Okay, the week-long Year-End Party starts here, and now!

[capri0mni]

To kick things off, here are some ice-breaker questions. Since my intention is to focus on The Happy, they're all questions about favorites. Since this party will last seven days, there are seven questions:

1. What is your favorite holiday--any holiday--memory? It could be the holidays people usually mean when they say: "Happy Holidays!" or it could be Halloween, or Arbor Day, or Star Wars Day, or Thursday the 20th, or your best friend's birthday, or... whatever.
   
   
2. What's your favorite treat to eat when you're in a celebratory mood?
   
   
3. What's your favorite holiday song? (And yes, my definition of "holiday" covers anything you want it to)
   
   
4. Do you have a favorite YouTube channel? If so, what is it?
   
   
5. What was your favorite piece of media from 2018? (It could have been produced this year, or any year. It could have been mass-produced and sold to the public, or it could have been a bit of privately made ephemera, like a doodle in the margin of a page, whatever.... Just something you've seen this year that you really, really like)
   
   
6. What's your favorite cryptid?
   
   
7. What's your favorite meme?

---

My Answers:

1. When I was in high school, our eccentric art teacher decided to teach an elective where we built a giant, hollow, paper mache dragon, big enough for the nursery school and kindergarten kids to climb around in and on. And this would be "The Dragon of Winter." And, come May Day, we, as a school, would take the dragon out to our soccer field and burn it, to usher in the life-giving power of the spring. On May Day, all afternoon classes were cancelled, and we spent the last 2 hours or so singing songs, and watching Morris Dancing (our physics teacher was the member of a troupe), and dancing 'round the May Pole. It culminated with our biology teacher, in a mask, jogging out from the woods behind the soccer field with a bow and arrow. And shot a flaming arrow into the dragon. The first arrow was a dud. The second arrow was a dud. The third arrow resulted in the expected bonfire, and from the flames, buoyed by the hot air, a "dragon ghost" made of white rice paper (iirc) rose from inside the giant dragon we had made. And our biology teacher made a pose like this: \o/

2. Chocolate brownies, topped with whipped cream.

3. GLOUCESTERSHIRE WASSAIL

Wassail, wassail all over the town
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee

So here is to Cherry and to his right cheek
Pray God send our master a good piece of beef
And a good piece of beef that may we all see
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee

And here is to Dobbin and to his right eye
Pray God send our master a good Christmas pie
A good Christmas pie that may we all see
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee

So here is to Broad Mary and to her broad horn
May God send our master a good crop of corn
And a good crop of corn that may we all see
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee

And here is to Fillpail and to her left ear
Pray God send our master a happy New Year
And a happy New Year as e'er he did see
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee

And here is to Colly and to her long tail
Pray God send our master he never may fail
A bowl of strong beer! I pray you draw near
And our jolly wassail it's then you shall hear

Come butler, come fill us a bowl of the best
Then we hope that your soul in heaven may rest
But if you do draw us a bowl of the small
Then down shall go butler, bowl and all

Then here's to the maid in the lily white smock
Who tripped to the door and slipped back the lock
Who tripped to the door and pulled back the pin
For to let these jolly wassailers in.

4. So hard to choose! Right now, it's Tom Scott for short form essays, and Philosophy Tube for long form essays; Warning: that second YouTuber does not shy away from blue language, or difficult imagery, but it's all in service to exploring ideas.

5. I finally saw the animated movie "Megamind" this year, and I really liked it, and think it got unfairly overshadowed by "Despicable Me" when it first came out.

My favorite bits of media that were actually released this year were the new Doctor Who theme music for Series 11, and the new visualization of the Time Vortex, in the same.

6. It's a toss up between Santa Claus and one whose name escapes me that's a fur-covered snake with the head of a cat (or a cat with a snake's body, depending on how you look at it)

7) I'm showing my age, but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the hamster dance (used to be on a GeoCities website, now preserved as a YouTube video

Comments

Re: *savours my turkey sandwich*

[auresse]

I want to know which spices they used to flavour the pomegranate juice! I LOVE pomegranates- they are a special seasonal treat. But I can't imagine juicing the damn things manually.
Also- I wonder what is the natural range for the vines? How far north do they grow? I know they grow wild in India, but what about Europe? How early did the trade in "exotic" fruits begin I wonder? When did oranges reach north/western Europe for example?

Re: *savours my turkey sandwich*

[capri0mni]

I'll have to hunt down that book... it's on my shelves, somewhere. But from what I remember, the recipe called for the same spices we use today for spiced cider.

Pomegranates grow on trees. The tree in the Tapestry "The Unicorn in the Garden" is a Pomegranate.

According to Wikipedia they're native to Iraq and northern India, and have been grown throughout the Mediterranean.