Fiber Fool

1. Vince Gauraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas - a classic
2. Amy Grant’s Home for Christmas - one of the first ones I owned myself
3. Bukkene Bruse’s Den Fagraste Rosa - Scandinavian instrumental
4. Lady Antebellum’s On This Winter Night - new this year, rich harmonies
5. Dave Barne’s Very Merry Christmas - jazzy pop
6. Matt Wertz’s Snow Globe - new this year, jazzy pop
7. Over the Rhine’s The Endless Night of the Year - low key
8. Mindy Smith’s My Holiday - some good original holiday songs
9. Sting’s If On a Winter’s Night - some really old school traditional songs not often found elsewhere
10. Leon Redbone’s Christmas Island - another classic with a voice like no other

How about you? What are some of your favorite holiday albums?

Well, this one is challenging as so many songs I think of as one hit wonders aren’t necessarily. So the following are to the best of my knowledge (without spending hours researching) one hit wonders in the US since that is where I live. But I make no promises!

In no particular order, other than when I came across them or thought of them…

1. No Rain by Blind Melon

2. Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex (a favorite of ND wedding dances)

3. (Hey) Mickey by Toni Basil (I used to belt this one at the top of my lungs while waiting for the school bus at 6:30am - I’m sure grandma loved being serenaded with that, LOL!)

4. Funky Town bu Pseudo Echo

5. Iko Iko by the Belle Stars (one of my dance competition routines was set to this song and we danced to it with fruit on our heads, LOL!)

6. Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn

7. I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers

8. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Deep Blue Something

9. Closing Time by Semisonic (one of my favorites from my last year in college)

10. Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve (another fav from my college years)

And since I couldn’t narrow down my favs from my college years, I have two more for you…

11. Save Tonight by Eagle Eye Cherry (another final year of college song - I’m sensing a theme…)

12. The Future’s So Bright (You Gotta Wear Shades) by Timbuk 3

First off, DH did escape the pull of the black hole and in record time at that. But I was waiting in the car and observed no less than 15 men go in and only one other left the store besides DH. That was what prompted yesterday’s post.

Today I don’t have much time to blog. Just a quick note to mention that I get to play photographer to rock stars. Drew and Jessie did an album-a-day last May under the name Spandex Jellybeans. Well, they are going to do album two this weekend and this afternoon I am doing a photoshoot so they have some fun stuff to pull from for better cover art and to popular the soon to be opened web page!

This is going to be fun and a nice break for my wrists from the crazy-mad knitting I’ve been doing. I might even make a guest appearance or two on this second album!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

In order to be more environmentally friendly I cut and pasted all the comments into a word processor and deleted those that did not actually contain guesses and numbered them. There were 25, so I am giving away three patterns today. I then used the Random Sequence generator and chose the first two numbers. I used the same process to assign numbers to those who had the right answer and chose just the first number.

Before I announce the lucky winners I suspect there are at least a few of you wondering what the right answer was…

The correct answer was Tonic Sol-fa. They are a pop a capella quartet who mostly tour in the Midwest. See, the lack of instruments in the photos was a *huge* clue! They’ve been together for 12 years now and I first got their holiday album, Carol, in the mid 1990’s when a local department store sold them. My mom had been turned onto them by the now musical director of one of the local radio stations.

Tonic Sol-fa is probably most known for their fun holiday concerts that are part concert and part comedy show all rolled into one. They put out one year’s show on DVD last year and now that show is getting broadcast on many PBS stations. It appears that many stations across the country will be playing it on Friday evening some time if you are interested. It is called “Tonic Sol-fa Christmas” if you wish to program a DVR/TiVo. They have also been picked up in Australia and Norway this year. This year they also released a new holiday album which includes some of the previously unreleased tracks from the video. You can get one of the tracks from that album free from Blue Bunny.

I have to say that my parents and sister wove a *very* elaborate lie to keep me in the dark about going to the concert. I recalled hearing on the radio on the drive from Ikea to the farm that the two concerts in Willmar were taking place while I was home, but were sold out. I was sad we weren’t going as I had only seen them perform once and it was not one of the holiday concerts. But, I did recall mom and dad not enjoying going to the holiday ones two years in a row because things were a bit too similar. I figured they just didn’t want to go this year. But, after getting dressed up to eat at Applebee’s and driving around town looking at the lights while freezing by eating a pumpkin pie blizzard we arrived at the main concert hall for what I thought was going to be a presentation of my Jr. High art teacher’s paintings of the stations of the cross. I have to admit to being completely in the dark and only having a flicker of doubt when I saw people lined up outside. It seemed odd that people would do that in single digits to see paintings of the stations of the cross, but you know, it is a small town. But, once we got up to the door I saw the radio station’s music director and a sign on the door that read “Tonic Sol-fa.” It was a great show and I am so glad I finally got to see one of their holiday shows in person.

Now, the winners -

From the pool of all guessers, numbers 10 and 6 won - Jenn and Nicole who both actually got it right. I swear I didn’t cheat either! Then from the pool of just the correct answers was 1 - Amanda the librarian. The three of you may choose one of my patterns. Send me an e-mail with your choice and I’ll send out the file to you.

Whew, even though it was 12 days it feels like a whirlwind trip back home! I guess that is what happens when you go from February to December without getting back. I had a wonderful time visiting Chris and getting to meet several other knitters I hadn’t gotten to meet in person as well as some ones whose blogs I hadn’t stumbled upon yet. It was fantastic to meet yet another well-mannered and happy little boy when staying with my cousin, Andrea. I got to see many of my aunts and uncles. And, I got to celebrate Christmas all last weekend.

Like anyone who returns from vacation, you need another vacation. I have piles of stuff that need dealing with - preferably before the real Christmas and it has to get done between all the other crazy holiday stuff going on now. I will no doubt be slow to catch up on blogs (using it as a reward for jobs well done I’m sure) and probably slow to give you my travelogue. To keep you entertained while I work on my posts about the trip while spinning and knitting and designing like a mad woman I’m holding a fun holiday contest.

Over the course of the weekend we went to a couple Christmas concerts, visited a local museum house that was decorated for Christmas and had some really good food. We worked hard at getting into the holiday spirit early enough to celebrate on Monday evening. The group of photos above are some I took at one of the concerts we attended. They are a bit blurry due to low lighting and much movement of the performers, but if you are familiar with this group at all they are recognizable. You also have further info you can use hidden here in this post and info available if you’ve been around here for a while and know where “home” is to help you figure it out. Unleash that inner detective and your Googling skills :-)

For every seven comments containing guesses as to this band’s identity I’ll give away a free knitting pattern. At least one pattern will go out to someone who guessed incorrectly. If many get it right, part of the drawing for the patterns will contain only correct guessers.

As usual, if you’ve gotten the details or I knew you were present at said concert you are excluded from the contest. The contest is open through next Wednesday, December 19th.