Author Archives: dcaligari

December 10, 1974 –Another Rankin/Bass animated holiday special The Year Without A Santa Claus first aired on ABC-TV on this date. Another Rankin/Bass animated holiday special The Year Without A Santa Claus premiered on ABC-TV on this date. The names of the reindeer are consistent with the Clement Moore poem and other sources. Vixen isContinue reading “The Year Without A Santa Claus premiered”

Today is Suspended Coffee Day (Caffe Sospeso). Many Coffee shops around the world are reviving an old Neapolitan custom, which involves paying it forward with coffee. A customer orders one cup but pays the barista for two. This second cup – the “suspended coffee” – is served for free to someone who is down onContinue reading “Good ideas start with great coffee”

December 9, 1989 –Billy Joel’s history lesson, We Didn’t Start the Fire hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts on this date. Joel wrote the lyrics first, which he rarely does. He says that is why the song has no melody. Joel told Billboard magazine: “It’s terrible musically. It’s like a mosquito buzzing around yourContinue reading “If you didn’t, who did?”

December 9, 1947 –An oft forgotten holiday classic, The Bishop’s Wife, starring Cary Grant, David Nivens, and Loretta Young opened in NYC on this date. Originally Cary Grant played the bishop and David Niven the angel. When original director William A. Seiter left the film, Henry Koster replaced him and viewed what had been shotContinue reading “The Bishop’s Wife premiered”

December 9, 1965 –A pre-teen drama about the bi-polar kid and his wacky friends first experiences of the depressive nature of the holiday season premiered on this date – A Charlie Brown Christmas broke many of the rules prevalent for animated holiday specials during the 1960s: it didn’t make use of a laugh track; realContinue reading “… Sleigh bell in the air …”

December 9, 1960 – The world’s longest running soap opera, Coronation Street, got it’s start on this date, airing on ITV in England. The program was broadcast live on that date. The series chronicles the lives of the residents of a backstreet terrace in Weatherfield, a fictional town in the north of England. William RoacheContinue reading “Coronation Street premiered”

The first Christmas card was created in England on December 9, 1843. Like most of us, Henry Cole, an Englishman, was too busy to write personal greetings for all of his Christmas greetings in 1843. Cole hired artist John Calcott Horsley to design a ready-to-be-sent card. The hand-colored card Horsley designed was lithographed on stiff,Continue reading “Get those cards out”

Useless Christmas Trivia: The lighting of candles and decorating with candles has always been popular, but also one of biggest sources of danger during the Christmas holidays. In 1895 a New England Telephone employee, Ralph Morris, while looking at the newly installed string of lights made for the telephone switchboard decided to take some homeContinue reading “Should this come up in conversation”

The theme of this week is that it is the week of Peace. The old ladies, saying rosaries in the back of church (to whom I turn to in all matters of religious instruction) tell me that this week is supposed to remind us that the person who arrived on Christmas came to be theContinue reading “Today is the start of the Second Week of Advent.”

I believe some of you are really going to need an old lady in church, saying the rosaries on a Tuesday afternoon in the back row of your church to explain this one to you: Pius IX promulgates the doctrine of Immaculate Conception (Ineffabilis Deus) – the Virgin Mary is free from original sin (andContinue reading “Believe me, it is connected to TV”