gem, geek or rare bug - The WonderCafe Advent Calendar

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December 24, 2008

The WonderCafe Advent Calendar

During the month of December 2008, I wrote virtual advent calendar for WonderCafe.ca where I talked about something from the arts or pop culture to do with Christmas. These items were sacred or secular, from high or low culture, something brilliant or totally tacky.

This is how I explained it to WonderCafe readers:

Christmas is a season of disparate, at times contradictory, messages, moods and ideas. Sacred and secular, thoughtful and trite, verisimilitude and very sentimental—all of which are driven and fueled by the human condition, market forces, nostalgia and spiritual yearning.

In short, it’s the greatest time of the year, ever.

I think Christmas should be celebrated in all its disparate forms whether it be sacred or secular, from high culture or low culture. To this end as we lead up to Christmas, we’re proud to bring you the WonderCafe Advent Calendar.

Every day from December 1 to 24, we’ll blog about a different item to do with Christmas from the arts or popular culture. Some of them will be inspirational. Some of them will be completely ridiculous. Some of them will be high art. Some of them will be from the bottom of the barrel of pop culture. But all of them are a part of the shared experience that makes Christmas so compelling and says so much about what makes us what we are.

Here’s the entries:

December 1: Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

December 2: Mon Oncle Antoine

December 3: Band Aid - “Do They Know It’s Christmas”

December 4: A Charlie Brown Christmas

December 5: Mahalia Jackson - “Go Tell It On The Mountain”

December 6: Joni Mitchell - “River”

December 7: A Cosmic Christmas

December 8: West Wing Christmas Episodes

December 9: Vince Guaraldi Trio - Music From A Charlie Brown Christmas

December 10: The Magic Christian

December 11: Elvis - “Blue Christmas” (Live 1968)