As some of you may know we are exactly 6 weeks away from Christmas Eve as of today!! In honor of the holiday season I've decided to count down each week until we are there!! So each Friday I will post a countdown within my countdown. Today I'm posting my top 25 Christmas songs I love to hear on the radio (since the radio stations are already playing them)! I have to say this list was very hard to make, and most of the songs it the 'honorable mention' category are ones I just didn't remember until after I made my list, so it's not that I don't really love those songs. :) Please also recognize that I've listed my favorite artist for each song, which is also a feat because so many great artists cover these songs. So here we go...
Honorable Mention (in no particular order)
Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer - Elmo & Patsy
12 Days of Redneck Christmas - Jeff Foxworthy
We Need a Little Christmas - Johnny Mathis
Baby It's Cold Outside - Dean Martin
The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole
Christmas in Killarney - Bing Crosby
Wonderful Christmastime - Paul McCartney & Wings
O Christmas Tree (O Tennenbaum) - Vince Guaraldi Trio
Have a Holly Jolly Christmas - Burl Ives
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
Please Come Home for Christmas - Charles Brown
Christmas Time is Here (Charlie Brown song) - Vince Guaraldi
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - Harry Connick Jr.
My Top 25 Christmas Radio Songs
25. Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Frank Sinatra or The Jackson 5 (Sinatra is classic but the Jackson's version is fun!)
24. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - The Ronettes
23. Mele Kalikimaka - Bing Crosby (It's Hawaii's way to say Merry Christmas to you!)
22. All I Want for Christmas is You - Mariah Carey
21. Same Old Lang Syne - Dan Fogelberg
20. Carol of the Bells - George Winston
19. Grown-up Christmas List - Natalie Cole and David Foster
18. Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley
17. Mary, Did You Know? - Kenny Rogers and Wynonna Judd
16. Do You Hear What I Hear? - Carrie Underwood
15. Winter Wonderland - Jason Mraz or James Taylor
14. The First Noel - Josh Groban and Faith Hill
13. Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt
12. Jingle Bells - Barking Dogs (Yes, I chose the dogs singing it. ha ha)
11. It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas - Bing Crosby (Love his bass-baritone voice! He's one of my favorites to sing Christmas songs!)
10. Where Are You Christmas? - Faith Hill (This always makes me think of The Grinch!)
9. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Andy Williams (because it really is!)
8. Oh Holy Night - Clay Aiken (Okay you knew I was gonna stick Clay in here somewhere!)
7. The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late) - Alvin and the Chipmunks (so precious!!)
6. Happy Christmas - John Lennon/The Plastic Ono Band (the song is actually called Happy Xmas, but I'm not a fan of shortening Christmas)
5. Believe - Josh Groban (I swear this song makes me cry, it's just so special for children to believe in the magic of Christmas! It warms my heart!)
4. Home for the Holidays - Perry Como (This makes me so excited to go home for Christmas break!!)
3. White Christmas - Bing Crosby (again, it doesn't get any better than Bing's deep smooth voice. But Dean Martin, Sinatra, and even Josh Groban are close behind!)
2. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland (from Meet Me in St. Louis, her voice on this song makes me teary-eyed)
1. I'll Be Home for Christmas - Frank Sinatra (I love this song because having family together at the holidays is the best part! That and creating irreplaceable memories, especially with little ones. And I chose Sinatra because he sings it 'presents on the tree' which is correct!)
I hope you enjoy this list and even look up these versions! I also hope it begins to get you in the mood for the holiday season! I can't wait to write next week's list, I already have it ready.
Anyway enjoy the weekend, tomorrow is a big game here, Auburn vs. Georgia, and my last home game as a student here. I'm very excited and sad that it's ending, but it's going to be a great day!
As you may have noticed, today is November 11th (11/11) which means that we are 14 days away from Thanksgiving!! There is so much to do between now and then, but I can't help but get excited at the thought of one of my favorite holidays! At our house the traditions that we've taken on include watching the Macy's parade, Thanksgiving lunch (and dinner left overs), watching a marathon of a favorite show, and really just spending quality down time together.
Side note: I also have a special tradition that I've done in the past, but don't really do anymore that I will post more on later.
I'm really the only one who watches the parade intensely but maybe this year Davis will join me (not likely unless there's an Elmo balloon). Anyway my favorite part of the whole day is after we eat lunch we sit down and watch an all day marathon of 'Friends' Thanksgiving episodes. Now our family loves that show and their Thanksgiving episodes were always their big holiday, so we watch them every year. There are nine episodes so I'll probably make my turkey day post about thankfulness and those episodes. Get excited! :)
I'm just glad that down time is right around the corner and I'll have time to breathe for a week! And it's coming up soon so everyone start thinking what you're thankful for, I already have some ideas of my own!
Today was the Women's Health and Wellness Chocolate Festival and it could not have gone any better!! The festival is a collection of organizations promoting women's health (hence the name) and we get businesses from around Auburn to donate tons of chocolate to lure in students. And it worked like a charm!! I'm really proud of how well everything turned out and to have been a part of it. Yes, this is a short post, but I just wanted to take a moment to express my pride in the chocolate festival and the Women's Resource Center in general.
I'd also like to express my pride for my friend Reed!! He was accepted into graduate school today!! Congrats Reed!! Here's hopin the rest of us get in also! :)
It's been a wonderful day for me (even though I'm sick during the busiest week of the semester). Happy Wednesday to you all as well!! :)
This weekend I took a trip with my parents up to Huntsville for my niece's first birthday party, and it was wonderful. I don't get to see my brother, sister-in-law, and niece very often so I was super excited just to be seeing them, but it was extra special to celebrate Rachel's birthday! I'll keep the writing pretty short on this post because it has a lot of pictures, but here's a recap of the weekend.
First on the way out of town we stopped by J & M to get a children's book that I had seen and wanted to get Rachel. It just so happened that next door Coach Pat Dye was signing autographs and taking pictures. So we just had to get her book signed and I had to get a picture with him! After all I've never met him before and he's a legend!! Anyway I'm just glad I was able to form full sentences in front of him since I have a reputation of ambushing Auburn's celebrities with awkwardness. After that, though, we hit the road to Huntsville.
Once we got there we got to see William, Leslie, and Rachel for a little bit and help decorate for the party! It turned out looking so cute, which you can kinda see in the background of the pictures. Anyway the next morning we got up very early to watch Rachel at her baby gymnastics class (I don't think that's what it's really called, but let's just roll with it). So she was so cute in this class (not that she isn't super precious all the time!) She can't walk just yet, although she's very close, but I can really see how baby gymnastics can help build on those muscles needed for learning to walk. Just sayin'.
So that afternoon we all got together for the party, and here come the pictures...
Isn't she precious?!?
And check out how awesome that cake is!
Ha ha...I love this one!
She was too cute unwrapping gifts, and playing with toys as they were unwrapped. Classic.
And she's a pro at getting her picture taken! I mean, come on, she's so photogenic!!
And I think this picture is just about the cutest thing ever!! (by the way her t-shirt said "That's it, I'm texting Grandma!" haha)
And she was, of course,supporting her team!
So that's the party day and the next day we went by in the morning before heading out of town. Let me tell you that there is nothing sweeter than a baby in the morning time. Rachel was so cuddly and sweet! And I can't wait to see her again at Christmas time! And William and Leslie too. :)
By the way, that's us the next morning after the party.
So that was the weekend in Huntsville, and it couldn't have been more fun!
I can't forget about other happenings around the South, though. It was Auburn's homecoming, which we won so we are now 10-0!! One more win and we go to the SEC Championship!! Why, you ask? Because Bama lost this weekend. That's all I'm gonna say about that since I know Lauren Burnham reads this. :) Also, Sunday morning was the Chocolate Festival 5K and from what I hear it was a huge success!! This is very exciting because the actual festival is this week and we've worked very hard on it!!
Busy week ahead, but we're close to Thanksgiving!! :)
A couple of days ago I was shown this video of a British comedy singing group called Axis of Awesome performing something called the '4 Chords Song'. The only word I found to describe it was awesome, which seems redundant because of the band's name, but oh well. Anyway this video is just so cool to me. Now I'm a major lover of music of all genres and time periods so clearly that's why I love it. Hopefully you'll find it just as cool, because I was so blown away by it.
Disclaimer: There are exactly three expletives in this video, and it is "THE word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the "F-dash-dash-dash" word!" I'm not trying to over-dramatize it, I just like quoting 'A Christmas Story'! :) Anyway I blame it on the fact that the band is British. But I just thought I'd let you know it's in there...and you should watch it anyway! :)
Side note: If related Axis of Awesome videos are suggested after the video, I do not endorse them. They are very vulgar! Again, you should watch this one though. :)
Now on behalf of a couple of my favorite bands I'd like to say a few words. First of all, you may have noticed that the oldest song on that video was 'Let it Be' by The Beatles (who I believe to be the greatest band of all time, along with a few million billion other people around the world). I think this just attributes to that fact, they obviously set the standards for these other songwriters. I'm just sayin', The Beatles came up with the 4 chord genius and everyone else fell in line. 'nuff said. Secondly, you may also have noticed that another one of my favorite bands, Queen, was not featured on this video. I'm not saying they didn't use those chords, I'm just saying that they were incredibly innovative and Freddie Mercury's writing was genius and original. Lastly, I'm sad to say another one of my favorite bands and artists were indeed on this video, Journey and Elton John. But really Elton and Journey are legends (more so Elton, and Can You Feel the Love Tonight wasn't exactly his career making song, he was awesome way before that). Either way, both Elton and Journey had careers way past those individual songs. Just sayin'.
Anyway I hope you liked the video, and my debate against myself. :)
I know that I've already expressed my problems with this specific holiday due to its scary nature, but I've really enjoyed this weekend despite not being able to tear myself away from the scary movie marathons (by the way, big mistake). I had a blast, though, with the carving contest, spending Saturday studying math with my mom and having fun with my playmate, Davis, and going to the church carnival with Elmo!!
Doesn't he look absolutely precious?!?
Anyway, I most enjoyed the fact that every kid at the carnival was digging into their candy right as they got it, but not Davis. Instead, he was munching on his apple. It was pretty adorable. And you wouldn't believe how many kids in other costumes were excited to see Elmo.
True story: I saw a little girl throwing a fit in her mom's arms and as we walked by she calmed down and said "Elmo?" like he was a celebrity character at Disney World. It was too cute.
So the events of this weekend and holiday were really nothing more than just hanging out with my family and gorging on way too much candy. It's still a great memory though because I love spending time with my family! And I'm more than incredibly excited to be seeing the rest of my family this weekend!! This is a MAJOR week coming up for me though, so I can't get ahead of myself...thoughts and prayers are appreciated. Thank you!
Now I can't help but feel like I've left something out of my weekend review...oh, that's right...WAR EAGLE!!! Yes, we beat Ole Miss this weekend, which takes us to 9-0!! Wow! I'm so excited by this season being my senior year! And being immersed every single day in the Auburn spirit in this town is truly remarkable! I'm very lucky and blessed to be where I am right now in life. :)
Yes friends this is another post about pumpkin carving!! Tonight was different though, I got to spend a wonderful Fall night with my family checkin out really cool pumpkins carved by the Auburn architecture students. It's a whole night of festivities with games for the children and food and even Aubie (who we unfortunately missed because he had to go to Ole Miss). Oh well, it was still a fun night and Davis had a great time! And I always love seein the pumpkins carved in the Auburn spirit...
If you can't tell, that's Cam Newton's face and it says 'Yes We Cam'!
So the pumpkins were fun and then we ate at Cock of the Walk (yes that's the second shout out to that restaurant that I've given, and no I don't even like to eat there!!) Now let me explain the phenomena that happens when a 2 year old gets to watch turtles swim and feed them, especially after that 2 year old spent the better part of the day downing his body weight in Halloween candy! The excitement was just overwhelming. He was talking to the turtles, he was laughing at them, but most importantly he was screaming "Oh my gosh!!" So funny! I have to say it was just a great night all around.
Sorry it's so dark, but that restaurant is a lot darker on film than it seems! But isn't he just a big ball of fun!! (And super cute with his little tin cup!)
Anyway, it was a great night and beginning of what I'm sure will be a great weekend and Halloween!! :)
