mercredi 25 decembre joyeux Noël

When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.

Tecumseh

Phil’s Christmas Day Drink and a Flick

Liquid Babysitter

Adventures in Babysitting

And Then He Kissed Me

I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.

Jessica Rabbit

The Show Must Go On

Phil’s Christmas Day Going to the Theatre Drink and a Flick

Rolling Stone

A Complete Unknown

Forever Young

He’s traveling through the north country today. Eighty miles from Canada, where the winds, it’s been said, hit heavy on the borderline.

Rolling Stone – Brian Hiatt – How Timothée Chalamet ‘Pushed the Bounds’ to Play Bob Dylan in ‘A Complete Unknown’

Girl From the North Country

Slate – Sam Adams – A Complete Unknown Isn’t Really About Bob Dylan

Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Los Angeles Times – John Cherwa – Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan headlines Santa Anita opening day on Thursday

Paulick Report – Victor Ryan – Free Online ShowVivor Contest Returns To Santa Anita Dec. 26

Fairy Tale of New York

Horse Race Insider – UPDATE FINAL: SANTA ANITA’S OPENING DAY ALL-GRADED-STAKES LATE PICK 4 NOW POSTED

Galway Bay

TDN – Santa Anita Opens with Boxing Day Bonanza

Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Esquire – Abigail Covington – 25 Best Saturday Night Live! Cast Members of All Time, Ranked

Noema – Richard Mabey – The Entangled Garden

Down on the Farm

The Conversation – Yuthika Girme – Christmas movies always show us that being single sucks — but that’s not true

Happiness is a small house, with a big kitchen.

Alfred Hitchcock

Under Pressure

Southern Living – Ashlynn Needham – How To Keep Black Clothes From Fading, According To An Expert

I’ll stop wearing black when they make a darker colour.

Wednesday Addams

The Bitter Southerner – Christina Cooke – Black Earth

Fairy Tale of New York

I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you! Thank you, Sam-I-am.

Dr. Seuss

The Cremation of Sam McGee

By Robert W Service

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

      By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

      That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

      But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

      I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam ’round the Pole, God only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;

Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.

Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;

It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,

And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,

He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;

And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:

“It’s the cursèd cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet ’tain’t being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;

And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;

And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,

With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,

But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,

Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;

And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;

The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;

And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;

It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”

And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;

Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;

Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;

The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;

And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;

And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.

It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;

And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;

But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.

I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked”; … then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.

It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

      By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

      That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

      But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

Lake Laberge Campground

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.

Andy Rooney

The Ringer – Michael Pina – Ranking the 2024 NBA Christmas Day Games

What A Wonderful World

Figgy Pudding

You must write for children in the same way as you do for adults, only better.

Maxim Gorky

Noema – Boyce Upholt – The Unending Quest To Build A Better Chicken

And I would eat them in a boat,

and I would eat them with a goat.

Dr. Seuss

Waltz of the Flowers

Christmas will always be as long as we stand heart to heart and hand in hand.

Dr. Seuss

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

How to Carve a Turkey

Bobby Flay’s Turkey Carving Tips

Is there any practice less selfish, any time less wasted than preparing something nourishing and delicious for the people you love?

Michael Pollan

Home

The New England conscience doesn’t keep you from doing what you shouldn’t – it just keeps you from enjoying it.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

2015 Malibu Stakes

Anthony Bourdain

And strictly forbid that any quarrelling be at your meals.

Robert Grosseteste

Even if you don’t think you can cook well, you can cook better than the food industry.

Michael Pollan

The approach of Christmas brings harrassment and dread to many excellent people. They have to buy a cart-load of presents, and they never know what to buy to hit the various tastes; they put in three weeks of hard and anxious work, and when Christmas morning comes they are so dissatisfied with the result, and so disappointed that they want to sit down and cry. Then they give thanks that Christmas comes but once a year.

Mark Twain

All Quiet on the Western Front. It’s just not December without that movie in my house.

Tom Hanks

Esquire – Kirkland – The 71 Best Christmas Movies of All Time