Blue Moon

This evening, New Year's eve, December 31, 2009, we'll have a blue moon.
Contrary to what some believe, there is no real noticeable difference between a Blue moon and a regular moon. The term Blue Moon refers to when there is a second full moon in the same calendar month. In the past, every full moon throughout the year was given a folk name.

"According to some folktales during a full blue moon, the moon was said to have a face and talked to those in its light. Some pagan beliefs hold the second full moon in a calendar month holds the knowledge of the Goddess and contains very powerful three-fold the energy of a regular full moon. Special rites and rituals were held only on a blue moon night.
Sill other traditions believe the different moon phases represent the transition of knowledge within the Goddess. The maiden is represented by the waning moon, the full moon represents the mother goddess and the waxing moon the grandmother goddess or crone. When the blue moon enters the cycle it is said to be the transition of the crone to the divine level of existence or the great transition."

info found at Blue Moon Origins and Traditions

So, while you're celebrating the New Year, take a moment to check out the Blue Moon.
The next Blue Moon won't be around until August of 2012.

Happy New Year!!!

Ooooo! Here's a little music to watch a Blue Moon by....

New Year's Resolutions

(New Year's Postcards sold in 1915)

It's that time of year again.
The new year is here and everyone decides that this is the year that they will......well, fill in the blank with just about anything you can think of.
I have stopped making these promises to myself. Well, mostly.

My new thing is to just say that I will do my best to do my best.
Yeah, it sounds kinda wishy-washy but it isn't...really.

I mean, hey, if everyone did their best....I would like to think that things_life_ the world_ would be a little better.

Of course, that's in my world (y'all can join me there if you wish....we're a friendly group!).

For those of you who wish to make a resolution for the new year, here of some of the ones that I would make....if I were making resolutions which of course I am not....Anyhoo here are some good ones:

exercise more
eat better
save money
improve grades (for all you students of all ages)
learn something new (such as a foreign language or music)
become more organized (hmmm...I just threw that in for kicks)
reduce stress (no stress in my world...join us)
be less grumpy (everybody oughta try this one)
maintain a diary (always nice to look back on later)
Volunteer to help others....okay this one is serious. Heck, I might even break my no resolution rule for it....I'll think about it.

Y'all have a Happy New Year!!!

Peace on Earth

This is a wonderful cartoon!
Although is from 1939 it's still relevant today.
The following information was written on youtube by XmasFLIX.blogspot.com :

Peace On Earth (1939) Christmas Classic MGM War Cartoon. Academy Award Nominee for Best Short Subject (Cartoon), 1940. Originally Released on December 09, 1939.

On Christmas Eve, two squirrel children ask their grandfather what men are. He describes them, then narrates the story of how humanity destroyed itself by war, as chilling scenes of armed conflict play on the screen. After the last human dies, the animals take their war implements and build homes from them, to live forever in peace.



Peace on Earth is a one-reel 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon short directed by Hugh Harman, about a post-apocalyptic world populated only by animals. The only cartoon ever nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize! It was broadcast in the US just after Germany had pre-emptively invaded Poland, a protest against Bush-Iraq-style pre-emptive wars, and before the US was attacked at Pearl Harbor and thus entered WWII.

At first glance this looks like just another typically Disney-esque cartoons featuring cute animals, but once you see those battle scenes you can see that it is so much more than that. This is an anti-war tale with well animated battle scenes that are scary as anything else that has been seen on the silver screen. Those scenes are very unsettling and tapped into the fears that many people held as Europe was at war with itself. This film was nominated for the 1939 Academy Award for an animated short feature (it lost to Disneys "The Ugly Duckling") and was also, according to Hugh Harmon, nominated for the 1940 Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately the 1940 Nobel Prizes were cancelled because of World War II, so it did not win or lose that award.

Fifteen years before this release, Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were employees of Walt Disney -- in Kansas City. Disneys first animation studio was in that midwestern city and it was, ultimately, a failure. Following the companys demise -- and with dreams of becoming a live-action director -- Walt headed west. After shuffling around Los Angeles for a while, Disney realized that his best prospect for making a living was the cartoon business.

World War II was barely four months old when Peace landed on theater screens. Given the fact that a mood of patriotism and sacrifice was soon to grip the United States, the cartoons unapologetically anti-war stance is surprising. In the short, woodland creatures elebrate the Christmas season. Two squirrel children stumble over the lyric peace on earth/good will to men because they have no idea what men are. Grampa squirrel explains that all of the men are gone; they succumbed to the fever of war and annihilated one another. Woodland creatures rebuild civilization and mourn their loss.

Walt Disneys most notable cartoon series in those early days featured Oswald the Lucky Rabbit -- a character he did not own. The shorts were produced by a man named Charles Mintz and distributed by Universal Pictures. In 1928, after strong-arming Disney over an extended period with increasingly unfavorable business terms, Mintz took Oswald away from Walt -- along with most of Walts animators. Mintz housed these artists in a new studio designed expressly to produce the Oswald cartoons without Disneys involvement. Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were two of the many defectors.

In a rare instance of karmic justice, Universal elected to create its own in-house cartoon studio and leave Charles Mintz high and dry. This turn of events left Harman and Ising unemployed, but they soon formed a partnership with producer Leon Schlesinger and founded Warner Brothers Animation. Harman launched a series called Looney Tunes and Ising a series called Merrie Melodies. Although these labels would one day feature such cartoon stars as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig, Harman and Ising were not around to see it -- they departed Warner Brothers in 1933 in a dispute over production budgets.

In 1934, Harman and Ising helped found MGMs cartoon studio and proceeded to repeat history. They were fired as studio heads and were no longer in charge when MGM Animation achieved the things which made it famous (most notably the Tom and Jerry series of cartoons and surreal shorts of Tex Avery). MGM later rehired the men as directors, and it was under this arrangement that Peace on Earth was produced.

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera remade the cartoon in CinemaScope in 1955. This post-World War II version of the film, entitled Good Will to Men, featured updated and even more destructive forms of warfare technology such as flamethrowers, bazookas, and nuclear weapons. The new Hanna-Barbera version was also nominated for the Best Short Subjects Oscar.

I wish you a Merry Christmas!!!!

Remember this December, that love weighs more than gold
Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon




Somehow, not only for Christmas
But all the long year through
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.
And the more you spend in blessing
The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing
Returns to you glad.
John Greenleaf Whittier

The Holly and the Ivy

The Holly and the Ivy is a marvelous traditional Christmas carol. The music and most of the text was collected by Cecil Sharp.


The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown:


O, the rising of the sun,
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the choir.



Holly and Ivy calligraphy by Rosemary Buczeck for the Gilded Quill

Oooooo...Christmas Lights!

My sister sent this to me....don't ya just looooove Christmas lights?!!!

Straight No Chaser.....Another Musical Holiday Moment!

The mens acapella group Straight No Chaser singing their version of The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Christmas Marvelous Musical Moment 2

So many Marvelous Musicals!
Everybody loves, or ya ought to, A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Christmas Time is Here

Holiday Movie Moment!

Oooo! Ooooo!
Yesterday's showing of A Christmas Carol made me think of my other fave holiday movies.
Here's a Marvelous Musical Moment (don't you just love alliteration) from "A Muppet Christmas Carol".

One More Sleep 'Til Christmas

Yea!!!

One of my favorite Christmas movies is on tonight!
The 1938 version of A Christmas Carol !
I just love the black and white version.
For some reason is just says Christmas to me.







Here's part 1 of another holiday favorite... Mr. Magoo's A Christmas Carol