58 Days 13 hours until Christmas

It's hard to believe that Christmas will be here in less than 59 days. I can hardly wait. You wouldn't know were at the end of October. We were 71 yesterday adn in the 60's today, but will be in the 40's on Halloween.

We did have a cold spell last week with temperatures in the upper 30's, but no snow, yet. I like the snow, but don't like having to shovel it. And I really like to have a little snow on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I'm hoping decorate on November first this year. Most of the stores have a lot of Christmas stuff out already, but a lot of it is very expensive and now, most of the lights now are LED's and they are on the expensive side, but they do save electricity. They just don't look as good as the regular C6, C7 and C9 light bulbs and in some cases, they aren't as bright.

RIP Tom Bosley

Tom Bosley (Howard Cunningham) of Happy Days passes away at the age of 83

Fox New Report

Sorry that I've been posting about celebrities recently but I want to keep my blog going and let people know I am still here. I have been working on a lot of different things lately. Sorry about the quality of the video, but there wasn't a lot of Christmas stuff from Happy Days on YouTube that wasn't overdubbed with someone elses song.

RIP Barbara Billingsley (Leave It To Beaver)

Barbara Billingsley passes away from Rheumatoid Disease
TMZ Article

I couldn't find any Christmas scenes, but found this one from the movie "Airplane" I Speak Jive

Blowmold Candy Cane

This is a Blowmold Candy Cane made my Union Products in 1991. It is a smaller/thinner one than other's I have seen, but is about 24 inches tall. I got this a couple years ago for $.50 cents at a Thrift Store that was going out of business. This one didn't have the cord with it either but i was able to get several from Walmart.

Blowmold Nutcracker

With my time for Christmas decorating coming up soon, I decided I'd better check to see that things still light up. This Nutcracker (I initially referred to him as a toy soldier, but he is more like a Nutcracker so I changed the title of this post) was made by TPI Plastics from Canada in 1988. He stands about 30 inches tall, maybe a little shorter, but I didn't measure him and am estimating his height compared the Santa Claus I showed in a previous post who was 40 inches tall.

I got him at a Thrift Store that was going out of business a couple years ago for $.50 cents. He didn't have a cord for him but I was able to find one at Walmart.

He has a few light scuff marks on the front of his hat, but it doesn't need to be repainted.

Sorry about the blurriness at the top of the picture. I was trying to cover the flash so it wouldn't white the image out and my finger also covered part of the lens.

Blowmold Angel I got at a yard sale

I purchased this angel at the same yard sale earlier this year along with the Santa Claus with List. She was only $2.50 too.

Thanks to BlowmoldsRUs, I found out that she was manufactured in Canada by TPI Plastics/Canada.

She stands about 20 inches high and needs a bit of cleaning, but there isn't any paint loss. Someone did splice the cord though so I will probably have to replace it with one from Walmart.

I'm hoping to find some more blowmolds before I start decorating but they usually go pretty fast when the Thrift Stores put them out so you basically have to be there when they put them out. I did pass on Mary and Joseph last week. They were only $2.49 each, but they didn't have the Baby Jesus so it wouldn't look right if I were to just put Mary and Joseph out on our porch.

Empire Plastics Reindeer

This was a freebie from someone that was moving out of state and didn't want to take all their Christmas decorations with them.

He stands 26 inches tall and was made by Empire Plastics. I have to try and touch up the paint on his nose but other than that he is in good shape.

He has the original light socket and cord and uses a standard 25 watt light bulb.

Union Products Santa With List Yard Sale Find

This is a Union Products Santa that I found at a yard sale earlier this year for $2.50

He stands about 40 inches tall and for the age has only a little paint loss, mostly on the back so I don't have to worry about him not looking right when I display him this year.

I believe he was manufactured around 1968 and they often go for over $20.00 on eBay not counting shipping, so I got a good deal when I purchased him this summer at a yard sale. He doesn't have the original light or cord, but from the front nobody would be able to tell.

I'm hoping to start decorating our porch on November first this year as I am usually the first person to start with Christmas decorating and then the neighborhood follows.


R 1 & 2

R 3 & 4

RIP Tony Curtis

Actor Tony Curtis passes away at the age of 85 MSNBC.COM

The only thing Christmas related I could immediately think of is Christmas in Connecticut

RIP Eddie Fisher

Eddie Fisher Passes away at the age of 82
popeater.com/2010/09/24/

RIP Billie Mae Richards

Billie Mae Richards who was widely known as the voice of Rudolph in the animated TV Christmas classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" She was 89 years old. A few other blogs have mentioned she was 88, The LINK I am including is from CBC News in Toronto.

A Thrift Store Find on Labor Day Frank E. Post

I was at the AmVets Thrift Store on Labor Day and they were having a 50% off sale on everything in the store.

I had gone looking for Christmas albums, but only found one and being the store was so packed and had a very long line to the cashiers, I decided to put the album back and just go home.

On my way out, I spotted TELCO's Frank E. Post The Singing Lamppost. I didn't want to take a chance of the checkout line getting longer so I didn't go back to the record section of the store and just got in line with "Frank" and waited about 20 minutes to reach the registers, but it was well worth the wait.

When I saw this at the AmVets Thrift Store, I couldn't pass it up. It was marked $3.98 but being on sale, I got it for $1.99. This particular one actually came from Bronners Store and retailed for $39.99 but had a sale sticker on it for $29.99. and then had the red tape that Bronners uses to show you paid for an item on the box. It even had the original plastic bag that it was sealed in as well as the cardboard sleeve that was around the lamppost.

I bought one of these several years ago at K-Mart's after Christmas Sale for $20.00 but ended up selling it along with other Christmas items on eBay just before Christmas the following year as I needed to get some money to buy presents for my family.

Since then, I've been looking for this on eBay, but usually it didn't have the original box and was expensive and the shipping was overly expensive too.

I posted a video of this on Youtube, (there are several others of this item there too) but the audio isn't very loud and it was also very hissy and I can't figure a way to amplify the audio or get rid of the hiss. My Digital Video camera automatically saves in .MOV format. This was my first try at creating a video for Youtube.

The video is is in HD. I tried embedding it in this post, but it was too large for the columns and didn't look right so instead, I'm including the link to the video on Youtube here.

Dollar Tree has started putting Christmas items out

I was at our local Dollar Tree store yesterday and they already has some Christmas items out. The had a sign that said Pre-Christmas Sale. I wonder what type of sale it will be being everything is already a dollar lol. I didn't get a chance to look at anything as I had specifically gone there for one item and they were ready to close so I'll have to go back another time and see what goodies they have out.

Christmas is only 4 months from today

Well, only 4 more months and it will be Christmas. I can hardly wait. QVC had two Christmas episodes today. Hopefully the stores will start putting out Christmas items. The Dollar Tree usually puts a few Christmas items out along with the Halloween stuff but the other stores wait until after Halloween. Most of the stores had already put out "Back-to-School" stuff at the beginning of July.

Bronner's has already sent out their Christmas Catalog and LTD Commodities has listed their Christmas Catalog online, but I haven't received one in the mail yet.

Mitch Miller passes away

Mitch Miller passed away earlier this morning at the age of 99

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/arts/music/03miller.html?src=me

Just a reminder about posting links in comments

Dear folks,

Again, I must ask that you please don't use my blog for your advertising. There are plenty of other place to do so. Please don't include any links in your comments. If this continues, I will delete the comment and change the comments so that they must be approved first. If I wanted advertising on my blog, I would've set it up so that people would have to pay me to allow advertising but this isn't what this blog is about.

People come here that appreciate Christmas music and learn about a bygone era when the Christmas Music they grew up listening to was still played on the radio and it brings back fond memories for them. If they were looking for advertising, they wouldn't come here.

I have deleted the particular comment as it has nothing to do with Christmas Music.

Also, please do not click on any links in the comments unless it was a comment from me.

I thank you for your understanding.

Received another DMCA Complaint

Well folks, it looks like the DMCA people are at it again. I received another message from Google that they received a DMCA Complaint on my non-Christmas record blog.

So I don't know if my blogs will be deleted or not. I don't know why they are picking on me when they let other blogs post current CD releases.

I apologize if my blog is no longer here. I know a lot of people enjoyed it an found a lot of information about a bygone music era by visiting here.

A Favorite Christmas Movie of Mine that is avalialbe on DVD now

Back in 1984, I purchased a VHS Christmas Movie titled "Here Comes Santa Claus" The original title of this move is "J'ai rencontré le Père Noël" and I just purchased this movie on DVD under the title "I Believe In Santa Claus" I don't know why they changed the name of the movie and also changed the artwork. They even had to go in and digitally edit the opening credits to show the name of the movie as "I Believe In Santa Claus" This is the movie that has the Musical Walking Santaclaus from my previous post.

For more information on this movie, here is a link to Internet Movie Data Base http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182221/

If anyone is interested in a good family Christmas movie, I would recommend this one. The only problems I have with the DVD are, it isn't in WS being the movie is from 1984 and the audio is somewhat out of sync with the lip movement and in my opinion, my VHS copy has better video quality. So if you can find this on VHS I would go for the VHS.

Musical Walking Santaclaus

I'm not sure how old this item is as while doing an online search, I came across a few different ones and the boxes were different too. This Santa's eyes are more Asian and he was made in China.

He works on 2 C batteries and walks and rings his bell and it also plays Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and I Wish You A Merry Christmas.

In the movie "J'ai rencontré le Père Noël" (1984) aka "Here Comes Santa Claus" (1984) aka "I Believe In Santa Claus" (DVD Release, unsure of year) There was a scene where Karen Chéryl was singing in Santa's workshop and they had several of these Musical Walking Santa Claus'. I have this movie on VHS but I don't know if the Santa Claus is the same one that I have here.

There is a Bar Code sticker on the bottom of the box from A. E. Price Bellmawr, NJ so I would guess this is from the 1980's and from what I can find online about them, they are Importers.