Monday, December 19, 2016

Holiday Christmas Movies & More Christmas Lights!

Tis the season everyone! It's officially Christmas week! Christmas is this upcoming weekend and the magic is in the air... As well as the ever changing weather. It went from cold to hot to cold to hot and back to cold again here I have no idea why the weather loves playing such mean tricks on me. Of course Christmas isn't the only Holiday coming up this weekend... The first day of Hanukkah starts on Saturday evening, which is also the evening before Christmas Day, isn't that funny? Hope everyone is staying warm this Holiday week! I also hope you're being careful with your travels, lots of roads are freezing over and snow is pretty prominent around the country and world even.

Before we get into the main blog my awesome artist sister Annie has a new blog up on her art blog!
http://ladyannavintage.blogspot.com/2016/12/fairy-tales-and-fantasy.html
She shows off her recent drawings of mushrooms and the inspiration behind it!

We've been of course watching Christmas Movies and traveling around looking at all the awesome Christmas lights out there. If you didn't read last friday's blog I uploaded the first part of my ZAK Entertainment Christmas Lights Extravaganza! It's not over yet though because today I bring you part two, so grab some popcorn, maybe some Christmas candy and get ready for a Christmas Lights Wonderland! Don't forget to watch Part 1 first though!


Thanks for watching! (If you didn't watch... then let's carry on.) Got one more part guaranteed to come out but there may be more parts depending on what happens this week so stay tuned! I really love going out and looking at the Christmas lights with my family every year so I thought I'd record it and bring you guys along too, even if my hands got really cold, haha. The lights are really pretty this year, almost a Clark Griswold level of bright, haha.

I have a small knitting update! I know the blog has been lacking on knitting updates for the past couple of posts but I've been working hard on the second sock of my very first sock pair. Since October I've been bringing you guys on the journey with me as I work on these socks. I'm now on the toe of the second sock.


I wanted to finish these for today but I didn't quite make it. I didn't want to rush anything (Last time I did that I made a pretty big mess up.) so I will get this finished for this Wednesday so stay tuned to see the finished products and a little walkthrough of my progress!

So our Christmas shopping has pretty much come to a close as far as presents go, we got a couple of food items to get later on this week and we're going to open up some of the candy soon. (I sure hope so anyway, hahaha). Normally we get everyone some iTunes cards for Christmas and I've been a bit late on getting my Brother and Sister some but I found a way of actually sending iTunes Gift Cards through email or regular post mail even which helps a lot. Here's the link to the email option: http://www.apple.com/shop/gift-cards/itunes-electronic

What's cool about the EMAIL option is the amount of customization you can do on it! First you select a design (They have some really awesome Christmas designs you can choose.) then you choose the Value of the card, who you're sending it too, who it's from and then you can even add a special message to it. You can also add a message to the postal mail one too if you want a more physical gift it just doesn't seem to have as many design options. So if you're looking for a small gift or don't know what your kids want on iTunes this would be a great option if you can't get to the store in time for Christmas to pick up an iTunes card.

Speaking of iTunes...

It's Movie Talk time!


So with the Christmas season comes Christmas movies and we've been watching quite a bit. I thought I would go over some of my all time favorites that we've watched recently and some of my little brother (He's a huge Christmas fan) Chrissie's all time favorites.



I mentioned on Friday that we would be picking this movie up on iTunes and so we did! We watched it last Saturday and of course it'll be a forever member of our collection. This movie is as hilarious as I remember it from previous years. The movie stars Jim Carrey as The Grinch and the movie is Directed by Ron Howard. I always loved this movie more then the original animation and book, the movie adds so much more character to the Grinch and the residents of Whoville including the Mayor (Jeffrey Tambor) who apparently had his tonsils removed twice.  It even goes more into Cindy Lou (Taylor Momsen) and her family to the point she's really one of the main plot characters compared to the original animation. Jim Carrey really does a great job with this character and this is a pretty awesome choice for anyone's Christmas movie collection. It's $9.99 currently for HD (I believe this price goes back up eventually.) and $9.99 for SD (Standard) so pick it up for this Christmas week!

Here's another amazing Christmas movie, an animation that goes back even farther into my Childhood, Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas!


Disney definitely has a big part of my childhood in some shape or another. I can remember watching this movie for many Christmases (Since 1999 I'm assuming when the movie was released) of my life, it's funny when I think about it this is actually my 21st Christmas, does that make me sound like a kid? I don't know but I cherish those memories a lot. Anyway this is definitely one of my little brother Chrissie's favorites too. Of course it stars Mickey, Goofy, Donald and friends in three short Christmas stories with some great morals about the Christmas spirit. There's a sequel called Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas which is great as well but this classic is the best. It's currently $9.99 for HD and $9.99 for SD on iTunes so if you don't have it already pick it up, this is a wonderful Christmas classic for your kids or younger siblings.


This next movie is Disney's Frozen but you probably already knew that. This movie is a worldwide phenomenal hit with kids, even adults and despite it coming out three years ago the movie is still VERY popular. (As well as one specific song that I just can't seem to... Let go of...) I finally watched this movie and I don't know why but I actually really loved this movie. It was very different from usual Disney Princess movies (Though so was Tangled and boy do I love Tangled.) and the characters had a lot of depth to them. This is another great Christmas/Winter film for the whole family. The story focuses on sisters Anna and Elsa, Elsa just so happens to have ice powers and the story goes from there focusing on true meanings of family and sibling love. I really love the Norwegian elements they added to the world of Frozen too. (The movie is based in Norway... soooo...) The movie is currently $19.99 HD ($3.99 rent) and $14.99 ($2.99 rent) on iTunes.

This last movie I'm going to talk about completely jumps away from the family friendly movies (I mean it's Rated R). I recently watched Trading Places. (1983)


Okay this movie is damn hilarious, it stars Dan Aykroyd as Louis Winthorpe III a stinking rich and well-mannered managing director for Duke & Duke brokerage (He also just so happens to have a pretty cool butler played by the late Denholm Elliot) and Eddie Murphy as Billy Ray Valentine, a very hilarious street hustler. These two's lives cross paths when brothers Randolph (Ralph Bellamy) and Mortimer (Don Ameche) Duke make a bet to see how these two would live if their entire lifestyle was swapped with the other. Louis also meets up with Ophelia played by Jamie Lee Curtis who gets wrapped up in the Duke brother's crazy scheme as well. I'm pretty sure this counts as a Christmasish movie but anyway yeah we watched this movie a few nights ago. This is probably my favorite Eddie Murphy movie... Okay it's probably my favorite Dan Aykroyd movie too. Definnately a must watch if you want a really hilarious and one of my all time favorite comedy movie. It is a Rated R movie though so parents be cautious. It's currently $14.99 HD ($3.99 rent) and $9.99 SD ($3.99 rent) on iTunes.

So that's about it on movies, there's some other movies such as Saving Santa.. Oh wait! One last thing!

I've been a big fan of this movie franchise but.. Despicable Me 3 is in production and has a new trailer! I hope this doesn't make the blog too long.. haha.


It looks pretty awesome. Trey Parker is playing this funky 80s like villain Balthazar Bratt (He uses a freaking RUBIX CUBE as a weapon!) and Gru and Lucy seem to be continuing the secret agent thing from the last movie. Minions are in.. Florida? Anyway pretty excited for this movie! It comes out in theatres next summer.

Anyway looks like we've come to the end of the blog but before then I have to mention once again this wonderful Christmas song Message of Christmas by the amazing students and staff of Redbridge High School for Special Needs Kids in Liverpool England. Please go and support this song by buying it on iTunes! All the funds goes towards helping the school expand and giving the kids their better lives! My little brother who is also a special needs kid loves this song a lot and your kids will too!

Hope you enjoy your Christmas week! The blog isn't taking a break though I still have two more blog posts coming up before Christmas as well as more Christmas Light videos! It may be Christmas week but there's still lots to come so make sure you checkout my Youtube, Facebook Page, Instagram, Twitter and Ravelry!

See you on the next blog!

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