Holiday Countdown 2021 - The lost days part 2

[#1]

As usual, I had to remove older days from the main article. It's getting too large. But here they are again:

Today's song is a special request by my fellow ACE-Leader @nina_schmidt : Snow by Leslie Odom Jr. - I love this song!

Oh Oh Oh - Today I have a horrible question for every binge-viewer:

@Monique vdB asked in August 2020 for your most beloved TV Shows. If you could watch only five of them for the rest of your life over and over again, what would they be? There are interesting answers: Baking Shows, Science Fiction, Cartoons - you can get a lot of inspiration there - but only choose five!

Here at the North Pole we don’t have a lot of time to watch TV. Santa implemented a child protection lock. He’s so nasty sometimes. You won’t believe. But… elves are creative and smart and we found a way (as most children do sooner or later) to bypass the lock.

And so we watch TV especially when

• Santa is on his way to deliver all the presents we crafted throughout the year

• Santa sleeps after Christmas Eve - he is so exhausted when everything is done, so we can watch TV 24 hours a day, seven days long.

But please please please: don’t tell him, don’t write it down on your letters or leave messages with cookies and milk. If you betray us, we won’t craft your toys anymore - so be warned!

And that’s what we watch every year:

• It’s a wonderful life - the classic one from 1946 - We love it

• The Grinch -He’s a bit like me

• Nightmare before Christmas - I love Tim Burton and Jack and everything in this movie - so great

• The Muppet Christmas Carol - so cute, especially if you know Kermit and Piggy in person - I met them once in the Fairy Land at their secret marriage, nobody should know that - oops

• And then a fairy tale movie, which is especially popular in Germany: Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel - a movie from 1973 which is based on the Cinderella story and runs dozens of time in German television during Holiday season.

And now it’s your turn: which are your favorite TV Shows? - Holiday or not!

Questions of the day:

1. What were 750.000.000 people worldwide watching on TV on July, 29th 1981?

2. Beatrice Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White and Estelle Getty were known as ...

Last days answers:

IBU stands for "International Biathlon Unit", it's also "Industrieverband Blechumformung e.V"  - there are really strange communities in Germany...  - but IBU on a bottle of beer means usually "International Bitterness Units" - it is used to approximately quantify the bitterness of beer.

The dogs Buddy, Barney and Bo lived in the White House. Buddy lived there with Bill Clinton, Barney with George W. Bush and Bo with Barack Obama.

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of …

Song of the day of course: Robbie Williams - Dream a little dream - The Christmas version

@Kimberly Deal _Columbus ACE_  asked in 2019 for your dreams - what would you want to be if anything is possible? No worries about money, Santa or time.

Guess who wants to be a unicorn trainer, run a cheesecake shop or a dive shop, sing or fly to the moon? . What are you really enthusiastic about? Tell us in the comments - here or at Kimberly’s article.

What would an elf do if he could do anything he wants. What do you think? An average elf would just stay at Santa’s hut. They are so happy crafting toys and making children happy, I don’t think they want to do anything else. For me, well, it’s different. You know, I left the north years ago for the first time.

But Elves do love toys and games and so do I. To be honest, it’s the cold weather, the ice and the snow which makes me hate Santa’s house. I think I would ask my best friend Thomas to open a Holiday styled Boardgame café together with me, somewhere where it’s warm.

I’ll play the whole day long at the café, he’s the manager and his husband is baking the cakes. That’s a fair division of labour, isn’t it?

Questions for the dreamer's day:

1. What makes sleeping sea otters look so cute?

2. What happens to a sleeping dolphin?

Hard questions today, I know. But please stay fair, just use your brain, not the internet for finding a solution!

Last days answers in pictures:

via GIPHY

Song of the day is a special request by @Brant Schroeder : I'm Gettin nuttin' for Christmas by Shirley Temple  - such a sweet song :-) , Thank you Brant!

Do you have a song request too? Mail it to me.

A very popular topic, a topic which everybody likes and always gets the most notice is pets.

In June 2019, Shannon asked for pictures of your dogs and pictures of your cats

You have to watch all these photos, they are so cute! And if your cat or dog isn’t there already, post a photo as soon as possible!

We have no cats and dogs here at the North Pole. Usually, people in the polar region have sled dogs, but we don’t need them, we have reindeers. And Christmas mice. Christmas mice are crazy. They try to behave like Santa, very small Santas. They have small Christmas Trees, wrap their cheese in little pieces of wrapping paper (the leftover pieces we throw away when we wrap the children’s gifts), put them under the trees and sing that Mariah Carey song all day long. Thank God, they don’t have loud voices.

We, the elves, take care of the reindeers. But we are not allowed to use the sleigh. We have to fix it every year, it is always in bad condition when Santa comes back from his Christmas ride. You won’t believe it, so many damages and dents. Of course, Santa has to race - think about all the presents which he must deliver in one night, but it is a mess, every year once more.

But… I told you already, Santa sleeps after Christmas for almost a week. Then we take the opportunity and ride the sleigh. We have fun and the reindeers have fun, especially Rudolph. Another thing which Santa does not need to know…

Questions of the day

1. Why may your dog behave strangely when you listen to the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles?

2. I’m a famous cat, but I don’t have a name. I’m orange, I belong to nobody, and nobody belongs to me. I live in New York and a beautiful lady takes care of me. But she’s a little bit confused, she threw me out of the car, left me between waste bins in the rain and then she desparately searched for me. Who am I?

The answers for yesterday's questions:

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sea_otters_holding_hands.jpg)

Sea Otters hold hands while they sleep. Do you want to know why? Look here.

Dolphins only allow one half of their brains to sleep at a time; the other half stays alert to enable the dolphin to continue breathing and look out for dangers in the environment. Dolphins only close one eye when they sleep; the left eye will be closed when the right half of the brain sleeps, and vice versa. Read the full article here.

Song of the day: “White Christmas” by the Drifters

It was in October 2020 when @Kyren Wong showed us her childhood go-tos and asked for your childhood movies, songs, things, whatever. It’s so funny to see all these long-forgotten things from ancient times. So many memories come to my mind - the perfect moment for indulging in nostalgia. Look at all these old machines, movies, music and books. And most of them are not more than 30 years old. How time flies…

I have no memories of my childhood, I don’t even know exactly how old I am today. We elves are said to be hundreds of years old and some of us are even older than Santa itself. But as I told you before, we were not “born”. We are suddenly here and nobody knows where we came from - we don’t have a birthday, what is too bad.

But I’m not older than Santa, definitely not. If I were human, you would call me a teenager. One of my first memories is Santa playing the record "White Christmas" by the Drifters every day. Klick on the link above to listen to the song - it is much better then this Mariah song - almost every song is better than the Mariah song...

So you can imagine how old I am - I “appeared” in the 50's at Santa’s house - these were the days of Rock’n Roll and Petticoats. I remember, it was 1959 when we sneaked into a cinema and watched Marilyn Monroe in “Some like it hot”. Santa didn’t know and he would never had allowed that. James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, I loved them all. A distant relative of mine, Tinkerbell, played a leading role in “Peter Pan”.

In the 1950’s we crafted quite different toys than we do today - much easier things. Have you ever tried to build a Playstation or a smartphone? It’s so demanding and the slightest error ends in a bunch of electronic waste and Santa screaming at you. The 50’s were easier. Children's wishes were Hula Hoops, Frisbees and Matchbox cars - awesome and easy to build.

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Girl_twirling_Hula_Hoop,_1958.jpg)

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walter_Frederick_Morrison.jpg)

In 1959, the first Barbie doll came out. Santa didn’t want us to produce her, he's so old-fashioned sometimes. But millions of girls and a few brave boys wanted a Barbie doll, so we did it - but only the female elves. The male elves were allowed to tailor the clothes for her. You can see our most famous creations here.

Questions of the day, maybe you can find the answers in your childhood:

1. Who was expected to appear on October 21, 2015 in Hill Valley, USA?

2. When was the videogame Pac-Man released - I want to know the year!

The answers for yesterday's questions:

The beatles put a sound on Sergeant Pepper which only dogs can hear. The high pitched whistle can be found on the final track on the album, 'A Day in the Life'. If you ever play Sergeant Pepper, watch your dog.

And the cat is of course Holly Golightly's cat from “Breakfast at Tiffanys”. Watch the famous scene in the rain here.

Today's about Christmas trees and so the song of the day is: Rockin' around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee

Do you have a song request for the last 10 days? Mail it to me.

Do you rock around your Christmas Tree? How does your tree look like - and why is there no “Ugly Tree Contest” but only Ugly Sweater Contests? A lot of questions - some of them were answered in @Kristján Geir Mathiesen 's Friday Fun article about Christmas Tree Traditions. Look at all these trees in the houses of @Jimmy Seddon , @Jack Brickey , @Angélica Luz ,  @Monique vdB , @Walter Buggenhout and many more. There’s still place for more trees - we want to see yours! And which is the most impressive tree you have ever seen?

Which one of the trees from Kristjan’s article do you like best? Look at the posts and send your vote to me. I’ll announce the tree with the most votes on December 24!

Santa doesn’t have a Christmas tree. I was so disappointed last year when I moved back from the Fairytale Land to the North Pole. Everybody thinks, Santa’s house is the most decorated house in the universe. It’s not. Maybe it’s one of the least decorated ones. I asked Santa, why the only tree in the house is the one of the Christmas mice (you remember, they behave like it’s Christmas every day). “Humbug” he rumbled. “We don’t need this here. I’m not in the house at Christmas Eve and from where should I get a new tree every few weeks, here at the North Pole?” He’s so unromantic sometimes…

But this year, we have a tree. I managed this. I secretly ordered one from Santa’s largest competitor - the one with the A. Sometimes Santa orders Christmas presents there if we, the elves, work too slowly and so I used his credit card for… Humbug. They deliver to the North Pole - shipping costs are tremendous, but they do.

OK, It’s just a plastic tree but it has a name. I named the tree Archibald. Don’t know why, it looked like an Archibald to me. A real tree would have had no chance to survive here. We put up the tree outside of the house behind the next bank of snow, hidden from Santas curious eyes. We build some snowmen around, so that the tree is not alone - it looks so great, our frozen tree:

And sometimes, even the mice leave the house just to watch it.

Questions of the day:

1. Bangkok, Istanbul, Cairo or Buenos Aires - which of these cities has the highest temperature (average) in June?

2. Which country is having the most islands in the world?

Last day’s questions:

Marty McFly travelled in Back to the Future Part II from 1985 to the year 2015. He was expected to appear in Hill Valley. Unfortunately, there’s no Hill Valley in the US, so nobody found him. But you can find Hill Valley in google maps! Very funny 🙂

The video game Pac-Man has been released in May 1980 - more than 40 years ago. These are the moments when you realize you're getting old...

Song of the Day: Mariah Carey: All I want for Christmas

What?? This song??

Yes - it’s the perfect match for today’s topic: What’s that one thing “everybody” loves that you hate?

(Man photo created by cookie_studio - Freepik | Graphic Resources for everyone)

In June 2020, @Jimmy Seddon  asked and you answered. This is so funny, please have a look there and read all the answers. Learn more about ugly cheese, stinky melons, disgusting popcorn, horrible chocolate, awful raisins, brackish beer, nasty boomerangs and many many more.

What do you hate? Tell us your secrets, right now! Here or at Jimmy's page.

Do you like Mariah? Well, that’s what I thought. Everybody loves her. If you read the last year’s calendars, you know what I have done to my copy of “All I want for Christmas”:

But you cannot escape from her, she’s everywhere. For you, torture will stop in January for at least 11 months, but for me - everyday is Mariah day. The mice are singing it, Santa is singing it, the other elves are singing it. The whole year long. Please please help me out of here…

Some more music related questions today:

1. Do you know Gordon Sumner? He’s a famous british musician - better known as …

2. Prince replaced his band regularly. What was the name of the band during the Purple Rain period?

Last days answers

The highest average temperature has Bangkok with 29.5 degrees Celsius, then Cairo with 27.3, Istanbul 20.4 and last one is Buenos Aires with 11.7.

Sweden is the country with the most islands in the world - more than 220.000!