Christmas

A Three-Hour Medley Of Christmas Songs!

This is all you'll need as your aural backdrop for what's left of the Christmas season. It's a three-hour--plus 17:56 minute--mashup of every Christmas song ever recorded, from the cute to the charming to the charmingly cute to the downright satanic. I hate this stuff with a passion, but maybe if ... More >>

HIGH ON THE HOLIDAYS

The holidays are made for the crazy

The Five Best Christmas Songs You've Never Heard

If there's two things you'll find no shortage of every holiday season, it's Christmas music and complaints about Christmas music. Whether overheard on the radio while the family cooks Christmas dinner in the kitchen, or providing the soundtrack to some frantic last-minute mall madness, the seasonal ... More >>

Why I Hate Christmas With A Passion

'Tis the season to be cranky, so let me spit out my eggnog and tell you what I hate about this enforced annual nightmare: *The fact that it starts earlier and earlier each year. This year, the hype started in October! Next year it'll probably be July. *The relentless barrage of fake good cheer a ... More >>

10 Best Restaurants to Book for Christmas Eve Dinner

Walking around Lower Manhattan these past few nights, it is clear that something is in the air. Literally. Take a deep breath in and find your lungs greeted by wave of pine from the tightly wrapped trees that now seem to line every street corner. By next week, it will be impossible to dodge the ho ... More >>

MERRY XXXMAS!

Holiday revue forgoes stockings and more

Michelle Obama Is Our Mom In Chief!

She even likes the title, as she mentioned in her convention speech last night, which is getting raves. Michelle talked about her husband as "a man you can trust." She spoke about the long-term process that growth is, and how we have to hang in there and keep working at it. Also remarkable was wh ... More >>

A Christmas Tree Set a Car on Fire in the East Village

As Myles wrote on Monday, it's high time to throw away your old, dead Christmas tree. But while doing so, please dispose of it properly! According to the blog Strollerderby, a Christmas tree was seen in flames, in the East Village, the other night. It managed to set an entire minivan on fire. (EV Gr ... More >>

Quiz: Are You a Soldier in the War on Christmas?

​If you are reading this, it means you have withstood the first assault of the War on Christmas. We have taken the words of various talk show hosts and politicians to heart and are currently in our Christmas bunker, waiting for the unrelenting attacks from the sinister pleasantry, "Happy Holid ... More >>

Two Christmas Songs I Really Hate!

​I know "hate" and "Christmas" probably shouldn't be in the same sentence, so how about "despise"? Anyway, I absolutely loathe "The Little Drummer Boy". I find it slow and tedious and pretentious and annoying. Hearing it over and over again is the equivalent of putting hot pokers under my n ... More >>

Miracle on 34th Street

Divine Lived For Christmas!

Plus-sized drag superstar Divine will be forever equated with Christmas, partly because Divine's character, Dawn Davenport, threw that classic fit over not having gotten cha cha heels from Santa in 1974's Female Trouble.

Seven Spots to Eat a Feast of the Seven Fishes

Andy Ciordia/FlickrExpect fish, fish, fish, and more fish.​ Christmas is a-coming, and while the kiddies might be all excited about Santa Claus's visit, the more food-focused will be looking forward to the Feast of the Seven Fishes, one of the most gluttonous culinary traditions of the season. ... More >>

Union Square Holiday Market Now Open, Park Smells Like Cinnamon

Now in its eighteenth year, the Union Square Holiday Market opened yesterday--a week before Black Friday. The "Christmas episode" of the year-round Greenmarket features wares from local knickknackeries. Neighborhood fixtures like Wafels and Dinges are there, as are unusual businesses like the one sp ... More >>

From Candlelight to Bubble Light: a 1950s Christmas in an 1850s House

Scrooge McHorrible America Will Tax Your Christmas Tree [Updated]

​A tax on Christmas trees -- Christmas trees! -- has been approved by the Obama administration, to raise $2 million to pay for an ad campaign that will explain the benefits of live trees over fake ones. Does anyone really need to be explained the benefits of live trees? In brief, they smell be ... More >>

Please Stop Christmas Shopping in October, You're Making Us Look Bad

​Check your calendars, friends. Yep, we're in October, a month in which your only concern should be which of your lightweight jackets to throw across your shoulders as you tread effortlessly out of your house and also, what creative and intelligent but still sultry and appealing to members of ... More >>

An October 18 Warning: Justin Bieber's "Mistletoe" Will Be Everywhere This Holiday Season

​This year's crop of holiday-themed records includes albums by the likes of She & Him, Tony Bennett, and Scott Weiland. But the one that will probably emerge as sales champ (or at least get mentioned by a lot of people on Twitter) is Under The Mistletoe, the first seasonally minded release fro ... More >>

Five Novelty Songs That Were In Heavy Rotation During The Z Morning Zoo's Golden Era

​Today the AV Club has a feature up on enjoyable novelty songs that namechecks (among others) the sitcom-created boyband 2ge her, the musical works of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Barnes & Barnes' seminal "Fish Heads," not to mention good old "Weird Al" Yankovic. Any discussion of novelty s ... More >>

Newsweek's Julian Assange Christmas Photos Are Really Quite Magical

One of the many faces of possibly being extradited, via Robert King/Newsweek​Did anyone ever watch the sentimental, autobiographical Truman Capote short called "A Christmas Memory"? In it, an orphaned boy lives with a group of elderly relatives, one of whom is his best friend, an eccentric, ch ... More >>

Post-Christmas Christmas Trees on Clearance in Queens

​If you missed Christmas the first time around, or want to celebrate it again, or just want to keep your home pumped full of that fresh, pine-y conifer smell, a Korean man in Flushing, Queens is offering a "big sale" on his leftover stock of 300 Christmas trees. [NYT]

The Best of the #failedrockbandmovies Hashtag

​Online music nerds are just like the rest of us in the downtime between Christmas and New Year's: unwrapping the last bit of reheatable Christmas dinner, bidding visiting relatives a fond adieu, being trapped inside by a foot of snow with only Twitter to keep them warm. So it came as no surpr ... More >>

Week In Review: All I Want For Christmas Is Train

We suggest you play this song around your family tomorrow. Get it here.​That's it for us, internet, we're back on Monday. But before we leave, let's run it back. The worst song of 2010? Well, it wasn't the cast of Glee's "Loser." And it wasn't Bret Michaels's repulsive cover of "What I Got." W ... More >>

Five Curious Culinary Christmas Customs

​How about some eels for Christmas dinner? Get 'em on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg. You think fruitcake and eggnog are strange? You think houses made of gingerbread are weird? Read on about some even more off-the-wall Christmas dining habits.

Dirty and Offensive Christmas Songs!

​The only way I can deal with the annual onslaught of cheery and/or solemn Christmas songs is to make up filthy, raucous versions of them and make those the official hymns of the season. It's painfully immature, for sure, but it helps cut through the cheap sentiment and relentless faux glee t ... More >>

Home for the Holidays with New York City Chefs

brainbasedbusiness.comTwas the Night Before Deliciousness​ Ah, the holidays. A time for eating, cozying up by the fire, eating, caroling, and more eating. How will New York City chefs be celebrating this Yuletide? We got in touch with a bunch of them to see what their feasting entails and ... More >>

Your Christmas Tree May Be Offending Someone Right Now

​Today in over-the-top political correctness seemingly supported by science: Researchers at Simon Fraser University in Canada have undertaken a study to see how Christmas trees hurt the feelings of impact people who aren't Christian. They asked 77 Christians and 57 non-Christians to fill out a ... More >>

Rich People Are Totally Outsourcing Christmas

via Apartment Therapy​Among all the outrageous holiday things we do, whether we're rich or poor or simply middle-class, there is the outrageousness of paying someone else to do it for you. We're all a little bit guilty of this, most likely -- store gift-wrapping? Buying the pies instead of mak ... More >>

Christmas Tree Vendor's Life Full of Darkness and Sometimes Whimsy

​News from the Christmas tree vendor beat! Today in the New York Times' City Room blog, there's a whole story -- the second installment in a series, mind you -- about a man who sells Christmas trees on the streets of New York City at holiday time. What you will learn will shock and surprise yo ... More >>

Santa Extra-Pushy This Year (or, the Christmas Creep Begins)

​It's November 3. It was just Halloween, and we're still clinging to the last vestiges of Daylight Savings Time (get ready to falllll baaaaack this Sunday!). But...have you done your Christmas shopping yet? 'Cause you have to get on that shit. As EV Grieve has noted, "Duane Reade Puts Out Its ... More >>

Weekend Special: Christmas Leftovers

You've opened all your totally enjoyable presents, eaten literally thousands of decorated Christmas cookies, knocked back bumpers of nog and wassail--now's the time to sit back like Scrooge and take stock of the stranger Xmas apparitions...

Battle of the Dishes: Candy Canes from CVS and Papabubble

Papabubble's hulking candy cane menaces its CVS competitor.​ Aside from their red stripes, candy canes have changed remarkably little since the 17th century, when, as various sources have it, a German choirmaster took straight white sticks of candy and bent them into hooks to hand out to child ... More >>

Yule Log Returns to WPIX on Christmas

We knew you were worried about it, so we rush to tell you that WPIX has announced that it will air the Yule Log this Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The Log debuted in 1966, was discontinued in 1990, and revived in 2001 to help us get over 9/11. (No, really.) The bizarre loop of burning lumber wi ... More >>

What's Happening This Week: A Fondue Feast & Christmas Eve

Our weekly dining and drinking newsletter features all the coolest epicurean events in the city. Sign up for it here! Fondue: Hands-On Cooking & Wine Pairing Astor Center December 21 Is there anything more satisfying than a pot of hot cheese on a cold day? Join culinary instructor Emily Peterson fo ... More >>

Dyker Heights Excursion: Italian Bakeries and Over-the-Top Christmas Lights

Grandma's is particularly inviting on a rainy night​ Perhaps you've heard about the Christmas lights displays in the mainly Italian neighborhood of Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, that inspired a PBS documentary, Dyker Lights. But the spectacle has to be seen to be believed--wend your way through 77n ... More >>

Holiday Music Roundup '09

Weird Christmas records: They're not just for Dylan anymore

'Ronnie Spector's Xmas Party'

War on Christmas Not As Warlike This Year: Obama to Blame?

We are deep into War on Christmas season (following hard upon the War on Thanksgiving season), and have noted some encouraging portents for the Jesus team. But as with the War in Vietnam, victory is in doubt if the people's hearts aren't in it, and in contrast to last year, the tone of War on Ch ... More >>

O Rasp, All Ye Faithful: Bob Dylan's Christmas Album

Zimmerman's Christmas: mildly enjoyable, tremendously strange

Slick Rick Interview

Rockie Weekly Horoscope December 22-28

Rockie Weekly Horoscope December 15-21

What's a Muff?

Drunken holiday shopping with Clarence the angel

Brew Ho Ho

Sud-slinging santas toast the season

Theater

Listings

Ongoing

Holidaze

The Holiday Season is Upon Us. Feel Like Celebrating or Hibernating?

Blasts from the Past

Presents Pending

Christmas Is Almost Here.Been Naughty? Nice?