Posted in Christmas, Hippos and Dooney, Holidays & Celebrations, The Hooligan Chronicles, tagged Build-a-Bear, cheetahs, clothes hogs, hippopotamuses, hippos, New Year's Eve, stuffed animals on January 2, 2008 | No Comments »
I described here how I was giving the Hooligan children hippos for Christmas in response to their love of the song “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” In the end, I also decided to gift Diamondqueen with a set of swank clothes and a gift card so she build her own creature of her own [...]
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Wishing you
all the awe and wonder
the holiday season
can bring!
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There was a year, maybe when I was nine (i.e. around 1963), when there wasn’t a lot of money for Christmas. We children hardly noticed, because my mother was so creative at taking a little and making it into a lot. Ironically, I remember my gifts from that year more vividly than many I received in [...]
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Posted in Christmas, Hippos and Dooney, Holidays & Celebrations, The Hooligan Chronicles, tagged Build-a-Bear, Christmas shopping, Gayla Peevey, I want a hippopotamus for Christmas, obnoxious songs, stuffed animals on December 22, 2007 | 3 Comments »
Call me a Scrooge or whatever Christmas sourpuss you can think of, but I simply can’t stand the song, “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” Twittered by Munchkin-voiced Gayla Peevey, the hippo song gives me a twitch every time I hear it. In fact, the first time I heard it just a few years ago, [...]
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Posted in Austria, Christmas, Holidays & Celebrations, The Hooligan Chronicles, Travels Here & There, tagged antique postcards, Austria, Christkindlmarkt, Christmas market, devil, krampus, krampus attack, Salzburg, St. Nicholas, St. Nick on December 14, 2007 | No Comments »
When I was a child, I never associated St. Nicholas with demons or scary beings of any kind. Sure, St. Nick might leave coal and switches for a naughty child, just as Santa Claus was rumored to do. However, I wasn’t naughty enough to worry about that kind of treatment.
Some stories described a little black [...]
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Posted in Christmas, Holidays & Celebrations, Looking Back, tagged Christmas traditions, College of Mount St. Joseph, college traditions, dorm decorating, Mount St. Joe, putting out shoes, St. Nicholas, the Mount on December 8, 2007 | No Comments »
I was in college (in 1972) only a semester before I dropped out. Even with financial assistance, the burden on my family was heavy. I just didn’t feel right about it, especially since I wasn’t studying for any specific kind of job. I was an English major, but I had no plans to be a [...]
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Posted in Christmas, Holidays & Celebrations, Looking Back, tagged hanging stockings, holy medal, holy medals, knick-knacks, knickknacks, old dimestores, Saint Nicholas, St. Nicholas, St. Nick, toy magents, Woolworth's on December 6, 2007 | No Comments »
I loved the interesting little gifts I got for St. Nick. The magnet set I referred to in this post might have been a repeat gift when I was young; it was a classic dimestore toy, with a horseshoe-shaped magnet and various tiny metal bars and lithographed tin circus shapes that the magnet picked up. When I [...]
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Posted in Christmas, Holidays & Celebrations, Needlework, Sheep, embroidery, rug hooking, tagged fake mantels, fake mantles, hanging stockings, holiday traditions, rug hooking, Saint Nicholas, St. Nicholas, St. Nick on December 4, 2007 | 1 Comment »
I was surprised when I found out that everyone doesn’t celebrate The Feast of St. Nicholas. It was common in our neighborhood, with the Catholic kids especially. My mother didn’t know about St. Nicholas until later in childhood when a neighbor introduced her to the holiday (she’s got a great post about that here). I’m [...]
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Posted in Christmas, Holidays & Celebrations, The Hooligan Chronicles, tagged children at Christmas, Christmas, Christmas tree, Dr. Who, Elf, ornaments, the Grinch, tree trimming on November 29, 2007 | No Comments »
It’s become Diamonqueen’s tradition to put up her Christmas tree in the days before Thanksgiving. Usually we’ve done it on Tuesday night, when I’m always there visiting. However, this year J.Hooligan had a skating party with his Cub Scout pack, so we moved our tree trimming back a night to Wednesday, Thanksgiving Eve.
It was extremely [...]
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Today the Hooligan children got to visit Santa Claus at Tri-County Mall. There wasn’t any hemming or hawing or digging in of heels at the last minute. We weren’t sure how S.Hooligan would react since she claimed she wasn’t going to sit on Santa’s knee, but she went forward willingly.
I couldn’t hear what Santa asked [...]
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