we'll start to see snow!

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I enjoy the first few snowstorms. After that, I get tired of them quickly. In my idea of an ideal world, we would go directly from new year's Day into Spring. Failing that, I'd like to inherit an where I could spend January through March.

I'm a Grinch. Nothing makes me feel Christmassy.

I still may go out of town for Crimbo to avoid the whole mess.

Baron Grinch has a nice ring to it.

I'm not going to ask where you could go to avoid Christmas, though. It seems as if the whole planet gets bathed in Christmasy things this time of year. Maybe even those infernal caves in "Passage to India."

But maybe there's a space elevator that you could take to the Moon.

About 3 bottles of Fischer Tradition Alsace beer

Hearing cheesy Christmas songs when you're out and about. Although I was surprised last week when, in a conversation with Baron Grim in another thread, I learnt that there's quite an Atlantic divide with what songs are played at Christmas.

I mean, yes I can understand that in the US they'd have the original versions of 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree' as Comic Relief isn't a US charity, but apparently in the US popular Christmas songs tend to date from around the 1950s, unlike in the UK they're definitely 1970s/80s – as if shopping centres bought their 'Play this each Christmas' CD in 1993 and never replaced it.

I'd say in the UK the popular ones are:
'White Christmas' (Bing Crosby: 1944)
'Happy Xmas (War is Over)' (John Lennon: 1972)
'Merry Xmas Everybody' (Slade: 1973)
'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday' (Wizzard: 1973)
'Lonely This Christmas' (Mud, 1974)
'Step Into Christmas' (Elton John, 1974)
'I Believe in Father Christmas' (Greg Lake, 1975)
'A Spaceman Came Travelling' (Chris de Burgh, 1975)
'Wonderful Christmastime' (Paul McCartney, 1979)
'Mary's Boy Child / Oh My Lord' (Boney M, 1981)
'Peace on Earth / Little Drummer Boy' (Bing Crosby & David Bowie, 1982)
'Stop the Cavalry' (Jona Lewie, 1982)
'Walking in the Air' (Peter Auty/Aled Jones, 1982)
'Do They Know It's Christmas?' (Band Aid: 1984, 1986, 2004)
'Last Christmas' (Wham!: 1984)
'The Power of Love' (Frankie Goes to Hollywood: 1984)
'Thank God It's Christmas' (Queen, 1984)
'Merry Christmas Everyone' (Shakin' Stevens: 1985)
'The Fairytale of New York' (The Pogues: 1987)
'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree' (Mel & Kim: 1987)
'Mistletoe and Wine' (Cliff Richard: 1988)
'Saviour's Day' (Cliff Richard: 1990)
'All I Want for Christmas is You' (Mariah Carey: 1994)
'Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End)' (The Darkness, 2003)

(Although that said, they no longer play 'Another Rock and Roll Christmas' (1984) for obvious reasons…)

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A number of those tunes are popular in Canada too - - - that other part of North America

That's what I would have expected. Not every song, sure, but certainly I'd've thought most would be well-known – there's some quite big names there.
I've got Canadian group Barenaked Ladies' Christmas album 'Barenaked for the Holidays' that includes a cover of 'Do They Know It's Christmas', for example, as well as 'Wonderful Christmastime'.

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"Wonderful Christmastime" gets played here in the U.S. I think of some of the Beatles as honorary Americans.* Heck, I think of Douglas Adams as an honorary American, too.




*The Atlantic has been a two-way street for a long time. Henry James and James Whistler went to the U.K., as well as the future mother of Winston Churchill and, more recently, the future Mrs. Prince Harry. And what American community doesn't have at least a few delightful former U.K. residents. My favorite aunt came over to California many years ago.

Yep, Randolph Churchill met and proposed to Jenny Jerome in Cowes on the Isle of Wight during Cowes Week 1873, and they got married only a month or two later so it was very quick.
Not sure Whistler, Henry James or Winston Churchill make me feel Christmassy, though.

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Well, the new Churchill movie starring Gary Oldman ("Darkest Hour") is coming into the theaters this week. "Paris, Christmas, 1876" is the name of a story by Henry James. Both connections to Christmas are a bit far-fetched, and I can't find much for Whistler.

So, sorry about that.

I'm amazed that the same actor played Winston Churchill, Dracula, Beethoven, Lee Harvey Oswald, Elvis, and Sid Vicious.

My tree goes up on the first weekend in December, and there is a point after it's been put together and the lights are on it, while I 'm sorting through my various mis-matched baubles and trinkets, that the Christmassy feeling hits. I HATE doing the tree until the lights are on, it's such a faff, but I love positioning the decorations. And I love the warm glow both in the room and in my heart when I light up the fully decorated tree

Thereafter, I feel Christmassy every evening when I come home and switch on the lights again. It's definitely the glow.

Deb

I enjoy seeing Christmas lights when I drive around in residential neighborhoods.

I feel the same walking the dog at this time of year . The afternoon walk is generally in the dark and, once the decorations are up, the curtains tend to stay open. Pretty lights AND a nose into other folk's homes!

Deb

That's a combination that's hard to beat!

Atleast I now know who has been leaving nose-prints on my front window.