Cartoons: Christmas turmoil

Today I'm looking at some not-so-sweet aspects of Christmas.

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Walt Handelsman, The Week

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Pat Bagley, The Week

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Gary Varvel, The Week

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May you find what you want this Christmas. Or, at the least, what you need.

-- Marge

Season's Greeting 2015

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Wishing you all a peaceful holiday season, here's my tribute to it. (Click on the image.)


-- Marge

Some more Christmas resources

Cute snowmen, skyHDwallpaper

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Have you ever heard a song, then had it go round and round in your head most of the day? And if the song has lyrics, you can't remember all of them. Then you're stuck trying to remember. If this happens with the 12 Days of Christmas, you can find the lyrics to this and many songs at MetroLyrics. Here are the first 3 days worth:

On the first day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
A Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the second day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the third day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

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desktop Christmas images, hd-wallpapersdownload

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If you can't get enough fresh Christmas images, try this search: "Christmas 2015" or "Christmas wallpaper" in Google images.

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3 Fantastic Christmas Wallpapers, eskipaper

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Merry Christmas to you and yours.

-- Marge

DIY: a public domain Christmas

Thomas Nast’s most famous drawing, “Merry Old Santa Claus”,
from the January 1, 1881 edition of Harper’s Weekly. Public Domain Review

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The simple act of sharing a digital book can become complicated in this patent- and copyright-bound age. If a book, story, poem, or film is public domain, you can use and/or alter the material in any way you chose. This is especially helpful if you create websites, digital art, or publish videos. Keep in mind there's a strong line between offering what you create for personal use and monetizing it. Also, if your creation uses elements of another artist's/entity's creation or alters it, the original artist has a right to say how his/her creation is used. Shepard Fairey got in trouble for his use of Mannie Garcia's photo for his Barack Obama Hope poster. Using public domain pieces just works better.

To get started with finding public domain information, take a look at How to Celebrate a Public Domain Christmas at wikiHow. While the article goes a little overboard--you can use any image you want in your own home--it gives some ideas on finding pieces that are in the public domain. But do take care when you make something available to the general public.

For a list of free Christmas plays and stories, there's 10 classic Christmas stories, free to download. A helpful feature of this article is the reference to Project Gutenberg. Something I just learned: "Project Gutenberg is facilitating online publishing by contemporary authors." I also learned that there's a site called WikiLeaks: "WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organisation. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists..."

An interesting site that offers pieces in the public domain is The Public Domain Review. In the Collections section many sources are named and content made available. Some of the pieces are the digitized form of documents and works of art that are centuries old. Careful, some of the images can be disturbing. You can select what to view by medium or era.

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Ellis Island immigrants, Dutch children, Public Domain Review

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Finding background music for videos can be time-consuming. Google's Audio Library offers a very nice selection with descriptions including the genre and mood. Also included are precise notes on fair use/rights. You can find this library by logging into your YouTube account and choosing "My Channel" in the upper left menu. Then choose "Video Manager" from the bar above your YouTube banner. Along the left side of the page is a list with "Create" at the bottom. The Create dropdown includes "Audio Library" and "Video Editor." Once on the Audio Library page there are several options to filter its contents. You can download the audio sample selected.


--Marge

Art and design: Christmas websites

Christmas wallpaper, iSkysoft

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Today's mission was to find some of the best non-commercial websites online in the last 2 years. I return empty-handed. If you want to buy something, be inspired with lovely Christmas templates (to buy), or go to church, you're in luck.

The recent lists of best websites mostly tout flat design anyway, which frankly I find flat. That is, without any visual interest. Perhaps the best list about Christmas in general is the Telegraph's Christmas 2015. Christmas.com may hold some treasures for you.

If you want a template for your own website, take a look at Christmas Templates 2015: A List Of 14 Best Templates For Professional Blogs And Websites. If Wordpress is your CMS (content management system) of choice, there's 10 Best WordPress Christmas themes 2015. (Note: some links at Design Maz point to discontinued themes. Go figure.) Here's a live demo of the Christmas Lights theme from TemplateMonster.

The site iSkysoft has a good list of free Christmas images. Many of the links point to wallpapers; these can be resized to be usable as smaller images, as shown here.

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Christmas wallpaper, iSkysoft

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Then there's Elf Yourself. It's up to 1.2 billion visitors and counting. With it you can take a photo with your webcam, save it to your desktop, and send it to Facebook. There are apps for iPhone and Android. (You must agree to the terms and conditions before you can operate the site options.)

-- Marge

Christmas gone wrong...

Pleated Jeans, Cheezburger

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Here are some humorous stories to remind you that Christmas doesn't have to be, and often isn't, perfect.

Run out of time or incentive to shop for yet another present? Here are some re-gifting confessions and snafus, as reported by AOL users.  This one resonates for me:

Reader Haveanangel says:

"About 20 years ago, my grandfather gave my husband a gift set of English Leather. He didn't like it, never opened it. The following year, [my husband] gave it to my brother-in-law. I have three sisters and for the next few years, that gift set made it's way around the family Christmas circuit. My husband got it back and he said enough was enough. He gave it to his brother. We haven't seen that stuff since."

Some good holiday stories can be found at HamptonRoads. Here's one that isn't about Christmas, but could be:

For Thanksgiving this year [2010], Cathy Jenson of Chesapeake decided to make a chocolate cake from scratch with her children, ages 7 and 9. The arguments left flour and cocoa powder everywhere, and the first attempt at making frosting had to be discarded, but finally the batter was in the pans and the pans were in the oven.

The second frosting attempt went much better, and Jenson said, "Hey, guys, looks like it turned out good this time! What's that smell?"

The 8-inch pans - smaller than the recipe called for - had overflowed. Flames were coming off the bottom of the oven.

The kids dropped to their knees and crawled to the front door, per the instructions from firefighters visiting their classrooms over the years, while Jenson's husband doused the fire. Then she put the cake back in to finish baking.

Done and cooled, the rounds broke apart as they were removed from the pans, but Jenson's mother-in-law held them together while frosting was slathered on.

"The result was a lopsided, crumbly cake with a split on top to rival the San Andreas Fault," Jenson said. "It was delicious!"

Below is the photo that accompanies Stacey Gustafson's blog post about their artificial Christmas tree.

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Stacey Gustafson, "Christmas Tree Taunts Us," Are you kidding me? 

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-- Marge

DIY: Making Christmas yours

Stonehenge at winter solstice, crystalinks

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Christmas is a religious and cultural celebration practiced by billions of people around the world. With the proliferation of advertising and emphasis on buying, many feel that the true meaning of Christmas has been lost. But what is the true meaning?

Christians believe that Christmas is the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus, a story familiar to many of us. As you may know, during this time of year many cultures, old and newer, celebrate their own beliefs, often centered on the winter solstice (December 21-22). Christianity is not the only religion/belief system to have rich traditions centered here.

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The Nativity by Le Nain, Fine Art America

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Focusing on the winter solstice, modern German-speaking areas and other Northern European countries celebrate Yule, which was a pagan religious festival. There is also Yalda, an Iranian winter festival; Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights; and a Wiccan practice merging Christian and Paganism. Caroline Oakes, blogging at the Huffington Post, has written an interesting piece titled "Winter Solstice: Discovering New Meaning of Advent Through Ancient Pagan Practice."

Atheists, chosing to sidestep the religious trappings of Christmas and the unknowns of a God viewed as unpredictable and without reason, have initiated Human Light, a new godless tradition. Contrary to popular belief, atheism has its own tradition and tenets. According to Patrick Colucci, the vice-chair of the Human Light committee:

“Human Light illuminates a positive, secular vision of a happy, just and peaceful future for our world, a future which humanity can build by working together, drawing on the best of our capacities.”

My own reverence for the winter solstice and Christmas are fairly well explained by Mark & Angela Pritchard at Belsebuub (not loving the site's name) in "The Spiritual Meaning of the Winter Solstice."

-- Marge

DIY: just say no to a dysfunctional Christmas

Jen from Sales: "That guy in Engineering gave me this bracelet for Christmas... I think it's expensive!"

Lisa, also in Sales: "Give it back; it's a trap."

Jen: "What's not to love about an engineer?"

Gift-giving at the office can be tricky, but sometimes the gift is clearly attached to some intent not in the spirit of Christmas.

Christmas is hands-down my favorite holiday, but it comes with a lot of baggage, much of it added by people who want to celebrate it their own way or who are just being their clueless selves. I'm not going to get into current Christmas controversy, but do offer some viewpoints on aspects of the season that can be problematic.

Personal safety and practical self defense.

Holiday shopping.

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And perhaps most of all, family dysfunction.

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If your family is problematic (and whose isn't?), here's some help: "Rules of Engagement: Dealing With Your Family During the Holidays." And this is an interesting piece about "How Self Love and Boundaries Mix."

Finally, if you've just heard your mother/stepmother/mother-in-law (father/stepfather/father-in-law) use the same phrase for the 23rd time, remember: things could be a lot worse.

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. The Lede.blogs.nytimes

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-- Marge

Humor: Some Christmas heresy (and a little music)

Wiggy!, Wikimedia

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Christmas fast approaches and that means shopping. Why is that?, you may ask.  Let Cracked tell you.

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Don't bother to shop for the college students and grads with their huge student loans on your list, just send money and maybe a card. College Humor says so.

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Mr. Bean, however, does get into the spirit of Christmas.

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-- Marge

My 2013 Christmas Greeting

WooHoo!  This year I finished it in time for Christmas Day.  Most of the work in this video is mine with the help of Corel clipart.  The Sun segment was purchased at Envato's VideoHive.

Have a happy Christmas and the best New Year's celebration ever.

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 --Marge

BTW, here's the full text of the poem --

Beneath the glitter and gold
Wrappings of Christmas today,
For each of us lies,

One heart at center
Perfect, unhurt, joyous --
Beating synchronous time with,
Singing in tune with
   the Source.
It's yours.
Own it.

DIY: Christmas trees for the venturous

Here is a sampling of the Christmas trees you can make (and decorate) from collections published at TrendHunter and BuzzFeed. There's also a spiral tree from Designing With LEDs.  They're great alternatives for those of us who find themselves short on funds this season.  And they're fun, too.

Blogger at NotMartha.org, Megan Reardon, assembles an airy collection of Christmas ornaments into a mobile in the shape of a tree. Sweet.

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Megan Reardon, Ornament mobile, TrendHunter

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New England Design and Build re-purposes a ladder. 

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Ladder as Christmas tree, nedesignbuild.com

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My favorite is this LED Christmas tree designed by Margery Connor at Designing With LEDs. It's a little more complicated, requiring a store-bought spiral tree form, a five-meter string of LEDs, a small power supply, a connector, and an Arduino.  Margery has published an excellent how-to at her site. Here's what you can do with one:

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Warning: Several comments about LEDs on the web say they're BRIGHT!

-- Marge

2012 Christmas Greeting

Here's my offering for this year's Christmas season.  (Late again)

-- Marge