Post-Christmas Thoughts... And Happy New Year!

So, doesn’t Christmas seem a long time ago? Here are just a few post-Christmas thoughts to round off the Christmas period. I hope you all had a fantastic and blessed time.

1. Christmas Cake
It’s no secret that Christmas Cake is one of my absolute favourite things about Christmastime. I just can’t get enough. We spent Christmas Day with my uncle and my aunt was entrusted with the job of bringing a Christmas Cake for 11 people. She had been asked to buy one that was not too big. I think she managed it:

I was like... My cube of Christmas Cake didn’t quite satisfy me...

2. Christmas Texts
As we ate Christmas dinner, my aunt (same aunt as above) received an anonymous text which had presumably been sent to the wrong person. It ran along these lines:That kept me entertained for a good long while... (I just don’t believe that the sort of person who would send a text like that would use the word ‘boobs’)

3. Christmas Presents
Now, I’m not one for going on about Christmas presents, but I have to mention one fantastic present I got this Christmas – a Salvation Army shirt from Congo/Angola. How cool is this?! Check the detail:
4. mitchenstein 365
I’ve completed my first month of My Project 365! Although my mum pointed out that there will actually be 366 days next year. Great. I have to find inspiration for a whole extra picture.

5. Carol Singing
Carol singing with the youth is always cool on Christmas Eve – here’s a photo of the gang (not the same one as one 365, as I’m on this photo – the rule with the 365 photos is that I have to take the picture myself).
6. And To Finish...
Have a fantastic New Year. Here’s to a great 2008!

So, as is the way, I ought to write a few New Year’s resolutions (my main ambitions, etc. are always featured in the mitchenstein birthday week. Well, that only happened once, but it’s going to become a tradition).

Anyway, they are these:
1. Lose the stone I’ve managed to put back on.
2. Practise the oboe a little every day... (I’m getting very good now. Well, I can do ‘We Three Kings’ and ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’, but the ‘Pink Panther’ is proving difficult. Those low C-sharps...)
3. Learn Greenlandic (for research purposes). This is going to be hard – here’s an example of a Greenlandic sentence: Kalaallisut oqalussinnaannginnera ajuusaarutigiuarsimavara.
4. Get ‘my’ gospel choir sorted out (it’s on its way, it really is! Watch this space.)

Anyway, take care and I'll speak to you soon. My mind is a little preoccupied with a departmental presentation I'm giving next week (my first), I'm looking forward to it, but I'm finding it hard to think about anything beyond that date!

Merry Christmas!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
Fröhliche Weihnachten! God Jul! Hyvää Joulua! Gleðileg Jól! Gleðilig Jól! Glædelig Jul! Wesołych Świąt! Veselé Vánoce!

Here's wishing everyone a fantastic and blessed Christmas!

Photo taken from the Trafalgar Square Christmas crib, London

Christmas Comments 2

And here are a few more thoughts before Christmas…

1. mitchenstein 365
My Project 365 is going really well! It’s a little hard finding inspiration sometimes, but it’s really making me look at everything I do and everywhere I go to see if there’s a photo opportunity anywhere. And I’ve done nearly a month now! Check it out!

Photo 9: One of the photos from the mitchenstein 365 project.
2. Der Kriegsruf
The Salvation Army in Germany has decided to rename their magazine, Der Kriegsruf (Eng. ‘The War Cry’). After an online poll, many months of thought and, no doubt copious amounts of prayer, they released the periodical’s new name, to be used from the new year. And that name is: (drum roll) The Salvation Army Magazine. Genius.

3. My Hat
Those of you who have seen me recently will know I have a Salvation Army beanie I picked up in Australia. The weather’s been getting pretty cold recently, so I’ve been wearing it more and more. And suddenly I’m very aware that I’m really like an advert for The Salvation Army. As soon as I put it on, I start smiling at people and being a generally nicer guy (not always easy on the commute to/from London). What would it look like if I didn’t let people through, or let someone have my seat?

I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not… I guess I should always be like that, and it shouldn’t make a difference whether I’m wearing my hat or not. I’m working on it! I also think it’s important to show people that there are cool, young, funky people in the Army (yes, I’m cool, young and funky).

This is me wearing the hat in Slovakia (and they don’t have The Salvation Army there, so that was like a double witness).
4. An Impulse Buy
This week I made a bit of an impulse purchase… It’s part Christmas present (but mostly not). I won’t say what it is, but let’s just say that hopefully after a little practice, I might be able to play Gabriel’s Oboe! (right-hand column)

5. Breath of Heaven
Because it’s Christmastime, I’m giving you a few videos to watch. (Generous, no?) I came across this video by accident, but I really liked it, so I thought I’d pass it on. It’s such a beautiful song, and the woman singing does American Sign Language as she sings. I hope you enjoy it (the sync is a little out).

6. Yodellay-hee
A little while ago, Anna posted the German introduction to the Heidi cartoon on her blog. This was really a big mistake on her part, because I can’t stop watching it! That tune is addictive… I’ve put it in the right-hand column. It’s a little slow starting, but at 0.51 it rocks.

I wish I could yodel.

As Long As They're Still Reading (Christmas Comments 1)

Undeterred by the recent dearth of comments, I blog on. I’m just kidding you – while people are still reading, I’ll still keep blogging. And probably after they stop. But this post is the first of at least two with various Christmas thoughts, although most of them have not a lot to do with Christmas, so they’re just thoughts. And they are these:

1. Carolling
As all Salvationists know, December is the month for carolling. And I love it. It’s when I feel we’re really out there sharing with the people. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been out collecting or something and people have asked me where the Salvation Army band is. People love hearing it (despite what some people in the Army will tell you!) and it’s all good. We have nothing to be embarrassed about. Anyway, here’s a couple of photos from when the band went out carolling the other day.
My brother (the photo is a little shaky because I was only wearing one glove and it was freezing!)
Josh likes carolling.
Me, on the baritone this year (because off-beats are important too).

But carolling isn’t all about bands. Every year the Songsters (the choir) sings at a home for people with mental illness. To be honest, it isn’t the easiest gig in the world, but for every person that tells us exactly what they think of us (we were told to shove something up somewhere… I didn’t quite get it), there are others that just sit there listening to us sing/play (we take a small band with us), and you can see that some of them are really moved by what they hear. Some even sing along, remembering the words they perhaps used to sing as children.

Moreover, it’s important that the staff there know they’re not forgotten either. They do a fantastic job and it’s a privilege to share with them all.

2. Publication!
I had an exciting discovery when I saw that a phrasebook of which I wrote a chapter is available to pre-order on Amazon, so if you know anyone who’s going on a city break to Northern Europe…

3. O Holy Night
In my last post I mentioned the song ‘O Holy Night’ which is my all-time favourite Christmas song… And probably my favourite song of all time, in fact. Anyway, for me, no-one does this song better than Mariah Carey. I know it really won’t be to everyone’s taste, but the video is in the right-hand column. It takes a little while to get going, but it’s stunning. In my opinion.

4. The Blogosphere at Christmas
And finally, just to mention what else is going on in the blogosphere at the moment. Rather impressively, Glyn is posting a different Advent poem every day in the lead-up to Christmas (with some very good ones!), meaning that in December he’s blogged more than in June, July, August, September, October and November combined. But I’m well impressed. Katie has also posted two fantastic videos on her blog (Video 1 and Video 2). Check them out!

Ég er kominn í jólaskap!

('I'm in the Christmas mood!')

So it's nearly here. 12 days. How exciting!

A few months ago, it was announced that a (so-called) thinktank had decided that Christmas should be downgraded. It was receiving too much attention compared to the festivals of other faiths.

I was furious. I sat down and began writing a letter to complain about this shoddy treatment and how incensed I was about the whole thing.

That's not actually true.

My actual reaction was more like this...

The sooner these people realise that Christmas and the meaning behind it and its significance for millions and millions of people the world over is bigger than they are, the better.

"Winter Wishes!"

What's that about?!

But it did make me determined to celebrate the Christian aspects of Christmas more than ever this year. I can't help but think that Christmas is actually a bit of an ugly occasion without the beautiful story of Jesus coming to earth at the centre of it.

Anyway.

I resolved to come up with ways to put the 'Christ' back in 'Christmas' this year (how overused is that phrase?) (Obviously, I'm a lifelong Salvationist/Christian, so it's always been the centre of Christmas for me, but you know what I mean. It's easy to be taken over by all the other stuff).

So this year:

1. 'O Holy Night' is my mum's and my favourite Christmas carol of all time. I love it. So this year I made an 'O Holy Night' advent CD - a CD with 24 versions of that beautiful song by a range of big and less well known names. Only good ones of course (there are more than enough bad ones to choose from. Don't get me started on Christina Aguilera...). Every day a different version has been played and it's really added something to the advent time.

Obviously that's not a CD you want to leave on continuously, or you'd want to kill yourself.

2. This year I'm only sending religious Christmas cards (that's actually something I've been doing for a few years, but never really consciously). Admittedly, you have to look hard for ones that don't suck, but I found some good'uns at SP&S this year... No dogs in tiaras or 'December greetings' for me!

And, I've left it kind of late now, but does anyone have any other ideas?

Moreover, this year I have been looking to see how much the real meaning of Christmas is mentioned. And it really isn't as little as you'd think.

1. I don't know how many religious Christmas carols I've heard walking round Oxford St. doing the Christmas shopping (which I've finished by the way!)

2. I went to Trafalgar Square to see the Christmas tree and right in the middle was a giant nativity scene (maybe they have that every year, I don't know). And although it was a weird one (is that Joseph chilling out at the side?!), you couldn't help but notice it.

(Unfortunately a strange, but admittedly friendly, lady saw I was looking at it and come over to tell me that we were selling ourselves to the European Union. I'm afraid I'm not really the right person to talk to about that, love. Hopefully she didn't say that to everyone who was looking at it...)

3. And apparently Clintons has got its biggest ever selection of 'religious' Christmas cards... Admittedly that's like 4, and they're all pants, but still! Up the ante, Clintons!

Anyway, here goes - the countdown continues, and I'm definitely having my best advent yet.

Enjoy.

Old Friends

As most of you know, back in 2004-05 I lived in Umeå in northern Sweden for seven months as part of my undergraduate degree programme. I had a fantastic time.

Anyone who's done a stay at a foreign university will know that you end up meeting heaps of interesting people from all over the world, but that it's hard to stay in touch with all of them. Fortunately, I've managed to keep in close contact with a few of the Umeaners, and it's been great that some of them have even visited in the past few weeks.

First came Jóhanna from Iceland with her boyfriend, Arnar. They only had a day in London, but as both of them had been before, we could have a relaxing day strolling around, looking at shops, eating, and walking for forty minutes through heavy rain because they'd shut the flippin' underground (see Project 365).

So here are a couple of photos (Arnar was evidently very happy to be in England!)
A quick Merry Christmas to Jóhanna and Arnar, because I believe the first Icelandic Santa Claus comes tonight (they have thirteen - how unfair's that?)

Then Grit, Philipp and Christoph (who brought me 24 Mars bars) came over from Germany and spent the weekend here (you'll be happy to know that the English weather excelled itself here too).
We went down Southend Pier one evening (how dramatic does the sky look?!)

We missed the train back, so, rather than walk back up the pier, we decided to take photos of ourselves... (In the second one we were supposed to look like H&M models... I think I managed it the best).
Until the wind broke Christoph's camera and we had to stop...

The way we were (a few photos from 2004):
Christoph and Philipp balancing ON the Arctic Circle:

Launching...

mitchenstein 365

a photo for every day of the year

Several people I know have started 365 projects - an attempt to take one photo every single day of the year - with varying degrees of success.

And here, today, I launch my project 365 (imaginatively named mitchenstein 365) on a separate blog. This next year looks like it could be a good one, and I thought it'd be kinda cool to catalogue it in some way. I have no idea whether or not I'll be able to manage it, but why not try?

So have a look from time to time!

mitchenstein 365

To launch it, I want to show you the best picture I've ever taken. This is from Norway in 2004 (from a moving car):