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“Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl
This song came into being after Elvis Costello bet The Pogues’ lead singer Shane MacGowan that he couldn’t write a decent Christmas duet. The outcome: a call-and-response between a bickering couple that’s just as sweet as it is salty.
Food Wishes
Published 22 Dec 2015Learn how to make Homemade Eggnog!
I’ve never been a big eggnog person, and that’s putting it kindly. It’s too thick, too sweet, and way too artificially nutmegy. I even did an anti-nog tweet recently, just for a few cheap, seasonal laughs, but then I realized I was being unfair to this iconic Christmas drink.
I was basing most of my hating on the stuff in the carton from the supermarket, which features no booze, and a nutrition label you seriously don’t want to read. The homemade stuff I’ve had was significantly better, and so I decided to film this rather easy process, since I get so many requests this time of year.
Go to http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2015/1… for the ingredient amounts, more information, and many, many more video recipes! I hope you enjoy this easy Classic Christmas Eggnog recipe.
… the man who did more than any other US citizen to shape the American Christmas. I am not sure how many people read Washington Irving these days, but I would wager that a large proportion of those who don’t are still vaguely familiar with his creation Rip van Winkle — and, if only through his memorialization in institutions like the New York Knicks, his fictitious Dutch historian Diedrich Knickerbocker.
An even larger number may be unaware of how much they’re honoring Mr Irving in their Christmas jubilations. He it was who, in the 1812 edition of his History of New York, threw in a whimsical vignette in which St Nicholas flies over the treetops in a wagon while puffing on his pipe. No reindeer, but all the other elements of the American Santa are there.
Washington Irving loved the great village revelries of the old English Christmas, which the Puritans had left far behind them when they landed at Plimouth Plantation. The parlor games and community feasting and the notion of the Saviour’s birth as a cause of merriment all appealed to him. In his famous and bestselling Sketch Book of 1819-1820 five chapters are devoted to lovingly detailed scenes from an English family Christmas as observed by a young visitor, and they proved so popular that half-a-century later (by which time almost all the elements had been imported into American life) they were published as a stand-alone book.
Mark Steyn, “Dangling Hares and Rosy-Cheeked Schoolboys”, SteynOnline, 2021-12-20.
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