Media bytes - Feels like Xmas spirit edition

Dedicated to Eartha Kitt. Wasn't she really "the hawt" Santa Baby? Rest in peace.

I hear the Christmas retail season was teh suck. Sales down by 5% in store and 2% on-line. To put that in context, last year on-line sales rose 22%. However, I'm getting anecdotal reports that the stores and malls are jam packed today with bargain hunters.

I suspect some of them are subscribing to my old strategy of Christmases past when I was broke. If you wait until after Christmas to send your gifts to out of town friends and relatives, you miss a lot of pre-Christmas hassles and your gift stands out more when it's not lost in the shuffle of the big day. This year, I imagine some families decided to postpone the whole celebration just to afford gifts at all.

But we're not going to let that stop us from celebrating the spirit of the season.
Taking a cue from Avedon, who will be celebrating with links until Three Kings Day, I also have a bunch of links that I didn't get to myself and I've always believed in prolonging the celebration as well.

This interactive card from my favorite cranky historian would be fun at any time.

My sister is settling into the blogging scene and posts on The Festival of Lights that she took me to see last year after Christmas. It was just as magical after Christmas. I'm a pushover for this kitschy stuff, even though I know it's bad for the environment and all. It's really an amazing light show and well worth driving through if you're in the area.

Squid remembered a Christmas Eve alone in Austria with a beautiful story.

NTodd just lives in a beautiful place. I have to admit, when I see the photos, I miss the snow but when I'm out driving I'm not sorry there isn't any here.

I'm glad to see this ugly rumor about Santa cancelling Christmas didn't come true.

Stone Soup Kathy found a Christmas miracle story that was even better than the one I found yesterday. And be sure to scroll down to the Christmas tree post. It didn't sound that creepy to me, but I suppose some might be squigged out by it.

I don't think I posted this White House Christmas with Barney video. Still funny even after the holiday. I think it's a spoof but some people think it was real.

And did I post the Solstice celebration at Stonehenge pix? I really want to go there someday. I don't even care if it's for the solstice.

And finally, this isn't quite about Christmas, but Prof Wombat found an article about communion wafers. It's much more interesting than you might think. I had no idea they were made of real bread.