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Run Rudolph Run
The first Christmas markets have already opened their doors again and before the really big Christmas hustle and bustle starts here, I thought to start so to get in the mood for the Christmas season once a slightly different Christmas music collection. Not always the same, albeit beautiful songs that you will soon encounter again everywhere (whether you want or not). Maybe once rocky Christmas or christmas songs that are not quite so harmonious. I can’t guarantee that it’s going to get you in the Christmas spirit, but it should be fun and rock. Let’s go, I’m looking forward to your ideas.
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61 Replies
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A very nice song from 1992
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And a slightly different Christmas song by the Kinks from 1977:
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My Go To Xmas Songs Faves besides the MLT Xmas Songs stuff are : Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer/Merry Bloody Xmas To Me~ Irish Rovers … I Want A Hippopotamus ~ Gayla Peavey… Bob n Doug McKenzie Version of 12 Days of Xmas , Give Live For Xmas/Ugly Sweater songs ~Glass Tiger … the whole Xmas CD of John McDermott called Images of Xmas , a few more songs I can’t think if right now, my brain/body needs to go to bed now as it’s just a tad after 2 AM for me …🎄
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Thanks Jacki, I don’t know most of the songs you mentioned, but it sounds like a whole lot of good stuff.
When I hear “The Irish Rovers”, the Pogues spontaneously come to mind:
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How about a little Run, Run, Reindeer! The Christmas decor is popping up everywhere, and Christmas markets are open too. I even saw some homes put up Christmas lights just after Canadian Thanksgiving in early October.
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Thanks Jung, of course the Beach Boys can’t be missing under the Christmas tree 😀 (I didn’t know the song yet). We already had the first Christmas sweets in our shops in September. You shouldn’t support this trend, but I did it anyway because there were no dominoes and Printen in December last year. They were long sold out. Next year there will probably be the first Christmas cookies shortly after Easter… .
What are typical Christmas cookies or sweets in Canada and what do you like to snack on at Christmas?
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Hi Jurgen, that is a cool Christmas video with great guitar sounds. For sweets, that are specifically Canadian I think, I like maple candies and maple cookies, made from maple syrup. Very sweet, but a unique taste.
Around Christmas my very favourite cookies are shortbread/sugar cookies. Love the ones made in shapes of angels, stars, and snow flakes. I also like nice nuts like almonds, cashews, pistachios, and exotic cheeses, and some eggnog, or sometimes a little Baileys or Irish Cream is nice to warm up with a little. At Christmas time, the local lake here does it’s annual Christmas lights around the lake walk, and vendors come out in food trucks or carts selling hot chocolate, specialty donuts, and those heated chestnuts and pretzels, and they have Christmas music playing throughout the park. It’s all making me hungry. 😜😁🎄✨
It’s starting to feel like an MLT Winter Wonderland.
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Wow Jung, the enumeration of the Christmas delicacies sounds like a complete assortment of a delicatessen (and the rockin’ twins on top of that). We traditionally have so-called shortbread cookies (Spritzgebäck), Christmas stollen (Christstollen), Dominoes (Dominosteine), Gingerbread (Lebkuchen) and Printen. I do not know if you can do much with the translation, so I once attached pictures. At the Christmas markets, mulled wine is drunk or mead (hot honey wine) is served. Yeah, I also like to eat all kinds of nuts and exotic cheese sounds really good. Accompanied by a glass of red or port wine. You already sent great pictures of your Christmas lake last year. I hope the Christmas market there looks just as great this year.
PS: to all these sweet delicious things, also fits the following cute video. Not particularly rocking, but soft and sweet like a piece of Christmas pie:
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Every year on December 23rd, exactly when the hands of the big tower clock slip to midnight, this winter fairy tale comes to mysterious life. Only for a few hours, until the first cockcrow, then all life falls silent and rigid again and longingly waits to be brought back to life by the midnight chime of the clock tower in the village. Once again in a year, when the snowflakes fall from the sky again… .
A miniature winter wonderland that couldn’t be more beautiful:
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Nothing gets me in the Christmas spirit like this one:
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Hi David,
thanks for sending the music clip. Unfortunately the video is not available in our country. Very pitty. I can only see that it should be “Christmas At Ground Zero” by Weird Al Yankovic. Such a beautiful and harmless melody… . When did he write this song? Was there anything special going on in the world or just the normal madness?
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Juergen,
There are several postings of this song on YouTube without the video; try running through those and see if any of them work.
The song is from 1986. I think it was just a reflection of generalized Cold War anxiety and not referring to anything in particular. The video mostly consists of 1950’s footage of people ducking and covering, etc.
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Truly festive, Juergen! Al understands what the season is all about.
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Even Santa has the blues in his blood…
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A rocking Christmas anthem that has been a part of Christmas for me for many years:
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Hi again Jurgen, like Jung I’m in Canada too only I live nearing/ towards East Coast ….. At Xmas in my family, we eat shortbread cookies, fudge, pie, squares etc, turkey veggies, mashed potatoes, gravy, and like Jung has already seen, in October after our Thanksgiving , I’ve seen Xmas stuff in stores, Xmas lights up and on outside homes , front yard Xmas Decorations , etc ….lookup the songs I mentioned in my previous ( I didn’t want to post links for fear website would act up as that was an issue on here in the past ) there’s many Xmas songs I enjoy but what I had mentioned previously , are my Xmas Go-Tos,
Also, everyone has their own , cultural ideas of Xmas celebrating or perhaps, don’t celebrate it , but it certainly is a festive spirit that arises around this time of year and snow does add that nice touch ( I’m not a Winter person , not fond of snow/cold, would rather embrace late Spring and Sumner without humidity, but…my ideal dream Winter would be for to be one day only– Xmas Day with gentle snowfall, mildly cold and then afterwards resume to Soring/Sumher weather …😉🎄🌷 )
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This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by Jacki Hopper.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by
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Hi Jacki,
of course I know you live in Canada. You and Jung have divided Canada between you: Jung resides on the west coast and you in the east of the country. I checked once: The driving distance between Vancouver and Montreal is around 4700 kilometers (about 2900 miles). What dimensions. That’s about the distance from my hometown to Nigeria / Africa (well, at least as the crow flies. It’s a bit further by car…).
I think I’m up to date now on what Christmas food is popular in Canada. Similar to ours: at Christmas there is often roast goose or duck, with potato dumplings, sauce and red cabbage. A specialty are sausages with potato salad on Christmas Eve (well…). But it also varies from region to region. In southern Germany, the kitchen looks different again than in northern Germany, for example. Is your kitchen more of English or French origin?
You are right, the dream winter looks like this: on December 24th it starts to snow. Then on December 25th everything has turned into a winter wonderland and on December 26th Frosty the Snowman will come to visit. And from December 27th it will be 22 degrees again and the sun will be shining down on us from a bright blue sky. We used to have a lot of snow here in the area where I live, but in recent decades it has been a rarity (now I sound like an old man: “Children come quickly. Grandpa is telling about the snowy winter again….”).
Yes, I listened to the list of your Christmas carols: I know Glas Tiger, I had two CDs by the band myself. The Irish Rovers also tell me something, unfortunately I don’t know the other artists. They are very unknown to us.
Here I have found a groovy Christmas song from a compatriot of yours:
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Here are two entertaining versions of the song “Feliz Navidad” (Merry Christmas).
Whether the guitar performance is really successful, I’m not sure, but the idea for the music video is funny and the implementation is well done.
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A nice Christmas greeting from Indonesia. The instrumentation of the group is surprisingly minimalistic. More instruments a good band actually does not need:😀
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Hi again Jurgen, just clarifying ….I do not live in Montreal, I live about 2 hrs away by car, train, bus from MontreaI … I am sorry that you got confused and thought I lived there, no, I live in Ottawa , Canada s Capital City , although from downtown Ottawa , courtesy of a few bridges, we can easily be in province of Quebec ( Hull- Gatineau regions of it and many Government workers from both Quebec side and our side in Ontario, work interchangeably, as well as does the area public bus transit systems for the Gatineaui-Hull region in Quebec along with the only the downtown Ottawa core buses that travel back and forth , between the 2 areas via the bridges, and in Ontari, in my area, . sort of, there are 2 car ferrys that you can take to go across Ottawa River to other regions of Quebec ….. There you go , a little more bit of Canadian tidbits for you .
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Hi Jacki,
thank you for your feedback. I wasn’t sure if you live in Ottawa or Montreal (I kinda had Ottowa in mind though…). Now I know it. Thanks again for the Canadian tidbits. (Although, I wasn’t that bad after all. Montreal and Ottowa seem to be quite close together).
PS: do you have some nice pics of Ottawa? I found the following: (That looks very nice. I hope the pictures really show Ottawa, otherwise that would be very embarrassing now…).😀
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Yes, your Ottawa in Winter photos pretty much sums up a typical usually Winter scene in Ottawa ( although Mother Nature has NaturePause now and needs to adjust her meds accordingly…lol As the normal weather/seasonal stuff is all helterskelter nowadays ) , and lijewise in Alberta, in Ottawa , especially around January/February , we can get down to -40 degrees celcius too with/without windchill factor….. as Ottawa is kind of like a valley …it can be a catch/trap weather patterns and being situated along water …
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Hey there Jurgen, another Canadian here. But I live in the prairie/boreal region of North Central Alberta. Roughly 1000km from Vancouver and about 2500km from Ottawa.
We have a varied Christmas menu due to ethnic influences from our local and family demographics. Lots of Ukrainian and Polish families, and of course other immigrant families from all over the world. Traditional toast turkey and/or ham, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, jellied and green salads (I love tomato aspic), sour leaf cabbage rolls, perogies and studnetz (pan headcheese). Kind of a mixed bag I guess.
The common (for here anyway) Christmas carols but often varied styles and artists in my home (Alabama, Charlotte Church, Boney M…) hit the stereo. Obviously MLT are on the Playlist now. The season can be beautiful and snowy, but can be -40 too so a crackling fire is often burning in the wood stove. We still put up a live/real tree that I usually harvest myself. Gift exchanges has waned somewhat as mist of the children on both sides are grown and have their own lives to deal with and distance and weather play significant parts in travel.
I will post something of our festive decor when the time is near and I will be sure to keep the club in my thoughts and wishes.
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Hey Daryl,
very nice to hear from you. I looked up the exact location of Alberta and what it might look like there. Wow, that seems to be a beautiful and impressive spot on earth. Wild nature and a fantastic countryside. I am always completely fascinated when I see such landscapes. I live in the western part of Germany, almost on the Dutch border and very close to the Ruhr area (where the steel industry and mining was located). Since the heavy industry is disappearing more and more, it has become more beautiful here in the meantime. But of course we don’t have such breathtaking landscapes. Here everything is very flat and clear.
We also have the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree, although I have not done so for a long time. I remember when I was a child, my father always put up the tree a few days before Christmas Eve and then we decorated it together. After that, the whole house smelled wonderfully of fir. Your Christmas menu sounds very delicious.
-40 degrees during wintertime? That’s damn cold. -10 to -15 degrees, that’s it for us (and also a big exception), at least here in the west. It’s funny to hear that Boney M. hit the Canadian stereo.
I am already very excited about your festive decor and would be glad to see some pictures. I wish you also a wonderful Christmas season.
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Thanks Jurgen. Fortunately -40 usually doesn’t persist, although a couple weeks of it here and there feels like an eternity. Two years back we had extreme ends of the temperature spectrum: -45 many days during winter, +42 during a record heatwave in July. Might sound crazy, but I’d rather the extreme cold; you can always wear more warm clothing, but it’s very difficult to cool down once you’re down to socially acceptable minimums. Worst part about winter is the dryness it causes. Hard to keep humidity in the house with heating and fires burning. It raises hell on my guitars so I have a special humidity and temp controlled room in the basement to store and play.
I usually get the festive decor going around now outside, and the tree goes up a week or so before Christmas.
On another note, Happy Thanksgiving to all our USA based members!
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Yeah Daryl, those are extreme temperature fluctuations that you described there. I know that you can get used to the cold but nevertheless, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be outside in extremely cold weather. My mother and my grandparents came from the former East Prussia. The winters there were just as cold as you have in Canada. But my mother always raved about the landscape there: the snow-covered forests, the large lakes transformed into a fairytale scenery of snow and ice in winter. Otherwise it was probably a rather sparse and simple life. I can’t even imagine something like that today. I’m more of a warmth-loving person, but at 40 degrees in summer, which we’ve had here in recent years (even if only for a few days), the fun stops at some point.
On the subject of a self-felled Christmas tree, I spontaneously have to think of the Griswold’s and their weird Christmas experiences. We like to watch the movie “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” at Christmas time.
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