The gingerbread pirate ship created by the wonderful staff at the Ritz Carlton Amelia Island, Florida beats the most unusual gingerbread houses I have seen. I had an opportunity to speak to the creators and get some insight into how it is made.
Track Santa’s arrival via Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
This year you can go high-tech and track Santa’s arrival with the help of NORAD – the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Follow Santa’s flight via Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and more. Even OnStar is on board.
It’s that time of the year again and the North American Aerospace Defense Command is getting ready to track Santa! The NORAD Tracks Santa Web site, www.noradsanta.org, is now live and features fun holiday games and activities that change daily. The Web site is available in seven languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Chinese. On Dec. 24, the website will stream videos, captured by NORAD “Santa Cams,†from numerous cities along Santa’s journey.
This year, children and the young-at-heart are able to track Santa through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and TroopTube.mil. To follow us on any of these Web sites, type in @noradsanta into the search engine and start your tracking.
New this year, OnStar is partnering with NORAD to provide OnStar subscribers with live Santa updates as they travel in their vehicles on Christmas Eve. Subscribers simply push the blue OnStar button to get status reports on Santa’s whereabouts.
Also new and beginning at 12:00 a.m. MST on Dec. 24, visitors to the website can watch Santa as he prepares his sleigh, checks his list, and goes through all his preparations to ensure he has a successful journey.
As soon as Santa takes off from the North Pole, children can also track him with up-to-the-minute Google Maps and Google Earth reports.
Santa trackers will begin answering phones and replying to email at 4:00 a.m. MST (6:00 a.m. EST) on Christmas Eve. Children of all ages can call the NTS toll free number 1-877-Hi-NORAD (1-877-446-6723) or send an email to noradtrackssanta@gmail.com.
The NTS program is carried out with the assistance of many corporate partners. Booz Allen Hamilton has designed the NTS Web site. Other sponsors helping with the event include Verizon, who donates the toll-free number, Time Warner, Avaya and PCI provide communications engineering, while OnStar, 5 Star Bank, Pepsi Distributing and First Choice Awards and Gifts keep the trackers happy with food, beverages and souvenir tracking pins.
The NTS program began on Dec. 24, 1955, after a phone call was made to the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The call was from a local youngster who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a local newspaper advertisement. The commander at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Colo. who answered the phone that night gave the youngster the information requested – the whereabouts of Santa. This began the tradition of tracking Santa, a tradition that was carried on by NORAD when it was formed in 1958.
The NTS program has grown immensely since first presented on the Internet in 1998. The Web site receives millions of unique visitors from hundreds of countries and territories around the world. In addition, the NTS Operations Center will be occupied for 25 hours with over 1,200 volunteers on Christmas Eve, who will be receiving hundreds of thousands phone calls and emails from families around the world.
We look forward to helping you with NORAD Tracks Santa!
Evenings at Whitney – Sea Level Rise – St. Augustine, Fl
The challenges of climate change and sea-level rise for humans are nothing new to Florida. Evenings at Whitney lecture explores how ancient Floridians dealt with sea level rise. ridians. Since the end of the Ice Age, rising water has shaped culture change for hundreds of generations of Native American ancestors. As water levels rose, dwellings were inundated and ancient Floridians were forced to find new places to settle and new ways to subsist. But what became of their belief systems and the ritual practices that rationalized their place in the world? Archaeological evidence for the ceremonial practices of ancient Floridians suggests that the ritual practices of native people, like the practices of everyday living, were responsive to changes in ecology and geography. At the same time, sacred beliefs about water and watery creatures seem to have remained intact. This pattern of “persistence through change” is illustrated in the archaeological record of the pond cemeteries and shell mounds of northeast Florida. Encased in this record of ancient ritual experience are lessons that may help us cope with our own environmental challenges.
This unique way of looking at sea level rise will be presented by Kenneth E. Sassaman, Ph.D., the Hyatt and Cici Brown Professor of Florida Archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida. His Evenings at Whitney lecture will be December 10 at 7:00 p.m. in the Center for Marine Studies at the Whitney Lab. Dr. Sassaman’s research in Florida has centered on the mid-Holocene hunter-gatherers of the middle St. Johns River Valley, notably on the circumstances surrounding the construction of some of the oldest shell mounds in North America. In 2009, Sassaman launched the Lower Suwannee Archaeological Survey to develop data on coastal living pertinent to the challenges of sea-level rise today. He is the author or editor of eight books and over 90 articles, chapters, and monographs.
The Evenings at Whitney lectures usually occur on the first or second Thursday of each month depending on the speaker and are always held at 7:00 p.m. in the Whitney Lab’s Center for Marine Studies. Monthly presentations include current science topics, plus subjects from on-going research programs at the Whitney Lab. Speakers are recognized experts in their fields who welcome questions and discussion. All lectures are free and open to the public. There is no charge for parking and reservations are not necessary.
Please visit www.whitney.ufl.edu for lecture schedules or contact the Whitney Lab at (904) 461-4000.
Crazy Quilts – Charleston, South Carolina
As part of an ongoing rotation of quilts from its permanent textile collection, The Charleston Museum will showcase the “craziest” quilts in the collection. From December 5, 2009 to March 28, 2010, visitors will have the chance to view twelve “crazy quilts,” a style popular during the last three decades of the 19th century.
Crazy quilts are characterized by the use of lavish fabrics such as velvets, satins, and silks, as well as commemorative pieces, symbols, and needlework embellishments.
“Crazy quilts were not unlike modern day scrapbooks,” notes curator of textiles Jan Hiester. “They were highly personalized, marked special moments in the maker’s life, and preserved memories.”
Crazy quilts were comprised of an array of colors, elaborate embroidery, and were usually fairly small and decorative rather than functional. Oddly shaped scraps sewn to a foundation fabric with diverse stitches are the basics of crazy quilt manufacture. The random, irregular shapes throughout the quilts are “crazed” to resemble
cracked ice and crackled Japanese and Chinese ceramics popular with Victorians. Crazy quilts were also known as kaleidoscope and Japanese patchwork.
For more information about the Crazy Quilt exhibit, please visit www.charlestonmuseum.org or call 722-2996.
The Charleston Museum will offer special programming in conjunction with the crazy quilt exhibit. Quilters and non-quilters alike can explore the basics of crazy quilting with Museum staff during a one-day workshop. For a twist on crazy quilting, the Museum will partner with Blue Heron Glass once again for a fused glass workshop. Program details will be available at the beginning of the year. Please visit www.charlestonmuseum.org for more information.
Photos courtesy of The Charleston Museum, Charleston, SC.
3rd Annual Holiday Home Tour in Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, FL
3rd Annual Holiday Home Tour in Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, FL takes place on December 4th and 5th, 2009.
The Amelia Island Museum of History showcases the 3rd annual Holiday Home Tour in historic Fernandina Beach this weekend. Five unique homes, never before open to the public, has been chosen for the tour.
The Holiday Home Tour will take place on December 4th and 5th, 2009, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Tour tickets are $25 in advance and $30 on the day of the tour.
You can also enjoy a Victorian-style tea at the historical Bailey House after the tour. Tickets are $15.
For more tickets and more information visit www.ameliamuseum.org or call (904) 261-7378 ext. 100.
For more information, visit our events calendar listing for the Holiday Tour of Homes in Fernandina