Possibly it is the undeniable alliterative charm of Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer which makes him essentially the most well-known or common of all Santa’s 9 flying reindeers. It surely would not seem to be as uncomplicated to come back up that has an equivalent catchy description for that many others – Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen – as named with the tune.

The story of Rudolph, whose glowing red nose made him a standout, first appeared in 1939 when Montgomery Ward department stores distributed about 2.4 million booklets with the poem in the form of a story about “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” It was written by Robert L. May, who worked in the store’s advertisement or marketing department, to be used to attract more people into the store. When the booklet was reissued in 1939, sales soared to more than 3.5 million copies. But it wasn’t until a decade later, in 1949, that the story really gained immense popularity when Gene Autry sang a musical version of the fable. As a Christmas song, it is second only in popularity to ‘White Christmas.’

Rudolph, the ninth reindeer whose lighted nose guides Santa’s sleigh through the night, is now known worldwide as the song has been translated into more than 20 different languages and an animated television movie has also been based on the story. Rudolph and his noticeable nose have also become the subject of jokes and sparked more interest in reindeers which has led to much research into Santa and the flying reindeers who pull his sleigh through the sky.

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Through the Christmas season, summer and its body-conscious way of thinking are distant reminiscences. Hearty indulgence inside the quite a few foods shared at Christmas hence won’t create the exact same feelings of guilt. Nonetheless, it’s not a pleasing thought to get started on the brand new Year carrying any additional lbs. So why then consume your self right into a resolution to ‘take off a few more pounds’ if you’re able to smartly keep away from it?

Regardless of whether it can be sharing cookies and candies at perform, or acquiring an evening out at a party or dinner, you could have Christmas food and enjoy it. When you appear to be to get eating heartily by using a smile, the key is to acquire a secret system of moderation. It entails sticking to a prepare that can be referred to as ‘Eating on the Finances.’

‘Eating on a Budget’ is not about the cost of what is eaten, but about the quantity of what is eaten. It is important that a ‘budget’ or eating in moderation plan is developed because it is almost impossible to avoid exposure to a lot of cookies, candies and other sweets at Christmas. At work, you may risk appearing like the Grinch who stole Christmas if your response will always be something like, ‘Uh…no…bah humbug’ all the time that some Christmas goodies are offered. It will seem as if you aren’t in the spirit of the holidays especially since at that time of year everyone is usually in a festive and more relaxed mood, and the pace at work is usually slower.

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Think of vacations, and the majority you have taken were probably in the summer months. It’s not that Winter holidays aren’t pleasurable: they’re just cold, and having a relaxing time seems that little bit harder in a period of the year in which icicles can grow on your cheeks.

Winter holidays are a booming business that is now moving into high gear. Shifting your holiday habits to winter is an incredibly smart way to carry on holidaying, especially in times when money may be short and seeing the world is still a priority.

So where can you go in Winter and what can you do? There are obviously wintery holidays to be had around the world. Holidays that are unique to winter. Skiing holidays are among the most obvious, and you’d be well advised to seek out a good skiing destination this year.

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What could be more exciting than getting a phone call from Santa? Not much, because Santa phone calls are one of the highlights of the Christmas season. However, if you are into the physical world of shopping, there is one thing that comes close. Black Friday is the one day of the year that you can actually get away with some of the most aggressive shopping techniques known to woman. This includes the toe stomp, the shopping cart shove, and the escalator rail slide into a crowd maneuvers that have been developed specifically with this event in mind. Here are some tips to read to gain the edge, hold the upper hand, or just survive the perils of…BLACK FRIDAY!

To conquer the beast, first, you have to understand the beast. Black Friday is the first shopping day of the year that retailers look forward to as they slash the prices of last year’s merchandise. They open early and close late. Women flood the stores in hopes of getting the best deals and will shop until midnight when the very last store closes and the event ends. Emergency rooms are flooded, fire houses are emptied, and some husbands huddle by the phone eating peanut butter sandwiches and waiting for the call that their wives are okay.

The key to survival is one of aggression and any woman who has ever participated can tell you that a good offense is a great defense. One way to get what you want is to take one of the many training course offered before the sale to show women how to play the game like a man. There are elbow crushes to the ribs, leg trips, and judo body throws being honed as early as August in anticipation of the upcoming sale My personal favorite is the grab the glasses off of your competitor and crush the lens under your heel, or the slide down the escalator rail and hurling your body into the crowd below, regaining your feet quicker than a wink to get a heads start.

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Now that I am fifty years old, the list of things that I want for Christmas has become much shorter than it was, say, ten or twenty years ago. I would Imagine, as I grow older, the list of things that I include in my letters to Santa would become shorter still. Now my Santa letters consist mostly of lists of creature comforts more than toys and games. This raises the question, how do you shop for someone who either has everything he really wants or wants nothing that he does not already have? This article is comprised of gift ideas for someone who is either hard to shop for or would prefer a warm sweater to a playstaion 3.

Speaking of warm sweaters, it is a great gift for someone who is older and gets cold easily. I know that my arthritis pains me to no end when it becomes cold outside. The winters I used to love so much have turned on me like a bitter love. A nice, comfortable sweater is just the ticket when my shoulders and elbows start to ache. However, I resent being given sweaters that have pictures of the holiday on them because it restricts the days that I can fashionably wear them. I am not particularly worried about what other people think but the people who accompany me anywhere are often times mortified if I go to lunch with them on Valentines day with a snowman on my sweater. Do not ask me why.

Another gift that I will cherish in my declining years are socks, shoes like moccasins, or very warm slippers. Even underwear is a great gift simply because it keeps me from having to spend my security checks on these items later in the year. This frees up my money for prescription medications and deductibles. In which case, if you are worried that this kind of gift would be embarrassing for either you or your elderly loved one, give them money. We will never complain about a check in a Christmas card. Upon that, I can attach a guarantee.

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Just when I thought that there would never be any hope of hearing something good about the state of Alabama, they go and win themselves a National Championship in College football. While they do not have a pro team of their own…yet, they have produced such players as Hershel Walker, Lionel James, James Brooks, and Bo Jackson. There is something else they produced that affects almost every man woman and child on almost the entire planet…, Christmas. Alabama is the first state to celebrate Christ’s Birthday on December 25th. I found out from my letter from Santa. IF anyone would know, it is the little guy with the big belly. In fact, my Santa letter was full of fun and insightful information. Here are just a few of the things I learned from my letter from Santa.

When Jesus was born, a new star rose in the east, heralding to the kingdoms of the world the birth of the King of Kings. Upon seeing this glorious sight, three wise kings gathered their entourages and headed towards the star bearing gifts to lay before him, each man from a different kingdom but sharing the same vision. They met on the road somewhere along the way and when they learned they were on the same glorious quest, they decided to travel together. Can you imagine the excitement these three wise men must have felt? It took them twelve days before they reached the baby Jesus, hence, the twelve days of Christmas.

English Parliament made Christmas illegal. They thought that revelry and partying down into the night was no way to honor the birth of Christ. It was Oliver Cromwell, A puritan leader who banished Christmas. Sixteen years later, when he finally lost power, the voice of the people was heard and the Christmas holiday became official. The people thought that having a feast and partying into the night was the perfect way to celebrate a birthday especially that of someone whose life changed the world forever. Let’s face it, conquering death and paving the way for all of mankind to someday be with the Father is something to celebrate!

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Being Santa is one of the most difficult jobs in the world. If it was not bad enough that he builds millions of toys and then travels around the world in one night to deliver them, he also has many other duties that we do not know about. There are decisions that have to be make that could change people’s lives. The naughty and nice list alone is such a daunting task that we could not do it ourselves. In fact, it would take 200 ordinary people working 24 hours a day every day for a year to go through the list once and even then, Santa would have to do it again. A single day I the life of Santa would wear a person out so completely that they would be in bed for a week. Here are five things that no one knew about Santa Clause. (Until now)

Santa Clause is a great explorer. He has traveled around the world many times during the Christmas off-season in disguise. He has also traveled under the world. Santa Clause discovered a great cave beneath our world that has thousands of miles of tunnels. He chose to live at the North Pole because of one of these tunnels. You see, he discovered that directly under the North Pole there is a place where time stands still because this is where the polar opposites meet. If you hold two magnets close to each other, they repel each other. It is impossible to put two strong magnets together. Santa built a room around the spot where the earth’s magnetic forces meet. Time does not move inside this room. This is where Santa checks the naughty and nice lists.

Santa Clause has the largest collection of books in the world. He has an underground library where he goes to read and loves to collect books from all over the world. He has the highest I.Q. of anyone on the planet. Santa can read faster than anyone in the world and has read an entire set of encyclopedia in less than an hour.

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While it is unclear how the tradition of writing Santa letters started, getting letters from Santa is a relatively new concept that has caught on. Children get very excited when they receive a Santa letter. A child who gets a personalized letter from Santa will carry that Christmas spirit right through the holidays. Here are more Christmas traditions.

The name Santa Clause is derived from the Dutch Sinter Klaas. When Dutch immigrants first started to arrive at Liberty Island in New York, Americans mispronounced it Santa Clause because of our mixed up accents and the name spread with the legend and stuck. Originally known as Saint Nicholas, he was well known for his love of and generosity towards children. He is actually the patron saint of children and sailors.

The Christmas stocking that good old Saint Nick fills with candy and toys every year came from the days when poor children with only one or possible two pairs of socks to their name would have to rinse them in water and hang them or lay them by the fire to dry at night. Back in those days, almost everyone had a fireplace or pit because that was the only means of cooking and staying warm. Early Santa started by dropping three coins down the chimney with one coin landing in each of the children’s stockings that hung there to dry. This eventually evolved to Santa stopping by the fireplace, window, or other designated Christmas stocking area and filling it to bursting with fruit, candy, and small toys.

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Myth Number One states that if a child is good all year and he writes a Santa letter, he or she will receive a letter from Santa. The myth is TRUE. Many children have received letters from Santa Clause. There are, however, stipulations to this rule that have to be understood and met. For instance, Santa Clause, as we all know, is a very busy fella. He has millions of toys to make and oversee the making of, and he has to stay right on top of things in order for the North Pole to run smoothly. He has the naughty and nice list, which he has to check twice, by the way. If you are on the naughty list, you may not get a letter from Santa, although there have been exceptions to that rule. Also, you have to ask Santa Clause in your letter if you can find the time, would he mind writing you back. If you do not ask, he will assume that you do not want him to and he is very busy so give him some time.

Myth number two states that animals talk to each other at midnight on Christmas Eve. This Myth is also TRUE. Animals all over the world have a small window of opportunity to speak at exactly midnight on Christmas Eve. The reason so very few people have heard this is because most animals do not have anything to say that they have not already said in their own language. The ones that do speak take the opportunity to wish each other Merry Christmas. Animals will not speak if they know you are listening. In 1919, Dairy farmer John Miller of Papillion Nebraska was standing quietly outside his barn at midnight of Christmas Eve when all the cows started wishing each other Merry Christmas. He told everyone what he heard but no one believed him and people laughed, calling him “that crazy farmer that talks to cows” for many years.

Myth number three says that once you are on the naughty list, you are there to stay for the rest of the year. This myth is FALSE. Santa Clause checks the naughty and nice list twice, once in March and once in early December. If you were bad and are on the list in march but have since been good and have made up for your bad actions, Santa will take you off the naughty list and put you back on the nice list. The trick, however, is to be nice all the time. This way, you never have to worry about it.

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There are many little unique things that we do every year when trying to make Christmas special for our little ones. We do not get that many opportunities as our children grow up so fast and we are lucky to get ten good years to create that special Christmas magic for them. Everyone has heard of writing letters to Santa but few ever think to make Santa phone calls. Why stop at a letter when your children can make Santa calls on Christmas Eve to let him know that they have been very good this year and ask him what kind of cookies you should bake for him. This could lead to Santa dropping something special in that Christmas morning stocking. Here are a few of Santa’s tricks and secrets, letting you in on how he always knows the perfect stocking stuffers to light up those little faces.

Does your child already have a favorite toy that can be extended or added upon? This is one of the things that Santa takes into account when he drops down that chimney with all those toys. He knows, for instance, that little Tommy has a Hot Wheels set that he just adores and of which he takes great care. There are lots of kids who have these toys so Santa carries a bunch of extra Hot Wheels cars that come in individual packages. Children save these and some kids have an entire collection of cool and hard to find classics. Just a little bit of research lets Santa know exactly which Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars or trucks little Tommy already has.

If there is one thing that Barbie loves to do, it is to pop out of your little angel’s stocking on Christmas morning and give her a great big hug! In fact, Barbie loves this so much that just a few years ago, she was the most popular stocking stuffer for little girls on the planet. (Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars and trucks were number one for little boys!) More often than not, if Barbie had a previous engagement on Christmas morning, like under or on the tree, her clothes, furniture, and other accessories would turn up there instead.

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