Why I Oughta...

Happy Christmas, everyone!  Today is my favorite day of the year and has been so since I was just a little one growing up in Frankfort.  So, in that spirit, I thought I would resurrect a blogging tradition from years ago.  Back in 2009 , 2010 and 2011 , I posted an annual "Favorite Things Christmas-edition" here on the blog.  Many of those lists had up to ten different things on them.  This year, the list will be shorter - half in fact.  So let's get to it. 1.  This compilation video of Darlene Love singing her mega hit "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" on Letterman over the years.   Pardon my ignorance, but I didn't even know this was a thing?  She's did it for almost 30 years!  Here's the oral history of the annual performance that is worth reading after you watch this below.  2.  Growing a Christmas Amaryllis.  Earlier in December, I posted this comparison between a bulb we bought at Wannemakers vs. one I bought at Menards .  The Menard

"Alright everybody....I'm back!" I'm posting this on the actual day - December 23rd - unlike year's past when I posted it on the 22nd.  That was mostly because of the readers who come via email subscriptions.  Here's last year's Festivus post .  Here's the post from 2015 .  And all the way back in 2011, I posted a photo of a house in Elmhurst who had erected a Festivus pole and sign in their front yard .  Oh, a guy can dream, right? See you at Mitch and Ashley's for the 'Feats of Strength' tonight? 

I made a trip down to Dallas earlier this month for a work thing and one evening, after dinner had ended, I asked the door guy at our hotel how far the 'grassy knoll' was and he pointed down the street and told me it was about six blocks away.  So...off I went walking.  It was a nice evening and sure enough, after walking for a bit, I came across this seven story building.  That has a very famous sixth floor .  I had been to Dallas with my Mom and Dad back when I was in High School and we took the tour of the museum (and even went out for the night to BillyBob's in Ft. Worth ), so I have experience down there.  This time, I arrived after the museum was closed, but it was still a nice experience.  I didn't go down to the Grassy Knoll, but did stand at the corner and visualized that film that we've all seen thousands of time. Every time one of these cars raced under the bridge, I could picture the vintage, grainy footage of the limo racing off.  Kinda nea

More buildings and accessories are springing up on the Mantleburg line.  In addition to the American Flyer bridge that I posted about yesterday and the Plasticville Town Hall that we bought at the Christmas Train Show out in Wheaton, we also bought this Lionel Flag pole that features both the American flag and a Lionel flag standing at attention.  As you can see on the box, they are showing a red Lionel pennant under the American Flag, but when we opened it up, it was flying a blue Lionel pennant.  Just poking around on the web, it seems that's common?  Here's a listing showing the exact setup with red on the box and blue inside .  Seems like the new Mantleburg Town Hall could use a flagpole outside, right?  Wonder if we can make up a little "Village of Mantleburg" flag and run it right under the Lionel flag?  Of course, we'd follow Roman Mars lead and be good vexillologists and come up with a quality flag with no words on it, right? 

I picked up this Lackawanna girder bridge at the same Christmas train show that I bought the Plasticville Town Hall building earlier this month and we are going to add it to the Mantleburg line this week.  This isn't a Lionel part, but rather this is made by American Flyer .  I think this might be the first American Flyer part that we've acquired.  It was just $5, but looking at the various listings on Ebay and Etsy , they're mostly listed for between $40 and $50.  So...thinking we scored a deal. The sticker itself is cool, right?  Shows it was made by The A.C. Gilbert Company in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.  Who knew...but...The Gilbert Company invented the erector set !  They owned American Flyer from 1938 to 1966 , but I can't quite figure out when they put out this bridge.  From the sounds of it, I would guess it happened sometime after the 1946 post-war startup and like the mid-1950's when things slowed down before their founder died in 1961 .  We h

Google released this " appsperiment " called Storyboard  that takes your videos and makes these cute comic book-style images.  There isn't much more to do than that and sometimes you get something garbled and sometimes you get some cute stuff like this one with the Babe, the Bird and the King of the Ball Tossers with the Big Guy.   It is Android only, so all you iphone suckers are out of luck.  

Sure, you can go out to Naper Settlement for the Christkindl market and get some searing hot chocolate and pick up a cuckoo clock and ornament from some booths.  And that'd be just fine.  In fact, that's what we did a few weekends ago.  It was a great time.  But, do yourself a favor and ask for the main building where the bathrooms are located.  (skip the porta-potties!) Inside that building, you'll see a setup of a 1950's home all trimmed out for Christmas morning.  Along with some display cases of decorations and toys from the period.  Above and below you can see one of the cases with little vintage Christmas figures (we have the lady on top!  And some "NOEL" angels that are similar but not exactly the same .) and some toys that kids in the 1950's were getting under the tree. In another corner, they have this little vignette set up that shows toys like Tiddly winks and a riding horse that are typical from the period. They also have some