The time between (audio)

Reflections on the time between the holiday's (Christmas and New Year's)

station 7 - one man's footsteps in new snow

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The On Being podcast by Krista Tippett   http://www.onbeing.org/


with Paul Muldoon
http://www.onbeing.org/program/paul-muldoon-a-conversation-with-verse/8276

with Martin Sheen
http://www.onbeing.org/program/martin-sheen-spirituality-of-imagination/8257


3 word goals for 2015 and recap for prior years)
http://steves2cents.blogspot.com/2015/01/3-word-goals-mentor-leverage-exercise.html

what will be the 3 word goals for 2016?

Time and effort

It takes time and money to decorate. Someone needs to make the effort to do the planning and coordination that will lead to a successful execution and make the results visible.



Thanks to the efforts of the folks with the Franklin Downtown Partnership, Franklin's is looking good for the holidays.

Do you have someone or a group like this in your area?

And the angel takes her place

In the 'many hands make light work' category, the family divides the duties for preparing the house for Christmas. Dolores takes down the ones from Thanksgiving and sets out the Christmas decorations. I take care of setting up the tree.

I string the lights on it and then do a single light in the front windows. The girls usually alternate turns in putting the angel on the top. Allison was out to a movie with her cousin and Carolyn was in Greece so I had to place the angel then string the lights from that plug. Now the tree will be ready for the remainder of the decorations.

The girls join in decorating the tree. This year, Allison will have the lead with Carolyn providing some advice via Skype from Greece.

Enjoy!

Home for the holidays

My entry for the Joyful Jubilant Learning blog monthly theme is posted today.

You have my permission, indeed encouragement to click on over to read and comment.

Enjoy!

Cyber safety around the holidays

I read this recently from Moira Cronin, the cybermom on the McAfee Security Insights blog:

It’s important to be a little more cautious while surfing the net for that perfect pressie for your loved ones this Christmas. So in the spirit of the season, I’d like to share with you some tips to avoid the most popular scams at Christmas time – I’ve taken these from McAfee’s twelve scams of Christmas report.

and since I just advertised the Fidelity venture for FutureStage which sends out e-cards, this caught my eye.

Scam 3:  The dangers of holiday e-cards

We all want to be more environmentally aware and proactive, so the idea of sending a festive e-card is appealing, however beware.  Last year McAfee Labs discovered a worm masked as a Hallmark e-card and McDonald’s and Coca-Cola holiday promotions.  Holiday themed PowerPoint e-mail attachments are also popular among cybercriminals, so be careful what you click on.

Read the full posting from Moira Cronin here.

It is good practice to be careful what and where you click everyday and more especially around the holidays.

Great seasonal music

The holiday season would not be what it is without music. Granted some radio stations start playing the Christmas music way too early, but then look at the overall commercial approach, Christmas items were up for sale along with Halloween candy this year. We'll go down that path another time, this time around I'd like to follow the musical notes.

I got to two concerts this season; one at the Circle of Friends Coffeehouse here in Franklin and the second at Symphony Hall in Boston. Both were good and special in their own way!

1 - Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams did its thing at the Circle of Friends.

What is its thing?
Hard to really describe but it generally is taking two different songs and putting them together to make a third unique song.

For this Christmas show, they brought out some "sissy" classics and intermixed them with their blend of mashup. The best probably was "Angels we have heard on high" mixed with Van Morrison's "Gloria". Yes, something to be heard to be understood.

Note: You can go to Radio-Free Slambovia, navigate to A Slambovian Christmas and select "Angels - Gloria" to hear for yourself.

2 - The Boston Pops did its thing at Symphony Hall.

What is its thing?
Music played to its best in an acoustical gem of a hall.

For this Christmas show, they backed up a reading of "The Polar Express" by Will Lebow. Very well done. The big screen came down to show highlights of C Van Allsberg's illustrations. The way they were shown, it was if they were moving pictures. The life and light depicted by Van Allsberg is all that more impressive shown in this way,

The special treat for me (along with quite a few others based upon the applause) was the new rendition of "The Twelve Days of Christmas". Now, for a song that has been around as long as this one has, what can you do different?

Try singing each verse to the melody of another classic; for example the fifth verse, "five golden rings" was sung to the theme from Beethoven's Fifth (but of course!). From that they segued into "the Surrey with the fringe on top" from Oklahoma to do verse six and then to "My favorite things" from The Sound of Music for verse seven.

Don't worry I won't reveal them all. Not that I could remember, I was torn between amazement and laughter. The vocal performance by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus was simply awesome.

This version was commissioned by the Pops to feature the range of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and it does this very well. Kudos to David Chasse for the arrangement.

Do you enjoy the seasonal music?

What is your favorite?

Smile - wreath time

time for the wreath to be hung on the front door. The evergreen circle: reminds us of the seasons of the year, the cycle of life, the blessings of light that come appropriately at this time of short days, long nights, and dreary news.

Keep the spirits up!

Smile, make someone's day richer.

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Pumpkin light

The afternoon sunlights plays on the house, steps and the pumpkin newly arrived.

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