Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged christmas

A Chanukah Noel: A True Story

A Chanukah Noel is a welcome addition to the limited but much-needed canon of interfaith children’s books, and it has the particular additional benefit of being entirely secular. This combination of qualities already sets it apart from most Christmas picture books. The story is about a young Jewish girl named Charlotte who moves to rural France and struggles to fit in.

A Season of Seduction

When critiquing a work, being meh is the worst feeling. If a book or a movie is bad, there is plenty to say. The same thing applies when it is wonderful. But when it is neither, it gets hard. What do you say? It was adequately plotted? The characters were pleasant? A Season of Seduction by Jennifer Haymore falls into this category. Some parts of the novel were good, others bad, but overall, it just was. A romance novel set in 1827, the story follows Lady Rebecca Fisk, a young widow with a dark history, as she falls in and out of love with Jack Fulton, sailor rogue extraordinaire who also has a dark history. The novel opens with the two of them getting caught in bed together by her family, which is used to set up an entirely plausible plot. Events happen around Christmas, thus the name.

All I Want For Christmas is a Real Good Tan (Yule Log Edition)

The annual Yule Log special on PBS is tied to some of my fondest memories of Christmas as a child. I remember the glow of my parents' tree and the excitement on Christmas Eve, and I got my cookies ready for Santa. Through all of this, Yule Log would be playing in the background, with its cozy scene of a log burning away and a medley of magical Christmas tunes. Whenever I see Yule Log today, all those warm feelings and nostalgia come right back to me. It's one of those little things that makes it really feel like Christmas to me.

Christmas Classics: The Yule Log Edition

I never thought that Johnny Cash could ever become kitsch. After all, he is the Man in Black, the patron saint of the disenfranchised and hurting and the bad ass country boy jamming an angry middle finger at the camera. I grew up listening to Cash singing to cheering prisoners and sullen guards, and then later turning a classic industrial rock song on its head. How on earth could this icon of morality—this Original EMO master—possibly be turned into sweet fluff? By having him sing Christmas songs on a video that loops Christmas imagery continuously.

Merry Christmas: Christmas Classics - The Yule Edition Starring Mariah Carey

This DVD features classic holiday scenes and music sung by the great Mariah Carey. The front of the DVD is colorful and has a picture of Carey in a Santa suit. It also shows you one of the scenes you can enjoy while listening to the songs. The songs are a mix of traditional and more contemporary pieces.

I'll Stay 'Til After Christmas: A Christmas Album to Benefit Amnesty International

As far as I’ve ever been able to determine, there are two sides of every holiday, binaries inhabited by people who either rejoice in merriment and love, and the rest of us who find holidays—particularly the wintry, mostly-religious ones—vomit inducing, an excuse to sit alone somewhere and cry. If only I were exaggerating. I loathe obnoxiously happy holiday tunes for many reasons, and because my birthday is December 24th (the day known to some as Christmas Eve), I get to listen to them straight through my own Jesus-shared time of year.