Wordless Wednesday and Words for Wednesday on the Big Holiday!

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, Steve at BeThere2Day, Catsynth, and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     

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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month Wisewebwoman is providing the prompts and they will be posted by Elephant's Child.    

This week's prompts are:

• Wreath
• Pine
• Ribbon
• Stealth
• Chimney
  

and/or

• Toboggan
• Wolf
• Plum pudding
• Ambience
• Blizzard

Charlotte (MotherOwl) has selected light blue as the colour of the month.

As always, have fun.

There are PINE trees all over outdoors, we've got plenty of them, all green.  Many houses have one inside as well, and have a WREATH on the door, with or without a RIBBON.

There's not going to be a BLIZZARD or a WOLF at the door, our AMBIENCE here in the swamps for Christmas is mid-70's F and muggy with a chance of rain, although yesterday was similar temps and a Light Blue sky.  A TOBOGGAN here would be as out of place as an alligator in a snow storm.

We won't have PLUM PUDDING because it's never been part of our family tradition which is kind of a shame but there's so much else to serve i doubt anyone else even thinks about it.  They might not even know what it is except by name.

There are no young children to believe in Santa in our family any more, as little Annie is too young, although by next year we may be back to using STEALTH to put out the gifts and leaving Santa treats by the CHIMNEY.

Even so, it's Christmas for us and as many of us as can be here will be here, feasting and celebrating and if you are celebrating, too, i pray you have a blessed and beautiful time with all the people you love nearby.

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It's Christmas Day/Feast of the Nativity!  I wish you all a blessed and beautiful Merry Christmas, and if you do not celebrate, i wish you a blessed and beautiful Wednesday.

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Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, begins at sundown, and goes through sundown Jan. 2.

Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate!

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Today is:

A'phabet Day -- a/k/a No "L" Day!  yes, go ahead and groan

Carol Day -- internet generated, listed as different dates, but this is the last day this year you should have to listen to Christmas songs, so enjoy

Children's Day -- Cameroon; Chad; Central African Republic; Congo; Congo DR; Equatorial Guinea; Gabon; Uruguay

Constitution Day -- Taiwan

Dia de la Familia -- Uruguay

Dies Natalis Invicti Solis -- Ancient Roman Calendar (birthday of the invincible sun god)

Ennead Feast in the Houses of Ra, Horus, and Osiris -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Family Day -- Angola; Mozambique; Uruguay

Icelandic Traditional Calendar Month Morsugr "Fat Sucker" begins -- Iceland (referring to the daily fare becoming scant in deep winter and body fat is used up)

Malkh-Festival -- Nakh peoples of Chechenya and Ingushetia (a sun god festival)

National Pumpkin Pie Day

Quaid-e-Azam's Day -- Pakistan (birth anniversary of "Great Leader," the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah)

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Day -- introduced by Montgomery Ward Department Store this day in 1939

St. Anastasia of Sirmium's Day (Patron of martyrs, weavers, and widows)

Anniversaries Today:

Hirohito becomes Emperor of Japan, 1926

Washington crosses the Delaware, 1776

Birthdays Today

Dido, 1971

Rickey Henderson, 1958

Shane MacGowan, 1957

Annie Lennox, 1954

Karl Rove, 1950

Ron Foos, 1949

Sissy Spacek, 1949

Barbara Mandrell, 1948

Larry Csonka, 1946

Jimmy Buffett, 1946

Gary Sandy, 1945

Hanna Schygulla, 1943

Carlos Castaneda, 1925

Rod Serling, 1924

Anwar Sadat, 1918

Quentin Crisp, 1908

Cab Calloway, 1907

Humphrey Bogart, 1899

Cal Farley, 1895

Robert Ripley, 1893

Dame Rebecca West, 1892

Conrad Hilton, 1887

Evangeline Cory Booth, 1865

Clara Barton, 1821

Isaac Newton, 1642

Traditional Birthday of Mithras

Traditional Birthday of Sol

Debuting/Premiering Today:

The Sword in the Stone(Disney animated film), 1963

"The Steve Allen Show"(TV), 1950

"Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcasts", 1931

"Why Marry?"(Play, first to win a Pulitzer for Drama), 1917

"Symphony Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste ... en cinq parties"(Berlioz Symphony), 1830

Today in History:

The first Christmas, according to calendar maker Dionysus Exiguus, 1

The earliest possible date that Christmas was celebrated on the 25th, 337

The first definite date that Christmas was celebrated on the 25th, 352

Coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome, 800

William I, Conqueror, crowned king of England, 1066

Boudouin I of Boulogne crowned king of Jerusalem, 1100

Count Roger II of Sicily is crowned the first King of Sicily, 1130

St Francis of Assisi assembles the first Nativity scene, in Greccio, Italy, 1223

The city of Natal, Brazil is founded., 1599

Gov William Bradford of Plymouth forbids game playing on Christmas, 1621

The Massachusetts General Court ordered a fine of five shillings for "observing any such day as Christmas", 1651

The first performance of "Silent Night" takes place in the church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria, 1818

Louisiana & Arkansas are the first US states to observe Christmas as holiday, 1831

Despite bitter opposition, Pres Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all persons involved in Southern rebellion (a/k/a the Civil War, or, tongue planted firmly in cheek, that recent unpleasantness between the States), 1868

The legendary/unofficial "Christmas Truce" takes place between the British & Germans, 1914

Emperor Taisho of Japan dies; his son, Prince Hirohito succeeds him as Emperor Showa, 1926

Montgomery Ward introduces Rudolph the 9th reindeer, 1939

The first in Europe artificial, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated within Soviet nuclear reactor F-1, 1946

The Stone of Scone, traditional coronation stone of British monarchs, is taken from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students, 1950

Richard Starkey gets his first drum set for Christmas, 1957

Apollo 8 performs the very first successful Trans Earth Injection (TEI) maneouver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit, 1968

Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Northern Territory Australia, 1974

Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin meets in Egypt with President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, 1977

The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web, 1990

Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day), 1991

Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which would later successfully land on Saturn's moon Titan, 2004

The South Pole records its warmest temperature at -12.3 degrees Celsius at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, 2011

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is launched in a joint effort with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, South America, 2021

A rare polar rain aurora, caused by charged particles flowing from the Sun and stretching for 3,000 km, is visible across the North Pole, 2022