DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

   The Thanksgiving holiday is right around the corner and major cities throughout the country are finalizing parade preparations for the big day.  Thanksgiving parades are as much a holiday tradition as turkey, football and pumpkin pie.  Get ready to enjoy giant character balloons, marching bands and dance troops making their way through the city streets while Santa follows behind, ushering in a festive start to the Christmas season.  Thanksgiving parades are a fun and family-friendly way to celebrate one of the nation's oldest traditions.   New York, New York:    The grandest of all Thanksgiving parades, The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade , in New York City is the country's largest and most recognized Thanksgiving parade.  Now in the 82nd year, the parade attracts more than three million spectators and upwards of 44 million television viewers.  If you're planning to be in the New York area over Thanksgiving, the Macy'...

   As the Christmas season is fast approaching, I thought it might be interesting to delve into the history of the holidays.  It turns out that there are many myths, false tales, and little known facts about the Christmas holiday and I thought I would share some of these.  The tradition of Santa being pulled by reindeer began in the 19th century when a group of people moved from  Norway to Alaska with a heard of reindeer, who were later used to pull sleds with Santa on them for an advertising campaign. Rudolph the Red Nosed reindeer was invented in 1939 by a man working for a department store, previous to this there had only been 8 reindeer. In North American tradition, Santa Claus lives at the North Pole.  However, in Denmark folklore he lives on Greenland, and each country on the Scandinavian peninsula has an area in which he is told to reside. The X in the abbreviation X-mas is derived from the Greek letter Chi which is the first letter of Christ's...

   On Christmas Eve, millions of children around the world will settle uneasily into bed, hardly able to contain themselves.  What vision could possibly dance through their heads, turning them into twitchy, restless insomniacs for just one night?  Is it the Sugar Plum Fair from "The Nutcracker" or the sugarplums from "The Night Before Christmas"?  Can sugarplums really do such a thing?    Chances are the children are thinking about toys, Santa Claus and his team of reindeer--if the children have been nice this year, that is.  Jolly old St. Nick should be landing his sleigh on their roof sometime late in the middle of the night.    Everyone has their own traditional image of Santa's sleigh, but could there be more to it than just a sled and a team of reindeer?  Although no one may ever know for sure just how Santa operates, here's a look at what some think are the most logical explanations for how the big guy in the red suit acco...

   Pictures and displays have been used to tell Bible stories since the days of the early church.  Nativity sets are popular indoor decorations for many homes during the Christmas Holiday's.  In fact, the original nativity display was not motionless figurines.  It was a live display with people dressed as Joseph and Mary with live animals.    IN 1223, St. Frances of Assisi had longed to see the nativity with his own eyes.  Therefore, he planned a surprise for the people of the town.  This turned out to be the first nativity display, which used real people and animals.  This eventually spread to Germany in the 1600's.  Traditionally the sets were displayed in the front of medieval churches and temples.  Eventually carvings of these images were done in wood or made out of straw by artists.  Living nativity scene    The nativity scene moved to other countries like Italy where other materials such as stone and ...

   The idea of Christmas caroling brings to mind a jolly band of churchgoers, dressed in shawls and top hats, going door-to-door spreading the spirit of Christmas through hymns.  Whether it's "Deck the Halls", "Joy to the World" or "Silent Night", Christmas Carolers have been known to travel on foot, by truck or on horseback.  Despite a recent re-examining of caroling's political correctness, including one incident where carolers were banned from marching in a prominent parade in Denver.  It remains a popular Christmas tradition.  But how exactly did this tradition begin?  Who wrote the carols?  And why do we feel compelled to sing them on the front porch of a total stranger's home?    The root of the word "carol" lies not in song, but in dance.  In Old French, "carole" means "kind of dance".  In Latin "choraula" means "a dance to the flute", and in Greek, "choraules" means "...

   Most people can agree on what Santa Claus looks like---jolly, with a red suit and a white beard.  But he didn't always look that way, and Coke advertising actually helped shape the modern day image of Santa.    2006 marked the 75th anniversary of the famous Coca-Cola Santa Claus.  Starting in 1931, magazine ads for Coca-Cola featured St. Nick as a kind, jolly man in a red suit.  Because magazines were so widely viewed, and because this image of Santa appeared for more than three decades, the image of Santa most people have today is largely based on their advertising. 1931 Coke Santa Ad    Before the 1931 introduction of the Coke Santa Claus, created by artist Haddon Sundblom, the image of Santa ranged from big to small and fat to tall.  Santa even appeared as an elf and looked a bit spooky.    Through the centuries, Santa has been depicted as everything from a tall gaunt man to an elf.  He has worn a bishop's r...

   This holiday season, I'm sure you'll come across many new dishes that you can share with your family for years to come.  Every year I try to come up with  a different creation than the traditional desert of pumpkin pie.  Last year instead of pumkin pie I made a marbled pumpkin cheesecake with a gingersnap crust.    Here's a new one some of you may not know about.  Have you ever tried Turducken?   Chances are high that you haven't unless you are from the Southern United States or have relatives from the South.     A Turducken is a combination of a Turkey, a Duck and a Chicken.  When I first heard about Turducken, I could only envision some mad scientist combining the DNA of these three to create a  new speicies of bird.  I did further research this year and after reading more about the concept I understand it better.  The meat is created using the combination of these traditional bir...