Category: Christmas

Advent activity #11

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

As you will know if we are social media buddies, I am a big fan of made-for-TV Christmas movies. For the last few years I have had Sony Movies Christmas on as a version of background music for most of October, November and December, and more recently Channel 5 have started showing at least two made-for-TV Christmas movies a day, which means you can watch them in – unimaginable luxury – HD. (Although it is fair to say that some made-for-TV Christmas movies look a lot better through the haze of spun sugar that is the SD viewing experience on channel 51.)

What is comforting about made-for-TV Christmas movies is that they are all exactly the same in a way that I don’t need to try to explain because it’s done so perfectly in this Tweet and its replies. And one thing that nearly always happens is a trip to a Christmas tree farm, because that is how you buy Christmas trees in smalltown America, and all made-for-TV Christmas movies are – eventually – set in smalltown America.

So today’s task, if you haven’t already done it, is BUY CHRISTMAS TREE, and to ideally while doing so either have a meet-cute with an old flame you haven’t seen in years, or a comedy accident. (The finest example of the latter is in Deck The Halls, which isn’t a made-for-TV Christmas movie but is lovingly made in their finest tradition, and if you haven’t already seen it this Christmas – I have, twice – you can watch it on Amazon Prime.)

All of which is the perfect introduction to this song, which as a song is only medium, but it’s by Taylor Swift which immediately makes it a 10/10. I think in real life you probably wouldn’t want to visit a Christmas tree farm in the snow, because it would make choosing, felling and transporting your tree much more complicated, but for the purposes of a pop video I endorse it enthusiastically.

Advent activity #10

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

You are almost certainly exempted from today’s very specific task, which is BIRTHDAY CALL FOR DAVID. It is David’s birthday, and certainly some of us should be giving him a birthday call, but it doesn’t necessarily translate as a universally appropriate seasonal activity. If you aren’t going to call David you could always call someone else! (Not me, I don’t like talking and my phone is on silent.)

Obviously since it is David’s birthday I let him choose the music, which is why we will all be spending the morning listening to whatever the hey this is. Inexplicably, nobody has created a video version so your David Day bonus is this non-Christmassy but perfect clip of a man who has made his own limoncello.

@justlikecoffee

#drink #howto #foryou #foryoupage #limoncello

♬ original sound – Justlikecoffee2020

Advent (non-)activity #9

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Cooking, Music

The official instruction for today is BREAK, which I think means we are allowed a day off from our seasonal chores, so instead I will give you a recipe which I invented by mistake earlier this week when I’d been planning to do garlic bread, then remembered the oven was kaput. If you are not interested in serendipitous culinary discoveries then skip straight down to today’s tangentially-food-related song, which is a DOOZY.

I have no quantities for you here, because I made it up as I went along, but I can’t imagine it mattering how much of anything you use. And it’s almost all staples that you probably have in the house anyway, which makes it easy as well as delicious. I think I’m going to call it HOT SPROUT SALAD.

Ingredients

  • Brussels sprouts
  • Olive oil
  • Chili flakes
  • Garlic (or garlic paste)
  • Grated parmesan
  • Crushed pistachio kernels

Method

  • Shred the sprouts – I grated them, but chopping them up finely would also work
  • Heat the oil in a frying pan with the chili flakes and lots of black pepper for 1-2 minutes
  • Add the garlic and the sprouts and cook until the sprouts have just started to char
  • Take the pan off the heat and add the parmesan
  • Stir and season to taste
  • Serve topped with the pistachio kernels as a side-dish to almost anything

START READING AGAIN HERE We’ve had the Carpenters before, and we’ve had The Christmas Song before, but we’ve never combined the two, which is a shame because this is beautiful, but it’s also good news because it means we can have it for the first time today! I love Karen’s outfit here, even though if I were to wear it I would look like an actual Brussels sprout.

Advent activity #8

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Films, Music, TV and radio

I’m going to be very lenient in the overseeing of today’s job, which is “BUY DISNEY PLUS”. It’s a perfectly good plan if you live in a house where a lot of Disney is going to be watched over Christmas, and it’s an even better one if some of you are under ten and/or isolating. If those things are not true of your household then I am happy for you to interpret this activity in any way you choose, though it should probably be film-or TV-based if you definitely want to score the point.

(There is a free online screeing of Mogul Mowgli this evening for BFI members, which I have decided will count as my contribution.)

There must be a million Disney Christmas songs, mustn’t there? But I couldn’t think of any, and the ones I found when I googled were sickly sweet and/or featured children wearing make-up, so instead we will go to a Disney-adjacent IP (I mean, of course Disney own the Muppets, because they own everything, but they’re not DISNEY-Disney) for an almost-rendition of Shchedryk, or The Carol of the Bells as it’s better known in English.

(If you hate this version, here is a nicer one.)

Advent activity #7

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

GET STOCKINGS OUT is the job of the day for Monday, although whether that is a two-minute task or a two-hour one depends on how organised your house is. Don’t tell anyone, but I think we might skip stockings this year, because we’re trying to reduce the amount of unnecessary Stuff we have and it’s quite hard to fill a stocking with necessary Stuff. For more years of my life than I’m willing to own up to, though, I found opening the Christmas stocking the most thrilling part of the whole day, and I will still insist on chocolate coins and a satsuma before breakfast on Christmas Day, stocking or no stocking.

Also my stocking is really small, because it’s one that I think my paternal grandma made for me when I was tiny, and I don’t want anyone to think that the size of my stocking should be a limit on the size of what Santa brings me.

Luckily some people are far more selfless – for example, the little boy in this delight of a song, put out in the 1950s by US children’s record label Cricket, on vinyl that crackles like a log fire. Enjoy!

Advent activity #6

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Films, Music

If you are my eighty-five-year-old neighbour then you have already done this twice, because you weren’t convinced by your first effort, but if not then today is the day to MAKE CAKE. I think technically this probably means Christmas cake, but I will allow any type of cake, or – in extremis – toast. I’m able to make very little since our oven went kaput last week and the people aren’t coming to fix it until Tuesday, so I will be spending my Sunday decorating the tree (that was supposed to happen yesterday, but the lights have also gone kaput; I am not having a good time, electronically) and listening to proper old-fashioned Christmas Crooner music, beginning with Doris Day’s version of Winter Wonderland. Most non-recent Christmas songs don’t come with a video, but this one does and it’s extremely Christmassy, so do take three minutes out of your day to watch as well as listen.

Advent activity #5

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music, Theatre1 Comment

I’m going to let you interpret today’s instruction, GET NUTCRACKER, in whichever way you choose. Should you happen to own a decorative Christmas ornament in the shape of a toy soldier from the ballet then you will be able to hit the nail squarely on the head, but in the unlikely event that you don’t, you could:

  1. Get your actual honest-to-god nutcracker from the kitchen drawer and use it to crack some nuts
  2. Get the ballet on DVD, or stream it, or, from December 11, stream it live from the New York City Ballet
  3. Get coconut liqueur, cognac, lemon juce, triple sec, pineapple juice, some ice and a strong constitution and mix yourself this slightly terrifying-sounding drink

However you choose to celebrate Nutcracker Day, as December 5 will henceforth be known in our house, you must for sure begin by listening to Pentatonix, last seen gracing these pages two years ago with That’s Christmas To Me, perform this adorable version of the Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy:

Advent activity #4

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Look, I do apologise, but Edie is a hard taskmaster and if, like me, you are getting your Christmas tree tomorrow then it really will help if you MAKE SPACE FOR CHRISTMAS TREE today, rather than waiting until there’s a great big Christmas tree in the way of everything. She may be six, but she’s smart.

My parents aren’t putting up a tree this year, because they aren’t having any visitors, so as a special one-off treat I am allowed to put their fairy, handmade by me in 1978, on top of my tree. More on that anon. For today I will follow the instructions and move the furniture in our front room kitchen sitting room dining room (they are all the same room) house around until I have made a space that will no doubt turn out tomorrow to be just a weeny bit too small.

Talk of Christmas trees means I can share with you one of my most thrilling recent Christmas music finds: Nat King Cole singing O Tannenbaum IN GERMAN. I don’t speak German, so I can’t tell how good his accent is, but his voice is so beautiful that it doesn’t matter.

Advent activity #3

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music4 Comments

Our instruction for December 3 is HOLLY WREATH, which coincidentally is also today’s real-life task in my house, where I have discovered that the wreath I made last year is a little worse for wear after a year under the stairs and needs refreshing: a visit to the closest florist awaits at lunchtime. This is the first place I’ve lived since I was a student where my front door faces the street, and so around this time last year I went to an evening class at the Old Brewery in Greenwich where I paid £10 to make my own wreath while consuming at least £10 worth of mince pies. There were various decorations on offer but the competition for the more traditional elements of a wreath was fierce and so I went off-piste and garnished my fir boughs with thistles, mistletoe and, well, peacock feathers.

My wreath, with peculiar outdoor security lighting

There’s no holly or ivy in this wreath, but I think I will add some ivy to it when I perk it up later, which I have decided gives me licence to make today’s song Annie Lennox’s glorious version of The Holly And The Ivy, from her even more glorious 2010 album A Christmas Cornucopia. If you could sing like that you’d never stop, would you?

Advent activity #2

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Today’s task is to SING CHRISTMAS SONGS, which since there are no carol services or singalongs this year we will all have to do at home, by ourselves, so I have chosen a song which everybody knows in order to give you no excuse not to join in. Yes, even you. I encourage you to consider this a mere jumping-off point, to be followed up immediately with your fullest and finest Christmas repertoire. You definitely know more Christmas songs than you think you do.

(You also definitely know fewer Christmas songs than I do, but that is because I have spent around <maths> thirty hours a year since 2008 on my musical advent calendar, which by my calculations gets me 3.9% of the way to Malcom Gladwell’s ten thousand hours and hence somewhere between “expert” and “Michael Gove” on the expert scale.)