Holiday Post 2012: Traditions and other seasonal miscelleany

Photo from certain popular cat meme

This is the post where I share links and snark on Christmas traditions. From Christmas trees to the food, you can find a bit of humor. Plus I often learn a thing or two in the process. So, here we go.

Trivia and things to know

• The U.S. Census Bureau offers its fact sheet on the 2012 holiday season.  For example, did you know that $1.03 billion is "the value of U.S. imports of Christmas tree ornaments from China between January and September 2012"? Because apparently the U.S. can't even make its own Christmas tree decorations anymore.  
• The folks of PNC Wealth Management do their annual Christmas Price Index, on the costs of the items mentioned in the 12 days of Christmas song. This year, they made a little game out of it.  If you just want to read the list, here it is.
• Learn a little bit about the history of eggnog and get a recipe from food expert Alton Brown (via Mental Floss blog). 
• Also via Mental Floss blog, why do people kiss under the Mistletoe? Read on to learn more. 
• Contrary to what retailers, greedy asshats, and religious fanatics would have you believe, Christmas season is not all about shopping, and it is not all about some Christian vision (in fact, Christians were experts in basically appropriating other peoples' beliefs for their use). Learn more in this article out of AlterNet on "12 Cool Holiday Traditions That Aren't About God or Shopping."  
• Think Santa is just some nice, jolly guy? He has displayed some bad habits over time (via Mashable). 
• Also via Mashable, some very weird and disturbing (in some cases) Christmas ornaments. I will warn some of these may be NSFW. Some are amusing, some just make you wonder what is on people's minds.

Getting into the Christmas spirit

• It is a tradition in our house to track Santa over Christmas. This year you may have your choice of trackers after NORAD decided to dump Google and sell out to Microsoft and Bing. However, Google just went ahead and created their own tracker. We may try out both and see which works better. Here is the NORAD tracker. And here is Google's Santa Tracker. No matter if you are a child or a child at heart, this never gets old. 
• Christopher Lee narrates the poem "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (via Boing Boing).
• Maybe you want to listen to some Christmas music. Here you can sing along with the Muppets (via Mashable).
• Want some lights with your music? Mashable has you covered there too with some rocking Christmas light shows.
• Naturally, since "Gangnam Style" was the big hit or trend of this year, someone had to make a light display with it (link to YouTube video).
• What Christmas is complete without a few guns? Putting aside the recent tragedy in Connecticut, guns and Christmas have been a prominent part of many U.S. holidays. I am sure that stupid kid shooting his eye out in that movie has something to do with it, but there was even a time when guns (as in real guns, not just air guns) were advertised as perfectly fine Christmas presents for children. So, via BuzzFeed, here we have "48 Gun-totin' Christmas Moments." Because these days, even Santa has to pack heat. 
• Having people over? Here are some small entertaining tips from Liquor.com. In essence, it's guacamole and margarita time, baby!  Which, to be honest, sounds a lot better than most boring holiday fare.

The Christmas tree and other decorations

• Do you have a problem with the cat pouncing on your Christmas tree? This guy has a solution. 
• Here are "51 Hopelessly Adorable DIY Christmas Decorations" (via BuzzFeed). 
• And here are some nice DYI garlands (via BuzzFeed). I find amazing how some people make the time to make all sorts of little crafts for the holidays. 
• Food gets decorated too. Here are "41 Adorable Food Decorating Ideas For the Holidays" (via BuzzFeed).
• I always wondered how much those people who seem to go overboard on Christmas decorations pay in electric bills. Well, what do you know? Someone actually ran some numbers.
• Now, not everyone goes all out when it comes to Christmas decorations. Here are some "Contrary, Lazy, or Subversive (but Funny) Christmas Decorations" (via Mental Floss blog). 
• And here are 22 more crazy Christmas decorations, via Web Urbanist. 
• For Dr. Who fans, a Dalek Christmas Tree (via Incredible Things). 
• Who says a Christmas tree has to be a tree? Here is a tree made with a ladder, via Recyclart.
• Via BookRiot, here are some "Bookish Ornaments" and "7 Heavenly Holiday Crafts to Make With Books" (please use old, discarded book for these things).

Because some people DO deserve a lump of coal

• I bet most people have this idyllic vision of children during Christmas: opening the presents, the wonder in their eyes, the innocence, etc. Well, guess what? Not all children are little angels. Here are "28 Reasons Why Kids Ruin Christmas" (via BuzzFeed). Be honest, if you have kids, they have done at least one of these things at one point or another.  Heck, you may have done or two of these as a child yourself.
• Not everyone is happy about the Christmas season. In fact, some folks do get very grumpy about it. Cats apparently get grumpy too (via BuzzFeed).
• Others get grumpy about the Christmas music blaring all over the place (via BuzzFeed), and they are not afraid to go on Twitter and let us know about.
• And speaking of music, why is that many celebrities who have no business doing it decide to make a Christmas album anyhow and thus ruin classics? Or worse, they create atrocities soon forgotten? Here are "12 Christmas Song Fails" (via The Daily Beast). Go on, I dare you to listen to some of these without laughing, groaning, or wincing. 
• And the reviews are out on bad celebrity Christmas music. (via BuzzFeed).  For example, on the Brady Bunch album, “This album is only 20 minutes long, which is fortunate, because that's about all a sane person can take.” It gets worse from there.