There’s an earthy loveliness to pretty much everything She & Him records. With their retro jazz cabaret sensibilities in high gear, and an ability to channel the very essence of Christmas through each and every song, this is on full display on their second festive album Christmas Party kicks off Continue Reading
Christmas 2016
Santa is coming! No one wants more for Christmas than Pig the Elf
Santa is rightly regarded as a jolly old man with his fingers on the naughty or nice pulse. So on top of the goodness or otherwise of kids around the world we’re told – even it seems their sleep habits and propensity to cry without reason; as “Santa Claus Continue Reading
On 11th day of Christmas … I watched Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas
Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, a production of the Jim Henson Company based on Russell and Lillian Hoban’s 1971 book of the same title, is a delight in every sense of the word. Packed full of American folk music-inspired songs composed by Paul Williams, who went on to write “The Rainbow Continue Reading
On 10th day of Christmas … I read A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig
One of the hardest things to do when you grow up is to recapture that sense of can’t-sleep wonder that once gripped you at Christmas time. As December wound its exciting way ever onwards, adrenaline would pound, anticipation would build and you would find yourself enchanted with every last element Continue Reading
Psst! Here’s the the real deal on Santa’s Secret Stories
Oh my but does Santa have secrets! I mean it stands to reason right? He lives in hiding up on the North Pole, spends his time with reindeer and elves, neither of whom are exactly the stuff of everyday life – unless you’re a reindeer herder in which case Continue Reading
On 9th day of Christmas … I finally watched Nightmare Before Christmas
It’s a rare person indeed who hasn’t, at some point in their life, felt bored with their existence, numbed to the once-transcendant novelty of something that used to be an overriding passion. Jack Skellington, the “Pumpkin King” of Halloween Night and the ring master extraordinaire of everything ghoulish, goblinish Continue Reading
It’s a Stranger Things Christmas Charlie Brown!
SPOILER ALERT – ONLY WATCH THIS IF YOU HAVE WATCHED ALL OF STRANGER THINGS ON NETFLIX (optional for you to have read every Peanuts comic strip but c’mon why haven’t you?) I have always felt like I was Charlie Brown. Never quite fully understood, teased a lot as a Continue Reading
On 8th day of Christmas … I listened to Wonderland by Sarah McLachlan
There is an exquisite beauty to Sarah McLachlan’s voice no matter what she is singing. Frankly she could sing her way through the tax code and I daresay it would sound heavenly. Thankfully she has chosen to channel her beautifully emotive voice to delivering up 11 new Christmas tracks Continue Reading
On 7th day of Christmas … I watched Office Christmas Party
Office Christmas Party wants to be funny. Desperately, festively, stick-everything-into-the-script-that-isn’t-nailed-down funny. And yet for all the (usually) luminously hilarious comedic talent hired, staging of over-the-top Christmas festivities and provocative posturing – allusions to a Human Centipede in the mens’ room anyone? No? Good choice – the film consistently fails to Continue Reading
Air New Zealand wants you to come walking in a SUMMER wonderland!
As a Christmas romantic, the great disparity between the traditional northern hemisphere visual look of Christmas and the much warmer southern hemisphere reality has never troubled me too much. Sure there are some people who rile at the idea of celebrating sleigh rides, winter wonderlands and chestnuts roasting over Continue Reading