The Christmas List - something of wonder in our current times. It began in ancient times as a tradition symbolic of the Three Wise Men and their gifts. It has moved on to include the year's "Best of {fill in anything}". The lists have started in the Globe and Mail.
The gift-giving of Christmas is historically tied to the 12 days of Christmas tradition, with a gift given on each day. Christmas is the Twelfth Night. That's the gift that Shakespeare gave in writing his play Twelfth Night - it closed the Christmas season with an entertaining comedy. Scholars think that it was written specifically to ge performed for Queen Elizabeth 1. There is other speculation that the play was written for a group of lawyers of the Inns of Court. It is thought that it was performed on January 6, 1602.
That seems an amazing Christmas gift, so I wondered about gifts throughout history - given we've got since 336 for such wonders to be given.
I found an article on Christmas gifts through history HERE. They include the Statue of Liberty, the City of Savannah, a White Elephant (to Pope Leo X in 1514), a bowling alley in the White House, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Trojan Horse, Faberge Eggs. Some gifts don't seem to be related to Christmas (and two are gruesome). But that's what you get with metalfloss.com.
Christmas presents along the lines of what we expect today all relate to what's most expensive Here's the descriptions for this list HERE.
The Orlov Diamond – Priceless
Evalyn’s Jewels, Star of the East and Hope Diamond – Upwards of USD 250 Million
Twenty-Two-Year-Old’s USD 88 Million Christmas Present - real estate
Diamond and Ruby for Liz – USD 4.2 Million - Liz Taylor
Spend It Like Beckham – USD 3 Million - a necklace
HK Superstar Aaron Kwok’s USD 2.6 Million Christmas Present -
Tyson’s Moment – USD 2.3 Million a gold bathtub
Aaron Spelling’s White Christmas Gift – USD 2 Million - snow machine making snow in his Beverly Hills backyard
The Waterfall Gift – USD 1.6 Million - to build a Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater house
Mastiff Gem – USD 1.5 Million - a rare dog
A snow orchard image today. The snow has almost melted. That means I can finish raking the leaves that are still coming down from the trees.
These special offers are only available online! These 19 Cool Gadgets have MILLIONS SOLD worldwide. What are they? I've chosen just three - they are all available on Amazon in case you are inspired. If you have one, let me know.
"FIXDPowerful Check Engine Light Diagnostics — Read and diagnose your check engine light, understand the severity of the issue, and clear that pesky light from your vehicle. FIXD translates your vehicle into simple English, empowering you to make the easy fix in many cases & saving you precious time. FIXD also saves you money by providing you with estimated repair costs up-front, allowing you to feel more confident during those trips to the mechanic.
Muama Enence Voice Translation: Intelligent voice recognition technology to make cross language communication easier. Translate your speech into high quality foreign language text and transmit into voice output. Eliminate all obstacles in language communication, You can travel around the world more easily.
Peeps™ Glass Cleaners - With over 1.5 million sold, this gadget is a must have for everyone. Designed specifically for cleaning eyeglasses, sunglasses and reading glasses, Peeps is the world's safest and most tested lens cleaning technology. Peeps groundbreaking invisible carbon microfiber formula will have your glasses as clean as the day you bought them. This is actually the same lens cleaning technology used by NASA.
Then on to the Telegraph.co.uk site with just one remarkable selection: the Combekk Thermometer Dutch Oven made from 100% recycled disused iron railway tracks. (It must have inspired my picture today.)
And there are Oprah's recommendations. If you go to the Huffington Post article on her top favourite things, you get 20% off with the code OPRAH at Amazon. Finding ourselves back at Amazon...
I am organizing and consolidating photos, and Lightroom popped up with Cuba pictures. What a contrast of colour compared to our Winter landscape now.
