16 Year Old Connor Bedard Scores Hat Trick Matching Gretzky’s Unique World Junior Record

Then he went on to score a fourth goal to cap off an amazing performance!

 

Music Monday – “I wasn’t meant to be then it ain’t meant to be now/I love this home but now I hate this house/Its been a hell of a year”

I posted this exact song a year ago this week – hard to believe the same sentiment applies a year later and it’s worth a repeat post of the same song.

Here’s hoping I’m not starting a new blog tradition and having to post it again at the end of 2022! 🙁

Hell of a Year” – Parker McCollom

Secular Sunday – Boxing Day is Arguably The Original Secular Holiday

The origins of the day are uncertain – is it when wealthy gave their servants a box of gifts and a day off to enjoy them after a busy Christmas season?  Churches placing boxes outside to collect money for the less fortunate? – but it’s pretty clear that Boxing Day has become one of society’s few purely secular holidays.

Now the fact that it *has* become about unbridled consumerism and capitalism instead is a totally different discussion…  🙁

Saturday Snap – …And To All, A Good Night!

Friday Fun Link – Shit Fireplace 2021

In keeping with how shitty this year has been, the Shit Fireplace folks have truly outdone themselves with the latest edition of this important Christmas tradition.

So nice to have this streaming on the TV on Christmas Eve bringing joy and warmth to all… 😉

(And bonus, the co-creators of these videos have both worked at Regina Public Library in the past!)

Throwback Thursday – #tbt – Christmas Tree (Dec 2014)

An Atheist Takes In A “Blue Christmas” Ceremony

It’s been a tough end to the year.

There are some fairly major changes happening at work that will affect myself and numerous other supervisors in the new year.  One of those supervisors, a friend and mentor, died unexpectedly at the start of December – quite young but also getting very close to retirement, having been a “library lifer”.  There’s some other stuff happening in my personal life that I know will end up being happy but right now is stressful and uncertain.

Oh, and we’re in a never-ending worldwide pandemic where the fast-spreading Omicron variant seems to be racing to spread as widely as possible, even as we all countdown the days to Christmas.

Christmas is usually one of my favourite holidays of the year.  But this year has just felt heavy and blue.

Which somehow got me thinking of the first time I heard of “Blue Christmas” (in the church context as opposed to the Elvis context) a few years ago from an Anglican priest I know.

He was delivering a Blue Christmas service in the lead-up to Christmas and explained to me how it was a way his church tried to reach people who didn’t find Christmas joyous because they were grieving or had bad memories of Christmas or whatever.

I remember thinking “That’s a great idea.  So nice religious people have that available.”

Then I carried on with my life.

But then this past weekend, even though I’m a pretty outspoken atheist but feeling particularly down, I found myself searching for “Blue Christmas Service” on YouTube.

There were a number of videos I dipped into and though none of them were enough to make me feel like I had to race out to rejoin the United Church of my youth, they did touch me a way I didn’t expect.

What a strange fucking year! 🙁

 

Christmas Song Popularity Based On Number of Plays on Commercial Radio

(via Reddit)

Music Monday – “Christmas on the farm/Back when a small farm could survive/House was always warm/And you were still alive.”

“Another Silent Night” – Megan Nash & The Best of Intentions

Secular Sunday – War on Christmas