MERRY CHRISTMAS

Here, three hours of the top 100 Christmas songs of all time.  #1 is Jingle Bells.  Others:

• #1 is The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole (1946).  It was co-written by Mel Torme.
• What about Billboard?  #1 is Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You (1994).  #2 is Darlene Love's Christmas (1964) and #3 is that Nat King Cole song.  Must confess...never heard Love's song before.
• 
  Of course, most lists have Bing Crosby's White Christmas at #1.  That was the original 1942 version.  Not only is this the best selling Christmas song of all time, but is the best selling single of all time with sales in excess of 50 million.  Mariah Carey's track has been around since 1994 and has "only" sold 3.2 million.
• 
  Okay, but they're all from the USA.  What about the world? This #1 you never heard before:  from France, Petit Papa Noel.  The original was by Tino Rossi in 1946.  First time for me.
• #2  UK  Deck the Halls
• #3  Italy Tu Scendi Dalla Stelle, this version by Andrea Bocelli

• 
  #4  Germany  O Du Frohliche
• #5  New Zealand  A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree (yes, this is the Maori version of The Twelve Days of Christmas)
• #6  Australia  Jingle Bells
• #7  USA White Christmas, written by Irving Berlin
• #8  Latin America  El Burrito de Belen
• #9  Nigeria Betelehemu

• 
  #10  The Americas  Feliz Navidad, which means Happy or Merry Christmas, by Jose Feliciano
• #12  All languages  Silent Night
• Spotify reports on what Christmas songs are streamed most around the world, but American songs are at the top.  You'd think Bing Crosby or Mariah Carey would be #1.  Nope...Michael Buble.

• 
  What about more historical classical Christmas songs?  
• #1 on this list is Prokofiev's Troika. You've heard this before, but did not associate it with Christmas.
• #2 is Mendlessohn's Hark the Herald Angels Sing.  I did not know he wrote that.  

• 
  Of course Bach and Tchaikovsky, but his Nutcracker (full performance from Russia) is only #7.  
• Vivaldi's Winter is #15.  
• Gruber's Silent Night, first performed in 1818, is #16.
• Handel's Messiah is #20.

We must have more than a hundred Christmas trees at 15 Craigside, where I live.  So I started from the basement, and walked up to each floor.  These doors are decorated to win awards:

The basement photo exhibit is supposed to switch to Winter tomorrow or so, but for now, here is one of my Fall photos taken in Hiroshima, close to where the Atomic Bomb fell:

Then to the lobby, which itself has a dozen trees, and up, with a major Christmas tree plus table decorations:

Above, Don on the 11th floor.  My 12th floor is best, for we have a rainbow:

So I went down the hallway to see where the rainbow ended:

We also have a solarium:

We were given Christmas cookies:

Our Christmas Eve dinner featured lamb chops, which we had with a Bordeaux and Caesar dressing, with mint jelly:

Watched the premier of Don't Look Up on Netflix with Armagnac and Cognac:

I've long been a two-fisted drinker.  The movie had the stars (Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett--all Academy Award Best for Acting), but was only so-so, with Rotten Tomatoes giving 56/77 ratings.  I thought Jennifer Lawrence would be too old, at 31, to be a graduate student, for got her Oscar about a decade ago, but she fit-in well and gave the best performance.  Meryl Streep played a dizzy and distracted president, which I guess shows she's a good actress.  I'm tempted to tell you what happened at the end, but won't.

Merry Christmas:

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