Every February, across the country, candy, flowers, and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint and why do we celebrate this holiday? The history of Valentine’s Day - and its patron saint - is shrouded in mystery. But we do know that February has long been a month of romance. St. Valentine’s Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. So, who was Saint Valentine and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? Today, the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred.
One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men - his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.
Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured.
According to one legend, Valentine actually sent the first ‘valentine’ greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl - who may have been his jailor’s daughter - who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed ‘From your Valentine,’ an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure. It’s no surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France.
While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial - which probably occurred around 270 A.D - others claim that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to ‘christianize’ celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia festival. In ancient Rome, February was the official beginning of spring and was considered a time for purification. Houses were ritually cleansed by sweeping them out and then sprinkling salt and a type of wheat called spelt throughout their interiors. Lupercalia, which began at the ides of February, February 15, was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.
Valentine’s Day Features
Celebrating a quiet Valentine’s Day at home? History.com brings you 15 of the best romances of all time.
To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at the sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would then sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification.
The boys then sliced the goat’s hide into strips, dipped them in the sacrificial blood and took to the streets, gently slapping both women and fields of crops with the goathide strips. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed being touched with the hides because it was believed the strips would make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would then each choose a name out of the urn and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage. Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day around 498 A.D. The Roman ‘lottery’ system for romantic pairing was deemed un-Christian and outlawed. Later, during the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of February - Valentine’s Day - should be a day for romance. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. The greeting, which was written in 1415, is part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England. Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.
In Great Britain, Valentine’s Day began to be popularly celebrated around the seventeenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth century, it was common for friends and lovers in all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes. By the end of the century, printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of one’s feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine’s Day greetings. Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began to sell the first mass-produced valentines in America.
According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.)
Approximately 85 percent of all valentines are purchased by women. In addition to the United States, Valentine’s Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.
Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages (written Valentine’s didn’t begin to appear until after 1400), and the oldest known Valentine card is on display at the British Museum. The first commercial Valentine’s Day greeting cards produced in the U.S. were created in the 1840s by Esther A. Howland. Howland, known as the Mother of the Valentine, made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as “scrap”.
Katie Stam of Indiana was crowned Miss America on Saturday night, fighting off a throat infection, laryngitis and 51 other contestants to win the 88-year-old pageant.
 Katie R. Stam, Miss Indiana, reacts after being crowned Miss America during the 2009 Miss America Pageant at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino January 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The 22-year-old University of Indianapolis student became the first Miss America winner from the Hoosier State. She drew loud applause for her rendition of “Via Dolorosa” during the talent portion of the beauty pageant at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
Stam said she had trouble sleeping one night this week while she took prescription medicine to fight the infection, but got her voice back by Thursday.
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“I was feeling like myself again — I will never take my health for granted,” she said.
The Seymour native also strutted onstage in a black bikini and an off-the-shoulder, white lace evening gown. During the interview portion of the competition she decried the use of performance-enhancing drugs among professional athletes and discussed the definition of glamour.
“That beauty that you feel on the inside, it’s that confidence, that radiance inside of you, that’s what glamour is,” Stam said.
 Katie R. Stam (L), Miss Indiana, reacts as she is named the new Miss America as finalists Jackie Geist (C), Miss California, and Ellen Carrington (R), Miss Tennessee, look on during the 2009 Miss America Pageant at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino January 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.Ethan Miller/Getty Images - Sunday, January, 25, 2009, 7:25 AM
Stam won a $50,000 scholarship and hopes to obtain a bachelor’s degree in communications and become a television news anchor. She began competing in pageants at age 15.
Stam was crowned by reigning Miss America Kirsten Haglund of Michigan and will soon embark on a year of travel and public appearances.
She said she had one semester left in school — but didn’t know when she would finish — and already was graduating debt-free without the $50,000 prize. Stam said she might use the money for graduate school.
The first runner-up was Miss Georgia Chasity Hardman, who took home a $25,000 scholarship.
The 52 young women took to the stage in blue jeans, bikinis and ballgowns following a mini-reality series on pageant prep work and a week of preliminary competition.
 Katie R. Stam, Miss Indiana, reacts after being crowned Miss America during the 2009 Miss America Pageant at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino January 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
After an opening dance number and the traditional parade of states, judges and fans immediately trimmed the field to 15 finalists. Five more were trimmed based on swimsuit and evening gown competitions, while the remaining 10 went on to showcase their dancing, singing and other skills during the talent portion.
“This gown nearly blinds people,” Miss Arkansas Ashlen Batson said in a video clip played as she walked onstage in a silver dress with beading. Batson was eliminated before she could play her flute in the talent competition.
Miss Hawaii Nicole Fox drew cheers as she performed a traditional Tahitian dance, wearing a huge white feathered headdress and skirt to match. After she exited, part of her skirt remained on the stage.
 Miss America 2008 Kirsten Haglund crowns Katie R. Stam, Miss Indiana, the new Miss America during the 2009 Miss America Pageant at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino January 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In a new twist, viewers of a lead-in reality show, “Miss America: Countdown to the Crown” voted in four of the 15 finalists, while the judges announced the other 11 during a live TLC television broadcast.
The four finalists chosen by viewers were Stam, the eventual winner, and Hardman, the first runner-up, as well as Miss South Dakota Alexandra Hoffman and Miss Alabama Amanda Tapley.
The other 11 women remaining after the opening number were: Batson, Fox, Miss Michigan Ashlee Baracy, Miss Delaware Galen Giaccone, Miss District of Columbia Kate Marie Grinold, Miss Iowa Olivia Myers, Miss New York Leigh-Taylor Smith, Miss California Jackie Geist, Miss Florida Sierra Minott, Miss Kentucky Emily Cox and Miss Tennessee Ellen Carrington.
The viewer interaction to name four contestants as “America’s choice” was Discovery-owned TLC’s attempt to stoke interest in this year’s contestants. Once an American icon, the shine on Miss America’s crown has been dimmed by slipping ratings and the popularity of more salacious reality shows.
The pageant was dropped from network television after the 2004 pageant drew a record low viewership. It found a home in Las Vegas after moving from its longtime location in Atlantic City, N.J., but it has struggled to get its footing on cable.
In its second year on TLC, Mario Lopez, of “Extra,” hosted with an assist from Clinton Kelly of TLC’s “What Not to Wear.” Judges include actress Laura Bell Bundy, Miss America 1999 Nicole Johnson, hairstylist Ken Paves and Olympic swimmer Cullen Jones.
As always, the women competed in swimsuit, evening gown and talent competitions, as well as a short “interview,” in which they were asked their thoughts on a current event or hot topic. TLC has tried to dash the days of answers that declared that “children are the future.” Questions came from average people and were intended to put the contestants on the spot.
TLC also had some fun with the cliches of pageants past. For example, in its scorecard for home viewers posted online, it asked viewers to count the number of mentions of world peace and to name the contestant with best spray tan.
Valentine’s Day or Saint Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine’s cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of “valentines.” Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards.The sending of Valentines was a fashion in nineteenth-century Great Britain, and, in 1847, Esther Howland developed a successful business in her Worcester, Massachusetts home with hand-made Valentine cards based on British models. The popularity of Valentine cards in 19th-century America was a harbinger of the future commercialization of holidays in the United States.
The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. The association estimates that women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.
Numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine.Until 1969, the Catholic Church formally recognized eleven Valentine’s Days. The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome (Valentinus presb. m. Romae) and Valentine of Terni (Valentinus ep. Interamnensis m. Romae).Valentine of Rome was a priest in Rome who suffered martyrdom about AD 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. His relics are at the Church of Saint Praxed in Rome.and at Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland.
Valentine of Terni became bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) about AD 197 and is said to have been killed during the persecution of Emperor Aurelian. He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than Valentine of Rome. His relics are at the Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni (Basilica di San Valentino).
The Catholic Encyclopedia also speaks of a third saint named Valentine who was mentioned in early martyrologies under date of February 14. He was martyred in Africa with a number of companions, but nothing more is known about him. Some sources say the Valentine linked to romance is Valentine of Rome, others say Valentine of Terni. Some scholars (such as the Bollandists) have concluded that the two were originally the same person.
No romantic elements are present in the original early medieval biographies of either of these martyrs. By the time a Saint Valentine became linked to romance in the fourteenth century, distinctions between Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni were utterly lost.
In the 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, the feastday of Saint Valentine on February 14 was removed from the General Roman Calendar and relegated to particular (local or even national) calendars for the following reason: “Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14.”The feast day is still celebrated in Balzan (Malta) where relics of the saint are claimed to be found, and also throughout the world by Traditionalist Catholics who follow the older, pre-Vatican II calendar.
The Early Medieval acta of either Saint Valentine were excerpted by Bede and briefly expounded in Legenda Aurea.According to that version, St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.
Legenda Aurea still providing no connections whatsoever with sentimental love, appropriate lore has been embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail. In an embellishment to The Golden Legend, on the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he wrote the first “valentine” himself, addressed to a young girl variously identified as his beloved,as the jailer’s daughter whom he had befriended and healed,or both. It was a note that read “From your Valentine.”
Lupercalia
Though popular modern sources link unspecified Greco-Roman February holidays alleged to be devoted to fertility and love to St Valentine’s Day, Professor Jack Oruch of the University of Kansas argued that prior to Chaucer, no links between the Saints named Valentinus and romantic love existed. Thus, it is immaterial to the history of Valentine’s Day whether or not in the ancient Athenian calendar the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera.
In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia, observed February 13 through 15, was an archaic rite connected to fertility, without overtones of romance. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning “Juno the purifier “or “the chaste Juno,” was celebrated on February 13-14. Pope Gelasius I (492-496) abolished Lupercalia.
While it is a common opinion that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to christianize celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia, no connection has been demonstrated.
Geoffrey Chaucer by Thomas Occleve (1412)
Chaucer’s love birds
While some claim the first recorded association of Valentine’s Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer this may be the result of misinterpretation. Chaucer wrote:
For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
This poem was written to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia.A treaty providing for a marriage was signed on May 2, 1381.(When they were married eight months later, he was 13 or 14, and she was 14.)
Readers have uncritically assumed that Chaucer was referring to February 14 as Valentine’s Day; however, mid-February is an unlikely time for birds to be mating in England. Henry Ansgar Kelly has pointed out that in the liturgical calendar, May 2 is the saints’ day for Valentine of Genoa. This St. Valentine was an early bishop of Genoa who died around AD 307.
Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules is set in a fictional context of an old tradition, but in fact there was no such tradition before Chaucer. The speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among eighteenth-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler’s Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. Most notably, “the idea that Valentine’s Day customs perpetuated those of the Roman Lupercalia has been accepted uncritically and repeated, in various forms, up to the present”
Medieval period and the English Renaissance
Using the language of the law courts for the rituals of courtly love, a “High Court of Love” was established in Paris on Valentine’s Day in 1400. The court dealt with love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. Judges were selected by women on the basis of a poetry reading.
The earliest surviving valentine is a fifteenth-century rondeau written by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his “valentined” wife, which commences.
At the time, the duke was being held in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415.
Valentine’s Day is mentioned ruefully by Ophelia in Hamlet (1600-1601):
To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
(William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5)
Valentine’s Day postcard, circa 1910
Modern times
The reinvention of Saint Valentine’s Day in the 1840s has been traced by Leigh Eric Schmidt.As a writer in Graham’s American Monthly observed in 1849, “Saint Valentine’s Day… is becoming, nay it has become, a national holyday.”In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828-1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father operated a large book and stationery store, but Howland took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received, so clearly the practice of sending Valentine’s cards had existed in England before it became popular in North America. The English practice of sending Valentine’s cards appears in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mr. Harrison’s Confessions (published 1851). Since 2001, the Greeting Card Association has been giving an annual “Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary.” The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. The association estimates that women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.
Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards.The mid-nineteenth century Valentine’s Day trade was a harbinger of further commercialized holidays in the United States to follow.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the practice of exchanging cards was extended to all manner of gifts in the United States, usually from a man to a woman.Such gifts typically include roses and chocolates packed in a red satin, heart-shaped box. In the 1980s, the diamond industry began to promote Valentine’s Day as an occasion for giving jewelry. The day has come to be associated with a generic platonic greeting of “Happy Valentine’s Day.” As a joke, Valentine’s Day is also referred to as “Singles Awareness Day.” In some North American elementary schools, children decorate classrooms, exchange cards, and eat sweets. The greeting cards of these students often mention what they appreciate about each other.
The rise of Internet popularity at the turn of the millennium is creating new traditions. Millions of people use, every year, digital means of creating and sending Valentine’s Day greeting messages such as e-cards, love coupons or printable greeting cards.
A Christmas Story is a 1983 film based on the short stories and semi-fictional anecdotes of author and raconteur Jean Shepherd, including material from his books In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories. It was directed by Bob Clark.
Tagline: “A Tribute to the Original, Traditional, One-Hundred-Percent, Red-Blooded, Two-Fisted, All-American Christmas…”
Plot Synopsis
The movie takes place in 1940 in the fictional northern Indiana town of Hohman (based on real-life Hammond, IN). 9-year-old Ralph “Ralphie” Parker (Peter Billingsley) wants only one thing for Christmas - “an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle (BB Gun) with a compass in the stock, and this thing which tells time.”
Between run-ins with his younger brother Randy (Ian Petrella) and having to handle school bully Scut Farkus (Zack Ward), Ralphie doesn’t know how he’ll ever survive long enough to get the BB gun for Christmas.
The plot revolves around Ralphie’s overcoming a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to his owning the precious Red Ryder BB gun: the fear that he will shoot his eye out. In each of the film’s three acts, Ralphie makes his case to another individual - each time he is met by the same retort. When Ralphie asks his mother (Melinda Dillon) for a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, she says, “No, you’ll shoot your eye out.” Next, when Ralphie writes a theme about the BB gun for Mrs. Shields (Tedde Moore), his teacher at Harding Elementary School, Ralphie gets a C+, and Mrs. Shields writes “P.S. You’ll shoot your eye out” on it. Finally, Ralphie asks a department store Santa Claus (Jeff Gillen) for a Red Ryder BB gun, and Santa responds, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.”
One day, Scut Farkus and his sidekick Grover Dill (Yano Anaya) tease Ralphie on the way home from school. The frustrated Ralphie knocks Grover Dill to the ground and beats Scut’s face bloody. Ralphie’s mother decides to not tell his father about the fight and Ralphie does not get punished.
On Christmas morning, Ralphie’s disappointment turns to joy as his father (Darren McGavin) points out one last half-hidden present, ostensibly from Santa. As Ralphie unwraps the BB gun, Mr. Parker explains the purchase to his wife, stating that he had one himself when he was 8 years old.
Ralphie goes out to test his new gun, shooting at a paper target perched on top of a metal sign, and predictably gets a ricochet from the metal sign. This ricochet ends up hitting just below his eye, which causes him to flinch and lose his glasses. While searching for the glasses, Ralphie ends up stepping on them with his snow boot, subsequently breaking them. However, he concocts a story to his mother about an icicle falling on him and breaking his glasses, which she believes.
Suddenly, a horde of the next door neighbor’s dogs, which frequently bother Ralphie’s father, manage to get into the house and eat the turkey. On a last minute choice, Ralphie’s father takes everyone out to a Chinese restaurant where they eat what the narrator calls “Chinese Turkey”.
Subplots
Several subplots are incorporated in the body of the film, based on other separate short stories by Shepherd. The most notable involves the Old Man (Darren McGavin) winning a “major award.” He entered a trivia contest out of the newspaper, which asked for the name of The Lone Ranger’s nephew’s horse (thanks to his wife, who supplied the answer). A large crate arrived and inside was a lamp shaped like a woman’s leg wearing fishnet stockings, much to Mrs. Parker’s displeasure. The leg was the logo of the contest’s sponsor, the Nehi bottling company (the details of the contest were not necessarily made clear in the movie).
Other vignettes include:
* Ralphie’s friends Flick and Schwartz disputing over whether or not a person’s tongue will stick to a frozen flagpole. Schwartz ultimately issues Flick a “triple dog dare” (the most serious of those used by the kids; he bypasses a “triple dare” from a “double dog dare”, a serious boyhood protocol breach), and Flick’s tongue gets stuck to the pole, much to his terror. A suction tube within the flagpole was used to simulate the freezing of Flick’s tongue to the pole.
* Ralphie receiving his Little Orphan Annie Secret Society decoder pin, and learning a lesson about being ripped off (his first secret message with the pin turned out to be an Ovaltine radio commercial).
* Ralphie and his friends dealing with the neighborhood bully, Scut Farkus (Zack Ward).
* The Old Man’s legendary battles with the aging and malfunctioning furnace.
* Ralphie letting slip the dreaded “f-dash-dash-dash” word (after his father knocks a hubcap from his hands, spilling its contents, the lug nuts from a flat tire) and later, when asked where he’d heard the word, falsely blaming his friend, Schwartz, instead of pointing out that his father utters the word daily.
* The numerous smelly and bothersome hound dogs of the next door neighbors, the Bumpuses, including the dogs destroying the Christmas turkey (prompting the family to go out and have Peking duck in its stead, resulting in a giggling fit by the mother and the boys).
* Several fantasy sequences depict Ralphie’s daydreams of glory and vindication, including the vanquishing of prison-striped villains, an extremely good grade for his written theme about the BB gun, and parental remorse over a case of “soap poisoning” (related to his swearing).
Major credits
The movie was written by Jean Shepherd, Leigh Brown and Bob Clark. Shepherd provides the movie’s narration from the perspective of an adult Ralphie, a narrative style later used in the dramedy The Wonder Years. Shepherd also has a cameo appearance in the department store scene, as the man who directs Ralphie and Randy to the end of the line. Director Clark has a cameo as Swede, the neighbor who questions the Old Man about the Leg Lamp.
Cast
* Peter Billingsley as Ralphie Parker - the film’s protagonist, a nine year old imaginative dreamer
* Darren McGavin as The Old Man (Mr. Parker) - Ralphie’s dad is at the center of the Major Award vignette, and is depicted using colorful nonsensical invective. His first name is never revealed.
* Melinda Dillon as Mrs. Parker - Ralphie’s mom is the primary dispenser of the oft-repeated phrase, “You’ll shoot your eye out.”
* Ian Petrella as Randy Parker - Ralphie’s younger brother, who will not eat his meatloaf
* Scott Schwartz as Flick - Ralphie’s friend, who learns about tongues and cold metal the hard way
* R.D. Robb as Schwartz - Ralphie’s other friend, on whom Ralphie pins the blame for his knowing “the f-dash-dash-dash word”
* Tedde Moore as Miss Shields - Ralphie’s fourth grade teacher, the only on-screen character played by the same actor in the sequel, My Summer Story
* Zack Ward as Scut Farkus - the neighborhood bully, who torments Ralphie and his friends en route to and from school
* Yano Anaya as Grover Dill - Scut’s toadie, who is promoted to main bully in My Summer Story
* Jeff Gillen as Santa Claus - the rather frightening and cranky department store incarnation of “the Head Honcho,” who delivers the last blow to Ralphie’s hope for a BB gun
* Jean Shepherd as adult Ralphie - the narrator (also has an on-screen cameo; see above)
* Drew Hocevar as one of the two Christmas Elves. He is the one paired with the Department Store Santa.
* David Svoboda as Goggles (little boy in line, wearing goggles).
* Helen E Kaider as the Wicked Witch - one of the Oz characters, as seen in the department store.
In the DVD commentary, director Bob Clark mentions that Jack Nicholson was considered for the role of the Old Man; Clark expresses gratitude that he ended up with Darren McGavin instead, who also appeared in several other Clark films. He cast Melinda Dillon on the basis of her similar role in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Peter Billingsley was already a minor star from co-hosting the TV series Real People; Clark initially wanted him for the role of Ralphie, but decided he was “too obvious” a choice and auditioned many other young actors before realizing that Billingsley was the right one after all. Ian Petrella was cast immediately before filming began. Tedde Moore had previously appeared in Clark’s film Murder by Decree, and Jeff Gillen was an old friend of Clark’s who had been in one of his earliest films.
History and related works
Three of the semi-autobiographical short stories on which the film is based were originally published in Playboy magazine between 1964 and 1966.[4] Shepherd later read “Duel in the Snow, or Red Ryder nails the Cleveland Street Kid” and told the otherwise unpublished story “Flick’s Tongue” on his WOR Radio talk show, as can be heard in one of the DVD extras.Bob Clark states on the DVD commentary that he became interested in Shepherd’s work when he heard “Flick’s Tongue” on the radio in 1968. Additional source material for the film, according to Clark, came from unpublished anecdotes Shepherd told live audiences “on the college circuit.”
Initially overlooked as a sleeper film, A Christmas Story was released a week before Thanksgiving 1983 to moderate success, earning about $2 million in its first weekend.Critics generally supported the film. Leonard Maltin proclaimed it a “Top screen comedy,”while Roger Ebert proclaimed it “Funny and satirical…a sort of Norman Rockwell crossed with MAD magazine.”The film would go on to win two Genie Awards, for Bob Clark’s screenplay and direction.[8] Years later, Ebert would re-evaluate the film, this time more favorably, writing that “some of the movie sequences stand as classic.”On December 24, 2007, AOL ranked the film their #1 Christmas movie of all time.
By Christmas 1983, however, the movie was no longer playing at most venues, but remained in about a hundred theaters until January 1984.Gross earnings were just over $19.2 million.In the years since, due to television airings and home video release, A Christmas Story has become widely popular and is now a perennial Christmas special. Originally released by MGM, Warner Bros. (through Turner Entertainment Co.) now has ownership of the film due to Ted Turner’s purchase of MGM’s pre-1986 library and Time Warner’s subsequent purchase of Turner Entertainment.
Television
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the film began airing quietly on SuperStation WTBS and Superstation WGN (now known as WGN America).From 1988-1992, the film had a short-lived tradition of airing Thanksgiving night (or the night after Thanksgiving) to open the holiday television season. In 1988, then-fledgling FOX aired the movie the night after Thanksgiving.In 1989-1990, TBS showed it Thanksgiving night, while in 1991-1992, they aired it the night after.
Turner broadcasting, now a part of the TimeWarner umbrella of cable networks, has maintained ownership of the broadcast rights, and since the mid-1990s, airing the movie increasingly on TBS, TNT and TCM. By 1995, it was aired on those networks a combined six times over December 24-25-26,and in 1996, it was aired eight times over those three days.
Due to the increasing popularity of the film, in 1997 TNT began airing a 24-hour marathon dubbed “24 Hours of A Christmas Story,” consisting of the film shown twelve consecutive times beginning at 7 or 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve and ending Christmas Day.This was in addition to various other airings earlier in the month of December. In 2004, after TNT switched to a predominantly drama format, sister network TBS, under its comedy-based “Very Funny” moniker, took over the marathon. Clark stated that in 2002, an estimated 38.4 million people tuned into the marathon at one point or another, nearly one sixth of the country.TBS reported 45.4 million viewers in 2005,and 45.5 million in 2006.In 2007, new all-time ratings records were set,with the highest single showing (8 p.m. Christmas Eve) drawing 4.4 million viewers.
In 2007, the original tradition was revived, as TNT aired the film twice the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend (November 25). The 24-hour marathon continued on TBS for the eleventh year, starting at 8 p.m. eastern on Christmas Eve.
Subsequent works
A movie sequel involving Ralphie and his family, called My Summer Story (alternate title It Runs in the Family) was made in 1994. With the exceptions of Tedde Moore as Ralphie’s teacher (Miss Shields) and Jean Shepherd as the narrator (the voice of the adult Ralphie), it features an entirely different cast. A series of television movies involving the Parker family, also from Shepherd stories, was made by PBS, including Ollie Hopnoodle’s Haven of Bliss, The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters, and The Phantom of the Open Hearth.
In the year 2000, an authorized stage play adaptation of A Christmas Story was written by Philip Grecian and is produced widely each Christmas season. In 2003, Broadway Books published the five Jean Shepherd short stories from which the movie and stage play were adapted in a single volume under the title A Christmas Story (ISBN 0-7679-1622-0), with stories including: “Duel in the Snow, or Red Ryder nails the Cleveland Street Kid”, “The Counterfeit Secret Circle Member Gets the Message, or The Asp Strikes Again”, “My Old Man and the Lascivious Special Award that Heralded the Birth of Pop Art”, “Grover Dill and the Tasmanian Devil”, and “The Grandstand Passion Play of Delbert and the Bumpus Hounds”. This collection was also released as an audio book (ISBN 0-7393-1674-5), read by Dick Cavett.
The book Excelsior, You Fathead! The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd (2005, ISBN 0-55783-600-0), has several sections which comment on the movie A Christmas Story.
Home releases
* Betamax (1985)
* VHS (1984, 1985, 1993, 1994, 1999, 2000)
* Laserdisc (1985): pan & scan
* Laserdisc (1993): Delux letterbox edition
* DVD (1997, reissued by Warner Home Video in 1999): fullscreen, includes original theatrical trailer
* DVD (2003) 20th Anniversary 2-Disc Special Edition DVD (2003): Widescreen; includes cast interviews, audio commentary, and featurettes.
* HD DVD (2006)
* Blu-ray (2008)
* DVD (2008) Ultimate Collector’s Edition: Features the same 2003 2-disc special edition, but includes special memorabilia.
Settings
Locations
The front of the Parker’s house where A Christmas Story was filmed, in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland’s west side
The movie is set in a fictional town in Indiana, strongly resembling Hammond, Indiana where writer Jean Shepherd grew up.Local references in the film include Warren G. Harding Elementary School, and Cleveland Street (where Shepherd spent his childhood years). Other Indiana references in the dialogue include a mention of a person “swallowing a yo-yo” in nearby Griffith, Indiana, the Old man being one of the fiercest “furnace fighters in northern Indiana” and that his obscenities were “hanging in space over Lake Michigan,” a mention of the Indianapolis 500, and the line to Santa Claus “stretching all the way to Terre Haute.” The Old Man is also revealed to be a fan of the Bears (although he calls them the “Chicago Chipmunks”) and White Sox, consistent with living in northwest Indiana.
The school scenes were shot at the Victoria School in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. The school was sold to developers in 2005 and has been remodeled into a women’s shelter. The Christmas tree purchasing scene was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, as it was the only location that still used red PCC streetcars - in fact, TTC streetcars can be seen during the scene. Ralphie beating up the neighborhood bully was also filmed in Toronto, as was the soundstage filming of interior shots of the Parker home.The St. Catharines’ Museum owns some props used in the film, including two pairs of Ralphie’s glasses (one of which is the smashed pair), and two scripts.
Director Bob Clark reportedly sent location scouts to twenty cities before selecting Cleveland, Ohio, as the principal site for filming. Higbee’s department store in downtown Cleveland was the stage for three scenes in A Christmas Story. The first is the opening scene in which Ralphie first spies the Red Ryder BB Gun. The second is the parade scene, filmed just outside Higbee’s, on Public Square, at 3 AM. The final scene is Ralphie and Randy’s visit to see Santa which was filmed inside Higbee’s. Higbee’s kept the Santa slide that was made for the movie and used it for several years after the movie’s release. Higbee’s was known for decades as a cornerstone of Public Square, as well as for its elaborate child-centered Christmas themes and decorations (e.g. the Twigbee Shop), with Santa as the centerpiece, until the store, which became Dillard’s in 1992, closed for good in 2002.Higbee’s was exclusive to Northeast Ohio — there were no Higbee’s stores in Shepherd’s hometown. As such, he was most likely referring to Goldblatts in downtown Hammond (with the Cam-Lan Chinese Restaurant three doors down on Sibley Ave.)
The exterior shots (and select interior shots, including the opening of the leg lamp) of the house and neighborhood where Ralphie lived were filmed in the Tremont section of Cleveland’s West Side. The house used as the Parker home in these scenes has been restored, reconfigured inside to match the soundstage interiors, and opened to the public as A Christmas Story House. The “…only I didn’t say fudge” scene was filmed at the foot of Cherry Street in Toronto.
In 2008, two fans from Canada released a fan film documentary that visits every location used in the movie. Their film, Road Trip for Ralphie, was shot over two years and includes footage of the film makers saving Miss Shields black board from the dumpster on the day the old Victoria School was gutted for renovation, discovering the antique fire truck that saved Flick, locating all the original costumes from the movie and tracking down the real-life location of the movie’s Chop Suey Palace in Toronto.Their fan film is for sale online.
Vehicles
Cleveland car buffs donated the use of a number of vintage vehicles for the film, which helped to enhance the authenticity of the production despite a limited budget. During filming in downtown Cleveland, members of a local antique automobile club, following a preset route, repeatedly circled the square. At the end of filming each day, the cars were thoroughly washed to remove road salt, and parked underground beneath the Terminal Tower.
The Parker’s car was a Model 6, four-door Oldsmobile sedan from 1937.
Dating the story
Based on certain key references to popular culture in the film, the story probably takes place in December 1939, the year the MGM film The Wizard of Oz came out. In December 1940, Ovaltine’s sponsorship of the Little Orphan Annie radio broadcasts had been over for 11 months.Additionally, the Old Man’s negative reference to the Chicago Bears makes 1939 most likely, since on Dec. 8, 1940 the Bears had just beaten the Washington Redskins 73-0 for the NFL Championship and his Chicago “Chipmunks” comment would hardly make sense. Ralphie’s new Radio Orphan Annie decoder pin is the 1940 model.
1939-40 is slightly later than author Jean Shepherd’s own childhood (he was 19 years old in 1940) but earlier than that of director Bob Clark (who was born in 1939). However, it should be noted that Shepherd was age 10 in 1931, while Clark was age 10 in 1949 - a separation of 18 years. If the consensus between Shepherd and Clark was to find a “middle-ground” for their youths, they may well have divided the difference in half (9), then added that amount of years to the earliest date (1931), thereby arriving at 1940.
However, the writers and producers intended, as director Bob Clark states in the movie’s commentary, to set the film in the “amorphously later Thirties, early Forties.” The Red Ryder BB gun was available during this period and for many years afterward, but never in the exact configuration mentioned in the film.Ralphie’s parents at one point are talking in the living room while the Bing Crosby/Andrews Sisters version of “Jingle Bells” - recorded in 1942 - is heard on the radio. A World War II time frame is consistent with the presence of shoppers in military uniforms peering into the display window, which contained a toy tank. During the flagpole scene, an accurate-period 48-star U.S. Flag is displayed.
Despite the many props and other indications of a 1939-1942 setting, one can find the occasional anachronism, such as Scut Farkus (and the Old Man in a fantasy sequence) wearing a coonskin cap, a piece of apparel more evocative of the 1950s. Ralphie’s father complains in the movie that “the Sox traded Bullfrog!” which is a reference to Chicago White Sox pitcher Bill Dietrich, who was in fact released from the Sox, not traded, in 1946.The police car (which can be seen through the classroom window) that responds to the stuck tongue is a 1947 Chevrolet. Following the tire change scene, a “49″ year tag can be seen on the license plate. Finally, Ralphie’s father wears a Royal Air Force issue flight cap in one scene, indicating that Mr. Parker was probably a volunteer American pilot for the RAF, which would imply a post-war setting. Such fuzziness of dating may be seen as a way to generalize the nostalgia for Ralphie’s childhood as applying to other time periods as well.
Popular music of the time was also used, ostensibly as coming from the radio. This included three Christmas songs sung by Bing Crosby, two of them in conjunction with the Andrews Sisters.
Original music for the film’s score was by Carl Zittrer, who worked with director Bob Clark on at least ten films between 1972 and 1998; and by Paul Zaza, who has worked with Clark on at least sixteen films, including Murder by Decree (1979) and My Summer Story (1994).
Parodies and homages
* The television show The Wonder Years was allegedly inspired by the film. The show, set in the 1960s, centered on its young male character, Kevin Arnold and his experiences growing up. It was narrated by an older, wiser Kevin (voiced by Daniel Stern), describing what is happening and what he learned from his experiences. Fantasy sequences, much like those in the film, were also used on occasion. Peter Billingsley makes a guest appearance as one of Kevin’s roommates on the series finale.
* The Starz cable network has an animated online parody of the film entitled “A Christmas Story in 30 Seconds(and Re-enacted by Bunnies),” produced in 2005 by Jennifer Shiman.
* For the 2006 Christmas season, Cingular Wireless commissioned a television commercial that featured a condensed version of the film’s story where the lead character has a similar obsession with getting a particular type of Motorola cell phone. The repeated admonition is “You’ll run the bill up!” (the commercial is for a prepaid service).
* A series of passwords from The Lost Vikings II (specifically, the pirate-themed levels) spell out “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine”, the coded message on the “Little Orphan Annie” show in the film.
* In a special Christmas episode of “MythBusters,” the plot of the “triple dog dare” was tested. It was found to be true: it is possible to get one’s tongue stuck to a pole and have difficulty getting it off.
* The Less Than Jake album “Hello Rockview” features a song called “Scott Farcas Takes It On The Chin”, a homage to the bully in the film.
* Fall Out Boy were featured on the album “A Santa Clause”, with a song entitled “Yule Shoot Your Eye Out”.
* Lupe Fiasco made a reference to Ralphie. On the unreleased song, “Gangsta [Up In Here].” He stated, “They wanna shoot out I/EYE like Ralphie.”
* In a Christmas commercial for Cartoon Network, Eustace Bagge dressed as Santa Claus from Courage the Cowardly Dog tells Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory who asks for a raygun for Christmas, “you’ll shoot your eye out, kid”, a homage to the film.
* In the Fallout videogame series, the Red Ryder LE BB gun is one of the most powerful weapons that a player can wield.
Sweetest Day is an observance celebrated primarily in the Great Lakes region and parts of the Northeast United States on the third Saturday in October. It is described by Retail Confectioners International as an “occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember not only the sick, aged and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed.”Sweetest Day has also been referred to as a “concocted promotion”created by the candy industry solely to increase sales of candy.
Origin
The origin of Sweetest Day is frequently attributed to candy company employee Herbert Birch Kingston as an act of philanthropy. However, Bill Lubinger, a reporter for The Plain Dealer, contends that “Dozens of Cleveland’s top candy makers concocted the promotion 84 years ago and it stuck, although it never became as widely accepted as hoped.”[5] The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s October 8, 1921 edition, which chronicles the first Sweetest Day in Cleveland, states that the first Sweetest Day was planned by a committee of 12 confectioners chaired by candymaker C. C. Hartzell. The Sweetest Day in the Year Committee distributed over 20,000 boxes of candy to “newsboys, orphans, old folks, and the poor” in Cleveland, Ohio[6]. The Sweetest Day in the Year Committee was assisted in the distribution of candy by some of the biggest movie stars of the day including Theda Bara and Ann Pennington.
There were also several attempts to start a “Sweetest Day” in New York City, including a declaration of a Candy Day throughout the United States by candy manufacturers on October 8, 1922.In 1927, The New York Times reported that “the powers that determine the nomenclature of the weeks of October” decreed that the week beginning on October 10, 1927 would be known as Sweetest Week.[9] On September 25, 1937, The New York Times reported under Advertising News and Notes that The National Confectioners Association had launched a “movement throughout the candy industry” to rank Sweetest Day with the nationally accepted Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and St. Valentine’s Day.In 1940, another Sweetest Day was proclaimed on October 19. The promotional event was marked by the distribution of more than 10,000 boxes of candy by the Sweetest Day Committee.The candy was distributed among 26 local charities. 225 children were given candy in the chapel at the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children on October 17, 1940.600 boxes of candy were also delivered to the presidents of the Jewish, Protestant and Catholic Big Sister groups of New York.
Today
Sweetest Day now largely involves giving small presents such as greeting cards, candy, and flowers to loved ones. While it is not as large or widely observed as Valentine’s Day, it is still celebrated in parts of the United States, despite persistent allegations of being a “Hallmark holiday.”
Retail Confectioners International describes it as “much more important for candymakers in some regions than in others (Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo being the biggest Sweetest Day cities)”.In 2006, Hallmark marketed 151 greeting card designs for Sweetest Day. American Greetings marketed 178.
KARACHI: The moon of Shawal 1, 1429 has been sighted in the country on Tuesday, so Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated tomorrow on Wednesday October 1, Ruet-i-Hilal committee (Central Moon Sighting Committee) announced here on Tuesday night.
Addressing a press conference, Chairman of the committee, Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman said that the committee received the authentic evidence of moon sighting from many parts of the country.
Special arrangements were made to facilitate the committee members to gather information about moon sighting from all across the country.
The representatives of relevant departments including Meteorological department and media persons were also present on the occasion.
Muneeb-ur-Rehman said that after receiving reports from zonal Ruet-i-Hilal committees of Karachi, Quetta, Lahore, and Peshawar, it was unanimously decided that Eid-ul-Fitr would be celebrated on Wednesday October 1.
He said that the committee also received reports of moon sighting from centers of Meteorological units, adding that there was also evidence of the sighting from coastal areas and Northern Areas.
Later, the committee members prayed for the prosperity and progress of the country.
Debuting on October 3, 1958, the Monterey Jazz Festival (MJF) is one of the longest consecutively running jazz festivals. It was co-founded by San Francisco jazz radio broadcaster Jimmy Lyons and his colleague, journalist Ralph J. Gleason. Since 1992, Tim Jackson has been general manager, and for fifteen years famed film director and actor Clint Eastwood has been on MJF’s board of directors.
The festival is held annually on the 20-acre, oak-studded Monterey Fairgrounds, located at 2000 Fairground Road in Monterey, California, USA on the third full weekend in September, beginning on Friday. More than 500 top jazz artists perform on nine stages spread throughout the grounds, with more than 50 concert performances. In addition, the Monterey Jazz Festival features jazz conversations, panel discussions, workshops, exhibitions, clinics, and an international array of food, shopping and festivities spread throughout the 20-acre Monterey Fairgrounds.
“While jazz radio and major labels cut back on musical choice and commitment, the Monterey Jazz Festival has widened its scope by expanding the parameters of jazz, blues, and rock. . . . Happily, MJF is now as diverse and vibrant as Gleason and Lyons imagined it ever could be.”
In 2006, the festival set an attendance record of more than 40,000, selling out all five major concerts on the main stage arena,and in 2007, more than 40,000 attended the 50th Golden Celebration.
Primary purpose
The Monterey Jazz Festival is not just about a three-day event. The primary purpose of the non-profit MJF is to fund jazz education programs throughout the United States. Every year, the festival and its associated activities raises hundreds of thousands of dollars, provides scholarships for promising young musicians to attend the Berklee School of Music, and features the nation’s most talented middle school, high school and college jazz musicians and vocalists opportunities to shine on the stages. Starting with a modest $35,000 scholarship fund in 1970, the Monterey Jazz Festival now invests over $500,000 annually for jazz education in a variety of different programs which are a model of arts education for the entire nation.[6] Every Spring, the Monterey Jazz Festival invites the top student musicians from across the country and around the world to participate in the “Next Generation Festival”. With the MJF National High School Jazz Competition, free concerts and clinics, as well as auditions for MJF’s Next Generation Jazz Orchestra (which performs at MJF and in a North American and European tour).
Notable performers by year
“It’s almost easier to say who was not there over the years than it is to say who was,” says Bill Minor, a jazz expert and author of a Monterey Jazz Festival history. “When you’re there, you get that sense of incredible history. [In one of my books], I talk about hearing these voices of the past. It’s impossible to be there and not do that.”Clark Terry holds the record with 20 paid gigs at MJF. Dave Brubeck was instrumental in getting city approval for the first festival in 1958. The founder and general manager of MJF for 35 years, Jimmy Lyons, brought Brubeck to Monterey to perform for the city council to persuade them to allow the festival to occur. He has performed at the Festival 14 times since then, which includes his appearance at the 2007 / 50th golden anniversary.
1958
The first festival included performers such as Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars, Dizzy Gillespie, Ernestine Anderson w/Gerald Wiggins, Cal Tjader Sextet, John Lewis, Shelly Manne, Art Farmer, Milt Jackson, Gerry Mulligan, Harry James Orchestra, Sonny Rollins, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Buddy DeFranco, Shelly Manne & His Men, Max Roach, Modern Jazz Quartet, Lizzie Miles, Benny Carter, and more.
“When Billie Holiday arrived at the Monterey grounds in 1958, Lady Day relaxed in the doorway of her dressing room wearing her fur coat and holding a tiny dog. “It’s sure beautiful here,” she sighed. During her performance, Billie wore a tight fitting skirt onstage and swayed uneasily from side to side, propped up by horn players Buddy DeFranco, Benny Carter, and Gerry Mulligan. She sang eleven songs, “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do”, “Willow Weep For Me”, “When Your Lover Has Gone”, “God Bless The Child”, “I Only Have Eyes for You”, “Good Morning Heartache”, “Them There Eyes”, “Billie’s Blues”, “What a Little Moonlight Can Do”, “Trav’lin’ Light”, and “Lover, Come Back to Me”. Holiday’s October 5 performance would be her only MJF appearance. She died nine months later.”
1959
Notable headliners Count Basie Orchestra w/Joe Williams, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughan, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Jimmy Witherspoon, Woody Herman & the All Stars w/ Ernestine Anderson, Charlie Byrd & Zoot Sims, Lizzie Miles, Ornette Coleman & Orchestra, and more.
1960
Duke Ellington Orchestra, Jon Hendricks w/Miriam Makeba, Clarence Horatius “Big” Miller, Odetta, Jimmy Witherspoon, Louis Armstrong All-Stars, John Coltrane Quartet, Modern Jazz Quartet, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, Ornette Coleman Quartet, Jimmy Rushing, Andre Previn Tio, and Helen Humes
1961
Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, Dave Brubeck Quartet, John Coltrane Quartet w/Eric Dolphy & Wes Montgomery, Carmen McRae, George Shearing Quintet, Odetta, and Jimmy Rushing
1962
Louis Armstrong All-Stars, Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, Carmen McRae, Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Stan Getz Quartet, Quincy Jones & the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra
1963
Carmen McRae, Miles Davis Quintet, Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk Quartet, Jon Hendricks, Harry James Orchestra, Jimmy Witherspoon, The Andrews Sisters & the Gospel Song, and Helen Merrill, Joe Sullivan
1964
Duke Ellington Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, Miles Davis Quintet w/Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter & Tony Williams, Gerry Mulligan, Thelonious Monk Quartet, Lou Rawls, Joe Williams, Woody Herman, Art Farmer Quartet, and Big Mama Thornton
1965
Louis Armstrong All-Stars, Duke Ellington Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie Quintet with Mary Stallings, Cal Tjader Quintet, John Handy Quintet, Clark Terry, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Harry James New Swingin’ Band w/Buddy Rich, Anita O’Day, Mary Lou Williams, and Ethel Ennis
1966
Duke Ellington Orchestra, Count Basie Orchestra, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Don Ellis Orchestra, Gerry Mulligan, Cannonball Adderley Quintet, Carmen McRae, Big Mama Thornton, Jefferson Airplane, Jimmy Rushing, Muddy Waters Band, and Charles Lloyd
1967
10th Anniversary headliners T-Bone Walker, B. B. King, Richie Havens, the Clara Ward Singers, Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, Modern Jazz Quartet, Ornette Coleman Quartet, Carmen McRae, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Richie Havens, and Big Brother & The Holding Company w/Janis Joplin
1968
Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, Count Basie Orchestra, Oscar Peterson Trio, Modern Jazz Quartet, Cal Tjader Quintet, Mel Torme, B. B. King, Muddy Waters, Billy Eckstine, Big Mama Thornton, and George Duke Trio w/Third Wave
1969
Miles Davis Quintet w/Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland & Jack DeJohnette, Thelonious Monk Quartet, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Cannonball Adderley Quintet, Roberta Flack & Her Trio, Sly and the Family Stone, and Buddy Rich Band
1970
Duke Ellington, Modern Jazz Quartet, Cannonball Adderley Quintet, Joe Williams, Johnny Otis Show w/Little Esther Phillips and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Woody Herman Orchestra, Buddy Rich Orchestra, Ivory Joe Hunter, Sonny Stitt & Gene Ammons
“Clint Eastwood filmed part of his “Play Misty for Me” movie at the festival in 1970, and used a lot of jazz in the film”.
1971
Dave Brubeck Quartet, Oscar Peterson Trio, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Erroll Garner, Jimmy Witherspoon & Friends, John Handy, and Mary Lou Williams
1972
Modern Jazz Quartet, John Hendricks, Jimmy Witherspoon, Cal Tjader Quintet, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins Quartet, Joe Williams, Herbie Hancock Septet, Quincy Jones Orchestra, and Roberta Flack
“Roberta Flack put a spell on Monterey in ‘72, singing “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.â€
1973
Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, Carmen McRae, Bo Diddley, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Pointer Sisters, Buddy Rich, Clark Terry, Jon Hendricks, Milt Jackson, and Max Roach
1974
Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Cal Tjader, Jon Hendricks, Mongo Santamaria, Clark Terry, Bo Diddley, Anita O’Day, Big Joe Turner, James Cotton Blues Band, and Jerome Richardson
1975
Dizzy Gillespie Quartet w/Cal Tjader, Etta James, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Betty Carter, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Sunnyland Slim
1976
Dizzy Gillespie, John Faddis,Clark Terry, Cal Tjader Quintet, Paul Desmond Quartet, Jimmy Witherspoon, Bill Berry Big Band, Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Band, Helen Humes,Heath Brothers, Eje Thelin Quartet, Gerald Wilson, Queen Ida and the Bon Temps Zydeco Band
1977
20th Anniversary headliners Cal Tjader, Joe Williams, Benny Carter, George Duke, Tito Puente Orchestra, Horace Silver Quintet, Gerald Wilson, and The Neville Brothers
1978
Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Burrell, The Hi-Lo’s, Billy Cobham, Bob Dorough, Dexter Gordon Quartet, and Ruth Brown
1979
Diane Schuur, Joe Williams, Aaron Neville, Sonny Stitt, Richie Cole, Flora Purim, Red Mitchell, Scott Hamilton, Earl King, Stan Getz Quintet, Helen Humes, Woody Herman, The Buddy Rich Band, Woody Shaw Quintet, and James Booker
1980
Sarah Vaughan, Cal Tjader Quartet, Freddie Hubbard Quintet, Manhattan Transfer, Big Joe Turner, and Dave Brubeck Quartet
1981
Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Band, Tania Maria, Tito Puente & Latin Percussion Sextet w/Poncho Sanchez, and Cal Tjader
1982
25th Silver Anniversary headliners Carmen McRae, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Dizzy Gillespie Quartet, Ernestine Anderson, Tito Puente Latin Jazz Big Band, Poncho Sanchez & His Jazz Band, Gerald Wilson & the Orchestra, Mel Lewis Orchestra, Joe Williams, Woody Herman & Ira Sullivan Quintet, and Etta James Band
1983
Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Tania Maria, Wynton Marsalis Quintet, Mel Torme, Bobby McFerrin, Bo Diddley, Irma Thomas, and Bobby Hutcherson Percussion Ensemble, Jon Faddis Band, and the Buddy Rich Band
1984
Ernestine Anderson, Etta James, Tito Puente w/Dianne Reeves, Clark Terry, James Moody, Bobby McFerrin, Benny Carter, Richie Cole, Al Cohn, and Shelly Mann Trio
1985
Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Clark Terry, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Woody Herman & the Thudering Herd, Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Band, Modern Jazz Quartet, and the Gerald Wilson Orchestra
1986
Tito Puente Latin Jazz Big Band, Art Farmer/Benny Golson Jazztet, Dianne Reeves, George Shearing, Bobby McFerrin, Rare Silk, Sue Raney, Etta James, John Lee Hooker & the Coast to Coast Blues Band, and Linda Hopkins
Joe Williams, Dianne Reeves, Diane Schuur, Carla Thomas, Mongo Santamaria, Benny Carter, Clark Terry, Richie Cole, Queen Ida & the Bon Temps Zydeco Band
1989
Freddie Hubbard Quintet w/Bobby Hutcherson, Dizzy Gillespie, Kitty Margolis, Herbie Mann & Jasil Brazz, Madeline Eastman, Tania Maria, Etta James & the Root Band, Jimmy McCracklin
1990
Dianne Reeves, Joe Williams, Oscar Peterson, Ernestine Anderson, Rebecca Parris, Etta James, Kitty Margolis, Michel Petrucciani Group, Spyro Gyra, Stan Getz Sextet, Stanley Turrentine Quintet, and the Gerald Wilson Orchestra
1991
Count Basie Orchestra, Phil Woods Quintet, Modern Jazz Quintet, Diane Schuur, Chick Corea, Charles Brown, Ruth Brown, Jon Hendricks & Company, Carol Sloane, and Jimmy McCracklin & the Linettes
1992
Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis Quartet, Kenny Burrell, Ron Carter, George Duke, Jimmy Smith, Stanley Turrentine, Betty Carter, Kitty Margolis, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Modern Jazz Quartet, Yellowjackets, Roy Hargrove Quintet, George Duke
Diana Krall Trio, Gerald Wilson Orchestra, Sonny Rollins, David Sanborn Group, Myra Melford Trio, Otis Rush, Arturo Sandoval, Koko Taylor & Her Blues Machine, and Charlie Hunter Quartet.
“The 40th Annual MJF was the year Diana Krall debuted and conquered the entire festival . . . She sang “Peel Me a Grape,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” “Frim Fram Sauce,” and “I Miss You So,” the crowd gave her a standing ovation.”
1998
Dee Dee Bridgewater w/MJF High School All-Star Big Band, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Elvin Jones Jazz Machine, Bobby Hutcherson Quartet, Tower of Power, and Al Jarreau
1999
Diana Krall, Terence Blanchard Sextet, Kyle Eastwood, Chris Potter, Joshua Redman, Lew Tabackin, Russell Maline, Clark Terry, Regina Carter, Kenny Barron, Ray Drummond, Ben Riley, The Manhattan Transfer, Ruth Brown, and Bobby “Blue” Bland
Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis Quartet, Taj Mahal, Jimmy Smith, Roberta Gambarini, Jane Monheit, Ravi Coltrane Quartet, McCoy Tyner Trio, Dave Holland Big Band, Regina Carter, and Deborah Coleman
2002
Nancy Wilson & Ramsey Lewis, Etta James & the Root Band, Marcia Ball, Paula West, Big Time Sarah, Dave Brubeck & Sons, and Lizz Wright
2003
Nnenna Freelon, Herbie Hancock Quartet w/Bobby Hutcherson, The Crusaders, and Mary Stallings
2004
Terence Blanchard Sextet, Bobby McFerrin, Take 6, Regina Carter Quintet, Marian McPartland Trio w/Lynne Arriale, Chaka Khan, Buddy Guy, and Bettye LaVette
2005
Tony Bennett, Sonny Rollins, Branford Marsalis Quartet, Mavis Staples, Kyle Eastwood, Larry Carlton & the Sapphire Blues Band w/special guest Ledisi, John Scofield, Banyan and New Orleans Jazz Vipers
2006
Oscar Peterson Trio w/Hank Jones & Clint Eastwood, Dianne Reeves, The Yellowjackets, Oscar Peterson, Bonnie Raitt, Hank Jones, the Charles Lloyd Quartet, Dave Brubeck, McCoy Tyner with Bobby Hutcherson, Roy Hargrove, Robert Lowery, Virgil Thrasher, Hank Jones with vocalist Roberta Gambarini, youthful piano phenom Eldar Djangirov, Ben Monder’s Trio, and Tierney Sutton with her all star trio, anchored by pianist Christian Jacob, and more
2007
50th Golden Celebration, presented Diana Krall, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Dave Brubeck w/Jim Hall, Gerald Wilson, Ernestine Anderson, John McLaughlin, Dave Holland, Kenny Burrell Quartet, Otis Taylor Band w/Cassie Taylor, Rashied Ali Quintet, Issac Delgado, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Los Lobos, James Moody, Vinnie Esparza, Sean Jones, Christian Scott, Cyrus Chestnut, and Terence Blanchard Quartet with Kendrick Scott
Building on the exciting and unprecedented legacy of fifty years of historic jazz presentation, the Monterey Jazz Festival 50th Anniversary Band will tour on 54-date, 10-week tour of the United States from January 8, 2008 to March 16, 2008. The band features jazz singer Nnenna Freelon, with trumpeter Terence Blanchard, pianist Benny Green, saxophonist James Moody, bassist Derrick Hodge and drummer Kendrick Scott.
2008
Nancy Wilson, Herbie Hancock, Cassandra Wilson, Terence Blanchard, Tom Scott, Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, Christian McBride Quintet, Kyle Eastwood, Joshua Redman Trio, The Derek Trucks Band, Maceo Parker, Ledisi, Jamie Cullum, Wayne Shorter Quartet, Kurt Elling
A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (commonly known as A Christmas Carol) is a novella by Charles Dickens[1] first published on December 19, 1843 with illustrations by John Leech.[2] The first of the author’s five “Christmas books”, the story was an instant success, selling over six thousand copies in one week, and the tale has become one of the most popular and enduring Christmas stories of all time.
Contemporaries noted that the story’s popularity played a critical role in redefining the importance of Christmas and the major sentiments associated with the holiday. A Christmas Carol was written during a time of decline in the old Christmas traditions.[3] “If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease”, said English poet Thomas Hood.
Plot introduction
A Christmas Carol is a Victorian morality tale of an old and bitter miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, who undergoes a profound experience of redemption over the course of one night. Mr. Scrooge is a financier/money-changer who has devoted his life to the accumulation of wealth. He holds anything other than money in contempt, including friendship, love and the Christmas season.
Plot summary
Ebenezer Scrooge encounters “Ignorance” and “Want” in A Christmas Carol.
Ebenezer Scrooge encounters “Ignorance” and “Want” in A Christmas Carol.
Stave I: Marley’s Ghost
On a snowy Christmas Eve, seven years to the day after the death of his business partner Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge and his downtrodden clerk Bob Cratchit are at work in Scrooge’s counting-house. Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, arrives with seasonal greetings and an invitation to Christmas dinner, but Scrooge dismisses him with “Bah! Humbug!”, declaring that Christmas is a fraud. Two gentlemen collecting charitable donations for the poor are likewise rebuffed by Scrooge, he insists that the poor laws and workhouses are sufficient to care for the poor, and that “If they would rather die [than go there], they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population”. As he and his clerk prepare to leave, he grudgingly permits Cratchit one day’s paid holiday the following day.
After dinner, Scrooge returns home to his cheerless rooms in an otherwise deserted building, and a series of supernatural experiences begins. His door knocker appears to transform into Marley’s face; a “locomotive hearse” seems to mount the dark stairs ahead of him; the pictures on the tiles in his fireplace transform into images of Marley’s face. Finally all the bells in the house ring loudly, there is a clanking of chains in the cellar and on the stairs, and the ghost of Marley passes through the closed door into the room.
The ghost warns Scrooge that if he does not change his ways, he will suffer Marley’s fate. He will walk the earth eternally after death, invisible among his fellow men, burdened with chains, seeing the misery and suffering he could have alleviated in his life but now powerless to intervene. Marley has arranged Scrooge’s only chance of redemption: three spirits will visit him on successive nights, and they may help change him and save him from his fate. As Marley leaves, Scrooge gets a nightmare glimpse of the tormented spectres who drift unseen among the living, and, shattered, he falls into bed and sleeps.
Stave II: The First of the Three Spirits
The Ghost of Christmas Past, a strange mixture of young and old, male and female, with a light shining from the crown of its head, appears at the stroke of one. It leads Scrooge on a journey to some of his past Christmases, where key events shaped his life and character. He sees his late sister Fan, who intervened to rescue him from lonely exile at boarding school, and, recalling his recent treatment of Fan’s son Fred, Scrooge feels the first stirrings of regret. They revisit a merry Christmas party given by Fezziwig, Scrooge’s kindly apprentice-master, and Scrooge thinks guiltily of his own behaviour toward Bob Cratchit. Finally, he is reminded how his love of money lost him the love of his life, Belle, and the happiness this cost him. Furious, Scrooge turns on the spirit, snuffs it like a candle with its cap, and finds himself back in bed, where he instantly falls asleep.
Stave III: The Second of the Three Spirits
Scrooge wakes at the stroke of one, confused to find it is still night. After a time he rises and finds the second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, in an adjoining room, on a throne made of Christmas food and drink. This spirit, a great genial man in a green coat lined with fur, takes him through the bustling streets of London on the current Christmas morning, sprinkling the essence of Christmas onto the happy populace. They observe the meagre but happy Christmas celebrations of the Cratchit family and the sweet nature of their lame son Tiny Tim, and when the Spirit foretells an early death for the child if things remain unchanged, Scrooge is distraught. He is shown what others think of him: the Cratchits toast him, but reluctantly, and “a shadow was cast over the party for a full five minutes”. Scrooge’s nephew and his friends gently mock his miserly behaviour at their Christmas party, but Fred maintains his uncle’s potential for change, and Scrooge demonstrates a childlike enjoyment of the celebrations.
They travel far and wide, and see how even the most wretched of people mark Christmas in some way, whatever their circumstances. The Ghost, however, grows visibly older, and explains he must die that night. He shows Scrooge two pitiful children huddled under his robes who personify the major causes of suffering in the world, “Ignorance” and “Want”, with a grim warning that the former is especially harmful. At the end of the visitation, the bell strikes twelve. The Ghost of Christmas Present vanishes and the third spirit appears to Scrooge.
Stave IV: The Last of the Three Spirits
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come takes the form of a grim spectre, robed in black, who does not speak and whose body is entirely hidden except for one pointing hand. This spirit frightens Scrooge more than the others, and harrows him with a vision of a future Christmas with the Cratchit family bereft of Tiny Tim. A rich miser, whose death saddens nobody and whose home and corpse have been robbed by ghoulish attendants, is revealed to be Scrooge himself: this is the fate that awaits him. Without it explicitly being said, Scrooge learns that he can avoid the future he has been shown and alter the fate of Tiny Tim, but only if he changes. Weeping, he swears to do so, and awakes to find that all three spirits have visited in just one night, and that it is Christmas morning.
Stave V: The End of It
Scrooge changes his life and reverts to the generous, kind-hearted soul he was in his youth. He anonymously sends the Cratchits the biggest turkey in the butcher shop, meets the charity workers to pledge an unspecified but impressive amount of money, and spends Christmas Day with Fred and his wife.
The next day Scrooge catches his clerk arriving late and pretends to be his old miserly self, before revealing his new persona to an astonished Cratchit. He assists Bob and his family, becomes an adopted uncle to Tiny Tim, who does not die, and gains a reputation as a kind and generous man who embodies the spirit of Christmas in his life.
Explanation of the book’s title
Originally a medieval round dance and then a word for a particular type of ballad[5], by Dickens’ time the word carol had come closer to its modern meaning, being a joyful hymn specific to Christmas. Dickens takes this musical analogy further, dividing the novella into five “staves”, instead of chapters.
Characters
* Ebenezer Scrooge
* Bob Cratchit
* Fred (Scrooge’s nephew)
* Tiny Tim (son of Bob)
* Jacob Marley
* Ghost of Christmas Past
* Ghost of Christmas Present
* Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
Supporting
* Two portly gentlemen collecting donations for “some slight provision for the poor and destitute” at Christmas
* Fezziwig
* Fan
* Belle
* Mrs. Cratchit
* Peter Cratchit
* Martha Cratchit
* Belinda Cratchit
* Two unnamed “smaller Cratchits”, a boy and a girl
* A young boy and girl, Ignorance and Want, respectively
* Dick Wilkins
* A trio of thieves who plunder Scrooge’s house after his death:
o Scrooge’s unnamed charwoman, who sells (among other things) his bed curtains and the shirt he was originally meant to be buried in (she took it off his dead body)
o Mrs. Dilber, Scrooge’s laundress
o An unnamed undertaker’s assistant
* Old Joe, a fence who buys the dead Scrooge’s belongings from the trio of thieves
Major themes
The story deals extensively with two of Dickens’ recurrent themes, social injustice and poverty, the relationship between the two, and their causes and effects. It was written to be abrupt and forceful with its message, with a working title of “The Sledgehammer.” The first edition of A Christmas Carol was illustrated by John Leech, a politically radical artist who in the cartoon “Substance and Shadow” printed earlier in 1843 had explicitly criticised artists who failed to address social issues. Dickens wrote in the wake of British government changes to the welfare system known as the Poor Laws, changes which required among other things, welfare applicants to “work” on treadmills, as Scrooge points out. Dickens asks, in effect, for people to recognise the plight of those whom the Industrial Revolution has displaced and driven into poverty, and the obligation of society to provide for them humanely. Failure to do so, the writer implies through the personification of Ignorance and Want as ghastly children, will result in an unnamed “Doom” for those who, like Scrooge, believe their wealth and status qualifies them to sit in judgement on the poor rather than to assist them.
Scrooge “embodies all the selfishness and indifference of the prosperous classes who parrot phrases about the ‘surplus population’ and think their social responsibilities fully discharged when they have paid their taxes.â€
Allusions to actual history, geography and current science
Scrooge offends the Ghost of Christmas Present by suggesting that the Spirit’s name is linked to a recent attempt to close bakers’ shops on Sundays and Christmas Day. (Poor people like the Cratchits, who had no oven at home, took their Sunday and Christmas meals to the bakers’ to be roasted just as Dickens describes in the book, because the law forbade bread to be baked on that day. Closing the shops would deprive them of what might be their only hot meat meal of the week.) The Spirit angrily retorts:
“There are some upon this earth of yours…who lay claim to know us, and who do their deed of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and to all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.” (The Ghost of Christmas Present, A Christmas Carol, Stave Three)
This is a reference to the repeated attempts during the 1830s of Sir Andrew Agnew, MP for Wigtownshire, to introduce a Sunday Observance Bill in Parliament which would have closed the bakeries and restricted many other Sunday pleasures of the poorer classes.[7] Dickens was violently opposed to Agnew’s plans and had attacked them in a pamphlet published under a pseudonym.
Dickens’ reading
A Christmas Carol was the subject of Dickens’ first ever public reading, given in Birmingham Town Hall to the Industrial and Literary Institute on 27 December 1852. This was repeated three days later to an audience of ‘working people’, and was a great success by his own account and that of newspapers of the time. Over the years Dickens edited the piece down and adapted it for a listening, rather than reading, audience. Excerpts from A Christmas Carol remained part of Dickens’ public readings until his death.
Looking for the proper spot to your eye out Rochester’s July 4th fireworks? Up to 140 lendees am able to get a spectacular view based on the decks of Corn Hill Navigation’s historic wooden vessel Mary Jemison and the Sam Patch Packet Boat on Independence day.
In addition to a relaxing cruise on the historic Genesee and an unparalleled view of the City’s Independence Day fireworks, riders on the Sam Patch are able to enjoy an all-American choice of hors d’oeuvres and an open bar. For consumers amongst a ass tooth, the Mary Jemison cruise is able to feature an old-fashioned ice cream social. However you can not be able to team the boats without advance reservations for the Fireworks Cruises. For a good deal more tips demand Corn Hill Navigation at 585-262-5661.
People who are search for day activities can as well catch a slowly scheduled cruise on Mary Jemison departing of Corn Hill Landing, downtown; and Sam Patch departing according to Schoen Place in Pittsford at noon, 2pm and 4pm.
If you go in the day: anticipate a tour guide’s narration approximately the history and most recent uses of the Genesee River and Erie Canal. Corn Hill Navigation’s aspiration is to foster the improvement and sustainability of the Erie Canal and Genesee River for contemporary and coming years generations over education, awareness, and enjoyment. Two firm vessels Sam Patch and Mary Jemison are necessary in CHN’s efforts to generate new financial in the canal and river and put up choices for the community’s times ahead to boon based on what i read in the waterways of the past. Since its founding in 1991, their not-for-profit corporation has been heard an effective advocate for waterfront access, restoration and redevelopment, as good as river and canal maintenance.
Valentine’s Day or Saint Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine’s cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
Sweetest Day is an observance celebrated primarily in the Great Lakes region and parts of the Northeast United States on the third Saturday in October. It is described by Retail Confectioners International as an “occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember not only the sick, aged and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed.”Sweetest Day has also been referred to as a “concocted promotion”created by the candy industry solely to increase sales of candy.
KARACHI: The moon of Shawal 1, 1429 has been sighted in the country on Tuesday, so Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated tomorrow on Wednesday October 1, Ruet-i-Hilal committee (Central Moon Sighting Committee) announced here on Tuesday night.
Looking for the proper spot to your eye out Rochester’s July 4th fireworks? Up to 140 lendees am able to get a spectacular view based on the decks of Corn Hill Navigation’s historic wooden vessel Mary Jemison and the Sam Patch Packet Boat on Independence day.