Joy of Christmas

Archive for December, 2007

A few local bikers brought some smiles to children’s faces on Sunday afternoon.

Riders from the Northwest Arkansas chapters of Bikers Against Child Abuse and Arkansas Bikers Aimed Toward Education gathered at the Donald W. Reynolds Boys & Girls Club to hand out toys to some little ones who might not get a Christmas this year.

Daniel Pearson, a spokesman for the local chapter of Bikers Against Child Abuse, said each biker brought a toy for a boy and a girl.

“We make sure that the children get them,” he said.

Around 200 children filled the gym at the Boys & Girls Club. There were smiles, laughs, leather jackets and tattoos. Pearson said the children’s happiness made the whole day worth it.

“More than likely these kids won’t get a Christmas at all,” he said. “This is their only chance.”

Children lined up alongside tables of gifts and got a picture with Santa once they had received their presents. Some bikers walked around with bags of stuffed animals handing them out to the ecstatic youngsters.

The event not only gives bikers a chance to give back but also gives them a chance to shake the stereotype of the riders, said “Tiny”Jim Hegna, a spokesman with the local chapter of Arkansas Bikers Aimed Toward Education.

“Everyone’s got that hard image of bikers, and this is something we can do to change that,” he said. “I think we get more out of it than the kids do.”

IT STARTED five years ago as a way to celebrate Nicole Dzanovski’s favourite time of year — Christmas. Her house in Torbay Street, Macleod, was too small for a Christmas tree, so she put it outside, with some fairy lights, a candle in the window and icicle lights along the eaves.

Somehow the display has evolved into a Las Vegas-style spectacle, a neighbourhood landmark that gets bigger and brighter every year.

Metre-high candy-cane lights line the driveway. A Santa and an elf ride a flashing seesaw. She made wooden elves, carollers and another Santa with sleigh.

New this year, from switch-on time tomorrow, there will be a big Merry Christmas sign on over the carport, a lamp post, and a Nativity scene made of rope lights on the lawn.

She’s not alone. Christmas lights have joined putting up the tree, shopping and going to church as a ritual of the Christmas season, which arguably starts today, December 1.

Psychologist Sally-Anne McCormack said traditions could reconnect us with family and friends, and made us feel part of a community.

Her own teenage daughter this week was enjoying stringing up Christmas lights and talking about them to neighbours, “wanting everyone to be part of the celebration”.

“The one difficult thing is that we often have too much stress at this time of year, we try and squash too much into the four weeks of December,” Ms McCormack said.

Advent calendars are a ritual for many families, starting on the first Sunday of Advent — tomorrow. In religious versions, you open a cardboard window each day to reveal an image from the Nativity such as a lamb or a star, culminating with the baby Jesus on Christmas Eve. Supermarkets sell more secular versions that include a chocolate or lolly a day, and images of Santa or Shrek.

This weekend is the busiest of the year for the Christmas Tree Farm at Moorooduc, near Frankston. Laurelle McLellan said the 56-hectare farm would be “like a madhouse” because many people resolved to set up their tree by December 1.

Peter Canals of Canals Seafood in Carlton North said seafood was increasingly popular for the Christmas feast, as consumers realised they did not want to spend hours cooking a turkey or chicken on a hot day.

Tradition is not all about what you buy. Community carols services have sprung up all over town in recent years.

Four years ago, the Christmas Eve service turnout was dwindling at Seddon Uniting Church, so regulars shifted it outdoors to nearby Harris Reserve and added a children’s Nativity play.

Church elder Lyn Redding said: “I don’t know what the stigma is, but a lot of people don’t like the idea of going into a church. So, we decided we would take it out to them, and it’s worked very well.”

Is it real, or is it fake? These days, from a distance, it’s harder than ever to tell. A good artificial tree can almost pass for a real one.

Most artificial trees range in price from about $70 to $400. Although, if you want to go top of the line, expect to spend a lot more.

“Some of them were very good and some of them weren’t so good,” said Todd Kent with the Good Housekeeping Institute.

“We tested these trees for durability and flammability. Some of the trees were much easier to tip over than others,” Kent said.

“All the trees, though, did pass our flammability test and don’t pose a hazard for catching on fire. We had some consumers come in and score them for appearance as well, telling us what they looked for in a Christmas tree. ”

Good Housekeeping found two artificial trees that shined bright: Panelists chose the $800 Balsam Hill as their favorite because of its rich green color and the natural looking fall of the branches.

“The tree is full. I love the fact that the needles are thick,” said Nicole Larson, who helped evaluate the trees. “You can’t see the trunk of the tree. It looks like a natural tree.”

The GE Just Cut Fraser Fir from Lowe’s was the best value at just $300.

“Consumers really liked the plentiful lighting on the GE tree,” Kent said. They also liked the lighted connection at the top of the tree for hooking in an electrical ornament, and the foot pedal that helps turn on and off the lights.”

And it’s easy to take down the tree. The trunk separates into sections, and you can fold up the hinged branches.

Most artificial trees now come pre-wired, so you need to look at a sample that’s turned on before you buy.

And check to see if the lights stay on when you take out one bulb. On some artificial trees all the lights will go out.

Artificial trees can still tip over, just like a real one, so you need to be careful with kids and pets around. And Good Housekeeping says in many cases it takes two people to take apart a fake tree. Because it can be hard to squeeze the trees back into their original boxes or bags, Good Housekeeping says it’s a good idea to buy storage bags or containers to put them in at the end of the season.

Leaving a life of driving for a rich family and then reinventing himself as a craftsman proved right for Fred Velasques.

On Saturday, Velasques buoyed sagging spirits by making a 20-foot figure of a sitting and smiling Santa Claus that SM City Clark touts to be the biggest in the Philippines.

This piece made from fiberglass, which he and his 21 employees carved, came in the 11th year of his business, Candellero Handicraft.

“We made many people happy, especially the children,” Velasques, 55, told the Inquirer minutes after SM executives, Pampanga Gov. Eddie Panlilio and Clark International Airport Corp. executive vice president Alex Cauguiran unveiled the giant Santa Claus in a red-carpet event.

His company did not charge anything for this undertaking.

“Seeing smiles on the faces of young and old mall goers was enough,” Velasques said.

Around 2,000 shoppers filled the first and second floors near the event center to catch a glimpse of the Yuletide character.

Velasques and his family have settled and done business in Mabalacat, Pampanga, since starting the enterprise in 1996.

It took two months for his team to finish their first giant figure.

With business partner Delia Mojica, he had been making life-size images of animals, cartoon characters or real-life personalities for garden resorts and museums. They also make small figures for home displays.

“We started with just P20,000 in capital,” Velasques said.

Resin and fiberglass are his media.

He measured the firm’s success by the stable employment it gives to at least 30 workers.

And, of course, that includes not anymore living on a low monthly wage.

He ended his career in driving because “walang asenso dun (I won’t earn enough).”

His employer, a resident of a plush subdivision in Makati City, let him go and bade him good luck.

Velasques said he gathered all the courage he could for the career change.

He said he finished only first year in high school and ventured in a field that he knew little about.

“This entailed industry and hard work,” Velasques said.

Michelle Catap, a staff member of the SM City Clark public relations department, said Velasques offered to make the giant Santa Claus to be able to “spread joy to the children.”

Catap said Velasques asked that big carton boxes be placed around it to receive donations of toys for poor children. SM City Clark would turn over the donations to the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Pampanga.

In advance of the holiday season and its 52nd season of tracking Santa Claus on his annual journey around the world, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has activated its “NORAD Tracks Santa” website for 2007.

The U.S.-Canadian command’s program began in 1955 when an errant phone call was made to NORAD’s predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The call was from a local child who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a local newspaper advertisement.

The commander who answered the phone that night gave the youngster the information he requested – the whereabouts of Santa Claus – and thus the tradition of NORAD tracking Santa began.

The program has grown immensely since it was first presented on the Internet in 1998. In 2006, the website received a whopping 941 million hits from 210 countries and territories. In addition, the NTS Operations Center, occupied by 756 volunteers on Christmas Eve, answered nearly 65,000 phone calls and 96,000 emails from children around the world.

The website features the history of the program, information on how NORAD tracks Santa and interactive games. On December 24, beginning at 2:00 a.m. Mountain Standard Time (4 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, 9 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time), the website will feature a minute-by-minute update on Santa’s travels around the world. All of this information is available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.

Corporate partners Google, Booz Allen Hamilton, Analytical Graphics, Inc., Verizon, Official Santa Mail, Globelink Language and Cultural Services, Inc., Avaya, Qwest, Plantronics, First Choice Awards and Gifts, Meshbox, e-frontier and The North Pole help to make the program possible, NORAD officials said.