Friday Playlist
Christmas vacation has begun. The girls had early dismissal yesterday and are now home for two-plus weeks of holiday bliss. Or hiding in their rooms staring at their devices. Christmas in 2018… As a self-anointed connoisseur of holiday music, I thought I would share some of my favorite songs that aren’t jam-packed into every other Christmas playlist you may have…
Reader’s Notebook, 12/19/18
’Tis the season for quick reads. So some blurbs about a few (mostly) slim pieces I’ve rolled through recently. Being Santa Claus – Sal Lizard with Jonathan Lane A memoir by a Christmas season Santa who does everything from standard mall Santa gigs, to private events at homes, to visiting sick kids in the hospital. It’s pretty saccharine, but Santa…
Favorite Songs of 2018
After about six weeks of hard work, here they are: my 22 favorite songs of 2018. Yeah, 22. Got a problem with that? I didn’t think so. I’ve provided both a Spotify playlist that goes from the end of the list to #1, and individual videos for each song. These posts are always hard to get right with all the…
State of Music: 2018
Before I drop my favorite songs of the year on you, a few moments for my annual State of Music address. 2018 was tough. Regular readers know the biggest reason why I say this: the May suicide of Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison. I was pretty emotional about Prince’s death, and felt a little strange because of that. I figured…
That Old Christmas Spirit
As your kids get older there are dozens of trade offs as you leave old annoyances behind but also lose moments of joy that are unique to younger ages. Sadly the Christmas spirit is pretty much gone among our girls this year. Yeah, L still has some moments where she’s down. She’s the only kid who has wanted to sit…
Friday Vid
OK, wanted to slide one more thing in for the week. This delightful video of how crabs exchange shells should make your day.
Friday Playlist
I’m all set to unleash my Favorite Songs of 2018 list on the world early next week. As was a tradition on my old podcast, I’ll offer up this appetizer: a playlist of my #1 song of each year going back to 2004. I always offer the disclaimer that I do not update these lists. A few of these songs…
Another View of Shepherd
I’m in the midst of my annual re-reading of Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story. If I’m not mistaken, this is the 10th-straight December I’ve reviewed the collection of short stories that much of the movie was based on. Every year I think, “I should go back and listen to some of Shepherd’s radio shows or read a biography of him.”…
Song and Dance
A couple Christmas entertainment links to share this morning. I had been kicking around the idea of writing about my least favorite Christmas songs. Alexandra Petri decided to take that to a whole other level and rank 100 Christmas songs. A few of these I’ve never heard of and I think she leaves out a few that get played a…
Finally!
Man am I excited to finally be writing this post. Yep, after six long, painful, frustrating, maddening, inexplicable months, we finally freaking sold our old house! We closed on Friday, so it’s really real this time. “Wait, what?” I can hear some of you asking. “I thought you sold it already?!?” Nope. Astute readers should recall that we thought we…