Xenosthesia.com

Best Christmas Albums

My top ten favorite Christmas albums, in ascending order:

10. Tracy Thorn – Tinsel and Lights. Her voice will bring a good mood to whatever time or space you choose to play her album.

9. Michael Buble – Christmas. This one has been reported as the best selling album in Australia for six years in a row. Not sure how true this statement is, but he does have a good voice.

8. Sixpence None the Richer – The Dawn of Grace. Leigh Nash sings for the band, proving that the female vocalists dominate this list. Her delivery is superb, especially on “Christmas Island”, easily the best song on the album.

7. The Brian Setzer Orchestra – Boogie Woogie Christmas. Great fun for when you don’t want to be so calm. When you want to rock, turn the table on this one. And yet, the song “O Holy Night” brings a pleasant mellowness to the otherwise raucous mood.

6. Sarah McLachlan – Wintersong. Using her usual commandingly emotional singing voice, Sarah brings the joy and sweetness to you for your holidays.

5. Annie Lennox – A Christmas Cornucopia. Like many others on this list, Annie’s voice is perfect for these kinds of songs.

4. Nat King Cole – The Best of Christmas. All the traditional oldies, sung by one of the greatest of all time.

3. Martina McBride – White Christmas. Her renditions of some traditional Christmas songs make you feel as if you’re listening to a choir instead of only one vocalist. She’s a country singer at heart, though the songs on this album don’t sound like country music.

2. A Charlie Brown Christmas – Vince Guaraldi Trio. If you’re in the mood to relax, there’s no better album to play than this. The children’s voices in the choir are soothing. The instrumental pieces are superb and calming.

1. Hi-fi Holiday. This compilation, put together by Old Navy, is like the playlist of Christmas songs you wish you lined up. There are exceptional artists on the album such as Smokey Robinson, and then there’s also James Brown, who does it the way he does it. Sometimes I don’t care for how James Brown does it, so I skip his song. Regardless of the one sometimes dud, this is a fantastic Christmas album full of energetic favorites. Worth one thousand repeats.

Mickey’s Christmas Carol

This is not so much a review as a reminder that there are fun things out there beyond the average Marvel sidekick character spin-off series. Not that I hate or even dislike Hawkeye or Black Widow—they’re cute little characters—but they don’t hold my interest for long. I can’t understand how anyone could sit through mindless hours of sloppy-cam footage in a failed attempt to make bowstring pulling or unbelievable martial art action more exciting.

(And here, I have to admit, I haven’t even seen the Hawkeye, or the other, series to say for sure it does have sloppy-camera, but it is probably so, since the ones I’ve seen have all had it. Loki had the least, and that’s why Loki is in the lead.)

There are fun things out there.

What fun?

“Mickey’s Christmas Carol”. That’s what fun.

It was made in 1983, and a couple of interesting trivia factoids are these: an early Christmas Carol movie was made in 1938 (probably only a coincidental transposition of numbers); John Lasseter was credited as one of the many in the making of this cartoon rendition of A Christmas Carol written by Charles Dickens. John Lasseter you could possibly recognize as the name behind some of the great early Pixar movies. He’s been around.

“Mickey’s Christmas Carol”, by the way, is only 26 minutes long. Just right for a busy holiday season. You can watch it and not lose much time out of your day. Go wrap a present for your mom already.

While I watched it, I also had fun picking out the classic Disney characters that make appearances. I won’t spoil it for you by telling you which ones are in the short film. Keep your eyes open—they’re everywhere.

One idea that I got from this one, which I had never thought of with any other rendition, is that I’d rather be Scrooge than Marley. The character Marley is burdened with chains and a guilty conscience, or both, because of how he lived his life, and he doesn’t seem to have any way to escape his chains. Those chains are eternal. He’s also burdened with the apparent obligation to tell Scrooge about the guilt, and to rattle the chains. Scrooge, however is given the chance, by Marley and the other nightly visitors, to change himself, to repent, to be redeemed. So the question I have to ask Chuck the writer is this: “Is Marley’s redemption in the act of challenging Scrooge to hear the ghosts?”

Now I really want to read the book to find out if there’s any hint to answer my question.

Another funny side note to “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” is that this 1983 cartoon employed a sort of sloppy-cam. The irony’s joke is on me. It looks like they moved a single cel up and down quickly to suggest earthquake-size movement. Silly, but fortunately it doesn’t last too long. It’s bareable in its brevity.

Speaking of brief: if time is money, and Scrooge McDuck would say it is, then 26 minutes is cheap. You can definitely afford to watch “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” and still have a ha’penny left for a gift for your mom this Christmas.

Enjoy.

Ventanas

Always looks like a trap, then you realize you found freedom. The irony fools us again, and again. We expect to be stuck with the hollow, depressing feelings, only to find there’s a playground in all the hollows. We expect to hurt wherever the sharpness punctures and get all surprised when the holes are large enough to widen the view. The holes are large enough to let our real selves escape.

From an accustomed perspective we don’t get much done. We don’t learn. Without the learning opportunity, we don’t grow. Stationary is what we are, when we miss the chance to progress. Another sun sets on our less-than productive day. All we needed to do, though we maybe didn’t realize it, was to open a window.

Windows are cracks in houses, like eyes are viewports on souls. Someone’s always looking out while someone else is looking in.

The only sad thing would be if no one missed us while we left ourselves behind. What reason would we have to return?

And then there are those who don’t even look you in the eye because they’re too caught up in their framework of feelings. They seem too wrapped up in a mood to connect with anyone else. If given half a second of contact, they might combust. But then, turning traps to ashes could bring freedom too.

Thanksgiving Games For Introverts

You’re an introvert. You don’t feel too thrilled with the idea of gathering with one hundred and seventeen people in a relative’s too-small house—a house which seems to get smaller every year. They’ll gather and give thanks to God. You’ll gather with them and give thanks to the same God, for different things.

While the kiddies are playing games like “Traffic Yam” and “Marshmallow Big Toe Squeeze”, you’ll be sitting as far from anyone who might invite you to join the frivolities. You’ll say no thousands of times to Uncle Bossy, and Uncle Bossy will ask you the three thousandth time why you don’t want to join in the party. You’ll ask him the same question, complete with air quotes around the word party. He’ll say he’s the one setting up the games so he can’t join in.

Right.

Well, this year, instead of waiting for Uncle Bossy to pester you for being a wallflower, just tell him you’re playing one of the following games. If you’re bold enough, you can ask him to join you.

The Imagining the Shapes of Other People’s Skulls game: This one is easy to play in any venue. You can invite others to play, but if they’re like Uncle Bossy, you may want to encourage them to play without talking. It’s a quiet game. Simply sit and stare at someone long enough until you can envision the asymetrical shape of the skull beneath the skin. Once you’ve got someone figured out completely, move on to the next.
The Road Trip game: A lot more difficult. What you have to do is imagine you’re somewhere else. It’s very difficult to do in a room full of loud people. Even more difficult is to make the scenery in your imagination change, as if you were on a road trip. Again, you can invite others to join you on your road trip, but you might want to help them understand since it’s an individual game, you won’t necessarily be on the same trip.
The Identify That Smell game: This one can be done by anyone. You sit in a room full of people, close your eyes, and, yes, try to identify who is nearby solely through your nostrils. Some people may not be able to control themselves enough to keep quiet, and so you’ll identify them quicker than others because of their words; however, if everyone is able to quiet down, this game can be very challenging. The only downside is when the smells identifying someone are bodily unpleasant.
The Music In My Head game: A game with no need for other participants, I’m told this is one many introverts play. Instead of paying any attention at all to the people nearby, the player tries to hear a whole song inside their head without the use of any device. Some people cheat and use headphones or a lyric web page. If you’re a serious contender though, you can hear a song without any external prompts. For an extra advantage, practice it before you tell anyone what you’re doing.

Realistic Reviews

If book promotion quotes were more realistic:

I wish they let me write a book report on this in school. ~James H., writer of airline pamphlets

Wanted so bad to use the word fascinating, but the more I thought about it, it just didn’t seem fitting. ~Robyn S., writer of novels

Man! This book is thick! ~Brit B., friend of the writer

Original, page-turning, captures your interest, won’t let go, keeps you on the edge of your seat, and it’s original. ~Professional, paid-for reviews

I don’t really care for the story much. I only wanted to promote my own book: Chronicles of the Wonder Tales of Memoirs of Me. ~Daria H., author of Chronicles of the Wonder Tales of Memoirs of Me

Really helps keep my pages down on my other book so I can finish my sudoku. ~Anonymous

Moves along nicely. ~Dr. Suzi Uzi, writer of Everyone Wants to Show You Their Colon: How to Develop a Filter for Unwanted Media

The government doesn’t want you to read this book. ~Sen. Calfskin

Read it once. Read it twice. Read it three times. Must read it again. ~Fred N., writer of I’ll Get You, Eventually

Has a humor firmly planted between Cracked and Mad. ~Al Y., reader of satire, lover of lampoons

Way longer than a tweet. ~T. Kirk