Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past.

Here’s a brief overview of New Years Celebrations

Although the new year has been celebrated since prehistoric times, it was celebrated on the vernal equinox rather than what we now consider the first of the year. The Romans were the first to recognize New Years Day on January first. Rather than tie the day to some significant astronomical or agricultural event, in 153 BC the Romans selected it for civil reasons. It was the day after elections in which the newly elected assumed their positions.



Years later, Julius Caesar wanted to change the date to a more logical date but that year, January 1, 45 BC was the date of a new moon. To change it would have been bad luck. He did, however, change the calendar system from the Egyptian solar calendar to the "Julian" calendar, named for Caesar. July, the month of Caesar's birth, was also named after him to recognize him for his calendar reform. And look what it got him.



Up unto 1582, Christian Europe continued to celebrate New Years Day on March 25. Pope Gregory XIII instituted additional calendar reforms bringing us the calendaring system of the day. The Gregorian calendar was adopted by Catholic countries immediately while the reformists, suspect of any papal policy, only adapted it after some time. Today most countries around the world have adopted this calendaring system.



From primitive man to today, it has been recognized as a day in which rites were done to abolished the past so there could be a rejuvenation for the new year. Rituals included purgations, purifications, exorcisms, extinguishing and rekindling fires, masked processions (masks representing the dead), and other similar activities. Often exorcisms and purgations were performed with much noise as if to scare away the evil spirits. In China, Ying, the forces of light fought Yang, the forces of darkness with cymbals, noisemakers, and firecrackers.



Early European-Americans adopted the New Year celebrations from their homelands. However, it was noted by early settlers that native Americans already honored News Years Day with their own customs. Their rituals coincided with those around the world including fires, explosions of evil spirits, and celebrations. Today many of the New Year celebrations actually begin with a countdown to the New Year on the evening prior. It is customary to kiss your sweetheart when the clock strikes midnight as one of the customs of these New Years Eve parties.



Around the world, different cultures have their own traditions for welcoming the new year. The Japanese hang a rope of straw across the front of their houses to keep out evil spirits and bring happiness and good luck. They also have a good laugh as the year begins to get things started on a lucky note. In Argentina, people wear brand-new pink underwear to attract love. While in Brazil, people wear none; that usually works better.



In Germany, every year on December 31st, TV networks broadcast an 18-minute-long skit in English called Dinner for One.



In 1963, Germany’s Norddeutscher Rundfunk television station recorded the sketch, performed by the British comics Freddie Frinton and May Warden. Since its initial recording, the clip has become a New Year’s Eve staple in Germany. The clip holds the Guinness World Record for Most Frequently Repeated TV Program, (although Dinner For One has never been broadcast in the U. S. or Canada.)

In Siberia, brave divers plant the New Year's Tree underneath frozen lakes — sort of like a polar plunge. Much like a Christmas tree, the Siberian New Year Tree (or yolka) is supposed to signify the coming of Father Frost, but its planting also symbolizes starting over. The jumping-into-a-frozen-lake challenge is just another addition to the year-end festivities.



In Italy, nothing says “Happy New Year” like red underpants. Red underwear is a staple of the New Year’s tradition in Italy. The color choice invokes centuries-old superstition that the color keeps bad luck and evil at bay, and encourages good luck. Now, even if you find yourself in Rome without a pair of rosy unmentionables, no worries. Shops and street vendors have plenty for sale.



In South Africa, people throw appliances out the window (watch out!!). In Denmark, you break a dish for a friend. They save their old dishes only to throw them by the dozen at the doorsteps of family friends on New Years. In theory, the bigger the pile of broken dishes you find on your door steps, the bigger pile of friends you have.



New Year Resolutions are simply another way to wish away the past in exchange for hopes of the future. It is where the phrase turning over a new leaf originated. I hope 2020 brings good health and better luck to all (especially all our idols.)

on new year’s eve - Evie Shockley

    we make midnight a maquette of the year:
frostlight glinting off snow to solemnize
    the vows we offer to ourselves in near
silence: the competition shimmerwise

    of champagne and chandeliers to attract
laughter and cheers: the glow from the fireplace
    reflecting the burning intra-red pact
between beloveds: we cosset the space

    of a fey hour, anxious gods molding our
hoped-for adams with this temporal clay:
    each of us edacious for shining or
rash enough to think sacrifice will stay

    this fugacious time: while stillness suspends
vitality in balance, as passions
    struggle with passions for sway, the mind wends
towards what’s to come: a callithump of fashions,

    ersatz smiles, crowded days: a bloodless cut
that severs soul from bone: a long aching
    quiet in which we will hear nothing but
the clean crack of our promises breaking.



Demand Euphoria!.

We're running around today

I think I have one more Christmas present for you that was stuck all the way in the back of the tree - the 1947 film, Miracle On 34th Street -



Unbeknownst to most parade watchers, Edmund Gwenn played Santa Claus in the actual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade held November 28, 1946. He fulfilled the duties of most parade Santas, including addressing the crowd from the marquee of Macy's after the parade was over. He was introduced to the crowd by Philip Tonge (who played Mr. Shellhammer in the movie.)


I'm cleaning off the desk and posting a few things I meant to do during the holidays but never got to it:







If you don't stop by tomorrow, have the happiest of New Years. And remember bunkies, don't drink and drive tomorrow.



Demand Euphoria!

Yes, you may take the Hanukkah decorations down

The last reason Hanukkah feels better than Christmas - Naked spin-the-dreidel games.

You've probably run out of gifts at this point, wrap your family's fresh laundry as the gift that shows you've done the laundry. At this point, look up a local oil recycler - it will do better for everyone as a biofuel.



And here, I promise, is the last set of songs celebrating Hanukkah -


Hanukkah With Veronica Monica -




Hanukkah in Santa Monica   Michael Feinstein -




SNL Celebrates Hanukkah -




Hanukkah Dance   Watkins Family Hour -




Sanctuary   Craig Wedren -




Gangsta Hanukkah Bush -




Hey, somebody has to clean up all of that wax on the break front. And somebody's got to call the guys who pick up used cooking oil for bio-fuel.



Demand Euphoria!

The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour (153)

Thank you for joining us today.

Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with another Bugs Bunny Looney Tunes cartoon, the 1948 A-Lad-In His Lamp, directed by Robert McKimson.



Jim Backus, who voiced Smokey the genie, would also work with Mel Blanc in UPA's Mr. Magoo series, voicing canned vegetable tycoon Mr. Quincy Magoo, his manservant Worchestershire, his nephew Waldo, and a number of incidental characters


Most of the staff of ACME have taken the rest of the year off. But we didn't want to leave an empty space on your Saturday. So and you may be running around doing your last minute holiday shopping. So why not sit back and relax (quick, find the most comfortable seat on the sofa,) get a snack (perhaps, some popcorn,) and a beverage and join The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour in watching a few things we have for you on this last Saturday of 2019 -

That oil is a tad rancid



Open a window someone , it's the Seventh night of Hanukkah.

If you can stand it, more Hanukkah songs


Charlie Brown Hanukkah -




Give You Everything Buzzy Lee -




I Saw Hanukkah Harry Beat Up Santa Hal L. Singer -




Eight Nights A Week Loudon Wainwright III -




Elena's First Hanukkah!




Burning Latke Radioactive Chicken Heads -



Hmmm, maybe he converted?


In Memoriam

Another year has come and gone and we here at The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour would like to remember some of the people we lost in 2019. Here is a roll call of some (in no particular order) today


Danny Aiello




Diahann Carroll




Doris Day




Stanley Donen




Robert Evans




Albert Finney




Peter Fonda




João Gilberto




Valerie Harper




Rutger Hauer




Michel Legrand




Ron Liebman




Toni Morrison




Jessye Norman




IM Pei




Cokie Roberts




John Singleton




Caroll Spinney




Gloria Vanderbilt




Scott Walker





Demand Euphoria!

Before you go - Here's another year-end 2019 Movie Mash-up, (this time from a site known as Flick Fanatics) -



I was unfamiliar with the site but I've really like what I seen. I will put it on my must check out scene in 2020

No roof damage from reindeer.

Hang in there - It's the Sixth Day of Hanukkah, there are just a few more days to go

At this point you may want to skip the unnecessary calories and just drink the oil - but not too much. Mussolini used to use this as a torture for his political enemies.



Another reason Hanukkah feels better than Christmas - Christmas isn’t the only holiday who has ugly sweaters! Hanukkah has some pretty tacky sweaters to compete with


Hanukkah in '96  Alex Frankel -




Burn  The Maccabeats -




A Hanukkah Pap Smear  CBS Cares -



So remember to give the smear that saves a life!


Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah  Erran Baron Cohen -




Ocho Kandelikas  Pink Martinis -




SHALOM  Adele parody -




Remember, so far there has been no barking dog version of I had a Little Dreidel. You might begin thinking about where you are going to store your Hanukkah decorations? (I don't mean to insinuate that you aren't normally observant. Perhaps you proudly display your heirloom menorah in your living room. I can't be everywhere.)


Here's the next mash-up of year end review videos: this one, the best films of 2019 by David Erhlich, is a yearly favorite of mine



Once again we ask, "How many of them have you seen?"


And on this last Friday of 2019, as I always say that it's 5 PM somewhere,  please remember to drink til up drop this weekend and don't drive.

The life you save may be yours (and mine.)



Demand Euphoria!

The Fifth Night of Hanukkah (Sorry for the delay in posting)

Another reason Hanukkah feels better than Christmas - No Dance of the Sugar-Plum Rebbe.

Impress your friends: The fifth night of Hanukkah is called 'the darkest night', not because it falls on one of the last days of the Hebrew month of Kislev (meaning there is no moon), but because it is the only night of Hanukkah that can NEVER fall on Shabbat

Sing It Now, Sing It Somehow  The Flaming Lips -




The Candles of Chanukah  Soul Aviv -




Miracle  Matisyahu -




The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming -




Hanukkah  New York Boys Choir -




I believe that oil fatigue may have already set in. Hold on, you will get through this.


Since it's the end of the year there are lots of year end review videos. I usually find the time to post a few: this one, United State of Pop 2019 (Run Away), is one of the more famous



I still have to ask the kids to tell me what some of the songs were.



Demand Euphoria!

A plethora of celebrations today

Another reason Hanukkah feels better than Christmas -No need to clean the chimney.

Don't forget to light your menorah before sundown today


Adam Sandler had nothing better to do than to update his song yet again - Chanukah Song Part 4 -



It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know.


If It Be Your Will  Haim -




In the Market for a Miracle  Ana Gasteyer -




How to Make a Little Dreidel Out of Clay -




Swingin around the Menorah -


<

Sevivon  Toronto Symphony Orchestra (at Union Station) -




After hosting the fourth night of Hanukkah,



maybe you'd like to catch a little holiday film.


Put your feet up and read a little bit about the History of Christmas



Christmas is one of the most widely celebrated holidays in the world, although the form of its observation varies widely from nation to nation. In America, our cultural kleptomania has allowed us to assimilate the most enjoyable of those traditions while discarding any stupid superstitions associated with them.

But it's worth reviewing those superstitions along with our traditions, if only to amuse ourselves yet again at the expense of our ancestors.

The winter solstice had long been celebrated by ignorant barbarians throughout the northern hemisphere as the time of the year when the sun stopped getting smaller and smaller and finally started getting bigger and bigger. The sun was important to these poor primitive bastards, in much the same way that we poor modern bastards find it so important. It was, after all, the Sun.

To avoid having to go out much during the darkest and coldest days of the year, the poor shivering Nordic bastards of Scandinavia would bundle up and sally forth into the woods to bring home great big logs which would often burn for as long as twelve days. As long as the log burned they would stay in and eat and drink and fornicate. They believed that every spark their log set off foretold the birth of a calf or pig in the new year, which only underscores the irony of the Nobel prize being awarded in Sweden.

They believed the sun was a big wheel (hwoel) that rolled away from the earth until the winter solstice, at which point it began rolling back toward us. This quaint ignorance charmed the weak and flabby peoples over whom the Vikings later swept like an apocalyptic affliction. However, these peoples could not pronounce hwoel and therefore called it "yule." This irritated the Vikings and eventually forced their retreat.



While the Norse were hauling those logs into their houses, others throughout Europe were enjoying some of the finest dining of the year. Since it was too expensive to feed and shelter animals through the cold weather, those in northern climes killed their livestock at the onset of each winter. This provided their only steady supply of fresh meat all year, and went nicely with the wines and ales which had finally become fermented. The inevitable gastrointestinal distress that followed these binges is probably responsible for the primitive Germans' fear that the god Odin was flying around the sky above them during the solstice, deciding who was naughty and who was nice. It was not entirely academic: Odin's invariable sentence for the naughty was death.

Peasants everywhere also liked to bring sprigs and boughs of evergreens into their homes around the time of the solstice to remind themselves that sooner or later all that awful cold and snow would end and it would get warm enough to eat, drink, and fornicate outdoors. The Druids of the British Isles brought evergreen boughs into their temples every winter as a sign of everlasting life, and the Vikings thought that evergreens were the particular plant of their own sun-god, Balder (so-named because they mistook the sun for his shiny, hairless cranium). Even the Egyptians worshiped their sun-god Ra's "recovery" by bringing palm rushes into their homes. It's not clear how this was intended to help poor Ra, but he always pulled through.

In ancient Rome, the festival of Saturnalia began the week before the solstice and lasted a full month. Romans ate and drank and fornicated during this festival in honor of Saturn, the god of Agriculture. They filled their homes with evergreen boughs to remind themselves that everything would be green again eventually. They also let slaves become masters for the duration of the festival, and the plebeians were put in charge of the city. It was a crazy, topsy-turvy time, with all sorts of nutty mix-ups. Overlapping with Saturnalia around the time of the solstice was Juvenalia, a feast to honor the children of the city.



The winter solstice fell on December 25 in the year 274, and the pagan Roman Emperor Aurelian declared that day a holiday: the festival of the birth of the Invincible Sun. The Invincible Sun was also known as Mithra. Mithra was an infant god who had been born from a rock (presumably virgin rock). The Roman upper classes, with their special fondness for rocks, honored this holiday as one of the most sacred in the year.

Meanwhile, the noisy little sect of Christianity had started to gather some steam.

St. Nicholas was born around this time in what is today Turkey, but was then just another primitive desert backwater full of bickering barbarians. One popular story about St. Nicholas was that he had saved three sisters from being sold into slavery or prostitution, or both, by sneaking money for dowries into their shoes and socks. He died on December 6, and this was subsequently celebrated as his feast day. It came to be considered a lucky day on which to buy things or get married. He was honored as a protector of children and sailors. By the Renaissance he had topped all the European charts to become the most popular saint ever, probably on account of widespread sailors and children.

In the fourth century, church leaders decided to begin celebrating the birth of Jesus, since it seemed morbid just celebrating his death. No one is really sure when Jesus was born, although most scholars are pretty sure it wasn't late December and most astrologists are quick to point out that Jesus doesn't seem like a Capricorn.

Pope Julius I chose to declare December 25 as Jesus' birthday, since people were already used to celebrating at that time of year. The holiday was called the Feast of the Nativity, and by the end of the eighth century it had spread across all of Europe, even to those remote and primitive corners where people still thought the Sun was a big yellow wheel.

By the middle ages Christianity had penetrated almost all of Europe, but Christmas was still a blend of ignorant barbarian superstitions and unbearable religious seriousness. Christians would attend a Christmas mass on December 25, then eat, drink, and fornicate like they did in the old days. They would crown some wretched beggar the "lord of misrule," and the drunken revelers would happily and laughingly obey his every command. The poor would show up at the doors of the rich and demand food and drink, and if they were denied they would often laughingly burn down the house, beat its inhabitants, and rape the womenfolk and livestock before moving on to the next house. It was a very jolly holiday.

Devout Christians of sixteenth century Germany began trying to outdo the rest of Europe with their usual humorless Teutonic ambition. Instead of hanging a few little evergreen boughs about the hearth at Christmastime, they began hauling whole trees into their homes. According to legend, Martin Luther himself was walking home from a sermon one night when he was struck by the beauty of the glittering stars among the pines. When he got home he promptly decorated his own tree with candles. Despite the obvious fire hazard, this quickly became a popular tradition.

After the Reformation, puritans decided there was too much eating, drinking, and fornication associated with Christmas and that it was therefore bad. Many rulers outlawed it altogether. This was not usually popular: in England, for example, Oliver Cromwell cancelled Christmas, resulting in the restoration of Charles II and the retaliatory cancellation of Mr. Cromwell's head.

All of this was bad for Christmas, but such was St. Nicholas' popularity that it did little to deter from his reputation. He remained on top of the charts. Nowhere was he more popular than in Holland, where he was venerated as Sint Nikolaas, or more familiarly as Sinter Klaas.
The puritan bastards who settled America avoided Christmas as part and parcel of their longstanding commitment to No Fun. Massachusetts Colony actually penalized anyone caught celebrating Christmas with a five-shilling fine. Since it was considered an English holiday, it was ostentatiously ignored in the years during and after the Revolution, and wasn't made a federal holiday until after the Civil War (on June 26, 1870.)

Washington Irving had done his part in sorting through barbarian superstitions for things that were wholesome, pleasant, and commercial enough to be made officially American, and in 1809 he referred to St. Nicholas as the Patron Saint of New York. In 1822 an Episcopalian minister named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a frivolous poem for his daughters entitled A Visit from St. Nicholas. Mr. Moore cleverly ignored all elements of the good saint's biography involving slavery, prostitution, dowries, and sailors. He focused instead on sleighs, reindeer, and presents for good little American boys and girls. It was so silly and frivolous that it became one of the most popular American poems ever—second only to the one about the guy from Nantucket.



By 1820, American stores had begun to advertise Christmas shopping, and by 1870 children were flocking to Macy's to see Santa Claus. And so it was that America began applying its curious collective genius for assimilation to the vast storehouse of silly and primitive traditions from throughout the world.



Thus we need not concern ourselves with St. Lucia, the patron saint of the blind, whom Scandinavians honor each December 23 (Little Yule) with elaborate pagan rituals involving candles, torches, and bonfires.

We need not worry about the witch Babouschka, who visits Russian children with gifts each Christmas to compensate for a nasty little joke she once played on the wise men,

or the Italian witch La Befana.

We need not trouble ourselves with the construction of piñatas each holiday season, as Mexican parents must.

We don't have to sit around our tables as they do in Ukraine, waiting for the evening star to appear before we begin our meal. We need not fear the kallikantzeri of Greece, nasty little goblins that cause mischief for the twelve days of Christmas.

And let's not even talk about Krampus



Between the 16th and 19th centuries global temperatures were significantly lower than normal in what was known as a “little ice age”. Charles Dickens grew up during this period and experienced snow for his first eight Christmases. This “White Christmas” experience influenced his writing and began a tradition of expectation for the holidays. Let's all take a moment during these troubled times to express our gratitude and admiration for our American traditions, which are so much better than the traditions of every other country.



I wish for all you gentle readers, a happy, healthy and joyous holiday.