The Muppets, The MoTab, and The Fontana

For all of my life, music and Christmas have always gone together. Music plays a huge role in my life, but at Christmas time, our home was saturated with it. Mom liked to keep holidays in their places, so growing up we did not start listening to Christmas music until the Thanksgiving meal was over. But we had a family tradition of how that music began, one that started either when I was quite the young little thing, or perhaps even a year or two before. At a friend’s home, my parents were discussing Miss Piggy and they mentioned a record that they had which had John Denver and the Muppets singing Christmas songs together, specifically Miss Piggy's Christmas is Coming.
 Already fans of John Denver and the Muppets, my family was intrigued. They listened. They loved. And our copy (whether record, cassette tape, or CD) of John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together was the first of all the Christmas music we would begin the season with. It still plays a part for me, as I have my own CD copy—one of the best presents my mother has ever given me when I was celebrating Thanksgiving in Nauvoo.

It was with great joy over a decade later to find the TV special they filmed based on that album. We taped that on to VHS. While not every scene in that is my favorite, I will watch it specifically for the songs from the album that I have grown up with.

But that was not the first Muppet Christmas-y thing our family added to our holidays. For as long as I can remember we had a taped-off-TV copy of The Christmas Toy, which movie would make me cry when the toys sang “Old Friends, Dear Friends.”
 Heavens—it still does as I was doing so only 2 weeks ago while decorating my home with my own copy of the movie playing.

The Muppet Christmas Carol came out around my 7^th grade year—the year I first read/studied the play in school. I still think it is one of the most brilliant adaptations ever. And probably one of the very few that shows Scrooge as he is in the book—already beginning to change from the Ghost of Christmas Past’s visit and not out of fear because of his and Tiny Tim’s bleak future. Being the family Queen of the Taped-Off-TV Acquisitions, I made sure to add this to our collection very quickly, though we bought the VHS a year or two later. I have my own DVD copy of it now. It is watched every year, because it wouldn't be Christmas without it,

Around this time, we discovered one of the best gems ever on TV: The Muppet Family Christmas. My mom and I were immediate fans. The rest of the family joined in pretty quickly, too. I never stop laughing at The Icy Patch.

And EVERY year as I bake my Christmas goodies I find myself inevitably quoting Janice:

This was an immediate taped-off-TV addition. I have been able to procure a copy on DVD for my mother in later years, but still have been unable to get my own. It’s a tragedy that hopefully will be remedied in some year soon to come.

Other Muppet Christmas things have come along that have added to the humor of the season. Just last year my brother posted this on Facebook for the family to enjoy:

(I should add here that my family of 8 kids + 2 parents is full of many diverse personalities and interests. But there are three things to which all of us can come together on: the Gospel of Jesus Christ, games, and the Muppets. So it isn’t just that we like the Muppets. They are a mutual interest that brought us together in our earlier years and still do so today.)

It isn’t the Christmas season for me without the Muppets. Nor is it Christmas without the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. My parents owned a substantial amount of Christmas music, and a good deal of it was MoTab. I bet there are family members who can still quote from the hilariously fabulous “Night before Christmas” song on the record we’d listen to. (Specifically “his droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow!”) I always feel at peace when MoTab sings Christmas—not just the sacred ones but also the upbeat or silly or fun ones. They help bring home to me the true meaning of Christmas—the gift of the Savior to the world.

Muppets and MoTab. It isn’t Christmas for me without them. Which is why when they announced Sesame Street Muppets as guests of the annual MoTab Christmas concert, I was floored. I had to go. But my name wasn’t drawn from the ticket pool. I was resigning myself to not get to be a part of this, when a friend of my roommates gave her tickets for the concert. And she asked me to go with her. And it is one of the best Christmas presents of my life! Not to mention that the amazingly talented, gorgeous, possibly single ;-), Broadway star Santino Fontana will be with them. I got to hear him at the Pioneer concert and was blown away.
He might soon rise up among the greats like Josh Groban and Dallyn Vail Bayles.

This concert, for me, honors my life full of Muppets plus family plus family memories, Broadway and singing and music, MoTab’s presence and influence, and my Savior. A truly wonderful Christmas season it is!

Breathing

I exist. Really. I do. I've just been busier than I have ever been (except for perhaps my first year as a Children's librarian). My brain has been pretty swamped with too many new things added to the already full plate of other things. So, yes. That's my excuse.

But life goes on. All is well. All is wonderful. And I'm just as much of a Janeite nerd as ever. And in case you didn't know, in November/December I added Doctor Who to my nerdy fandoms.

Just threw a Doctor Who party at work today, too. FABULOUS! So I'm posting pictures of my Clara costume.

I'm The Impossible Girl. 

 In so many ways, too, right? :-)

Run. Run, you clever boy, and remember.

HM & SL 2014 Book Challenge

I'm a bit behind in posting, but here is the challenge for this year. We liked last year's set up, so we did a wee bit of tweaking and here you go!

The categories for this year's challenge along with the required number of books for each category:

Science Fiction/Fantasy - 4 books
Travel (Books about travel or set in places you've never lived) - 4 books
Nonfiction - 4 books
Mystery - 4 books
History/Historical Fiction - 4 books
Award Nominees/Winners - 4 books
Religious - 4 books
Classics - 2 books
Adult Fiction by an author you've never read - 4 books
Books You Own - 6 books
Books on Your To-read List - 6 books
Other - 4 books

Books have to be at least 100 pages long to count. 

SCORING GOES AS FOLLOWS:

In all categories except for Books You Own and To-read Books, each "required" book is 10 points. (In other words, the first two, four, or six books in the category.) After you have read the required number of books, each book is 5 points in a given category.

For Books You Own and To-read Books, each book is an additional 25 points - no matter how many you read! (But you are required to read at least 6 in these categories for full credit.)

Also, for Books You Own and To-Read Books, if those books fit into another category, you can count them in both categories, and still add another 25 points! Hooray!

Happy Reading!

2013 HM&SL Book Challenge Wrap-Up

2013 has ended and with it the annual HM&SL Book Challenge. And awesomeness: I completed it!! Even when I read significantly less than usual (which was also a goal). Amazing what being busy can do to reading time. Though it is affecting my abilities at work, so I may not carry that goal over to 2014. So here are the iffy jpgs of my category tracking:

Travel or Book set where you have never been

Adult Fiction Author (which eventually became any author, but the 1st 4 are adult fiction) which I have never read before

Award Winner or Nominee

Classics

History or Historical Fiction

Chapter Book with less than 100 pages

Books Turned into a Movie or Musical

Mystery

Nonfiction

Other

Recommended by

Religious

Science Fiction or Fantasy

And the final totals:

Interesting comparisons:
I read less books (287 vs 359)
and less pages (29,584 vs 32,854)
But I got more points this year! (1152.6 as opposed to last year's 1076.1).


And, there are also my A to Z Totals (aka The Scrabble Challenge) with comparison to last year:

Count Scrabble points for first letter of each title and author that I read. Bonus points for letters my names start with. (Not including picture books.)


2012 Titles: 246
2013 Titles: 223
2012 Title Letters not read: Q, X, Y, Z
2013 Title Letters not read: G, J, K, N, Q, X, Y, Z
2012 Highest Scoring Title letter: H (30 points)
2013 Highest Scoring Title letter: H (35 points)

2012 Authors: 210
2013 Authors: 254 (whoa! Go me!!)

2012 Author Letters not read: N, Q, U, X, Z
2013 Author Letters not read: E, I, Q, U, X, Y

2012 Highest Scoring Author letter: W (28 points)
2013 Highest Scoring Author letter: Tie! B & H (30 points)

2012 Grand Total: 456

2013 Grand Total: 477 (wow. higher even with reading less.)