Tag: christmas

New York at Christmas: A Seasonal Walking Tour

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We’re not sure we’ve ever mentioned it here, but in addition to various other irons we have in the fire, we are also a licensed NYC tour guide. And this is our favorite time of year, because ’tis the season for our “New York at Christmas” Tour, a 90-minute walk during which we visit the sites and share the stories that have made New York the Christmas Capitol of America!

If you live in NYC or plan to be here during the holiday season (or if you know someone who does), this informative and entertaining holiday stroll just might be right up your alley.

We won’t bend your ear at length about it here, but if you’d like more info, just pay a visit to Avenues and Alleys.

New York at Christmas: Santa Takes a Coffee Break

A Cladrite Holiday Tradition Continues: Year 6

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It’s that time of year again, folks.

Longtime readers will recall that the sharing of the B.C. Clark anniversary sale jingle is something of a holiday tradition here at Cladrite Radio. 2014 marks the sixth year we’ve shared it with you.

image--BC Clark logo Anyone who grew (or is currently growing) up in the Oklahoma City area knows that it’s just not the Christmas season until you’ve heard the B. C. Clark Christmas jingle on television or the radio at least once.

Below are two versions of the jingle—the original, which is admittedly of lower audio quality, and a later version—the one currently heard on radio and TV in the Oklahoma City area—which arguably sounds a bit better, but drops one line late in the song (“The Christmas wish of B. C. Clark is to keep on pleasing you…”), because 30-second commercials had became the norm on local television.

B. C. Clark, for the non-Okies among you, is a jewelry retailer that’s been in operation in the Sooner State since 1892, and since 1956 (a bit outside Cladrite Radio’s typical purview, but we’re stretching a point for the holidays), they’ve been running the aforementioned jingle advertising their annual sale, which takes place not after Christmas, like most stores (or so the jingle’s lyrics insist), but just before.

So for 59 years, denizens of central Oklahoma have been humming along to this catchy ditty, and it’s our pleasure to share this holiday highlight with folks from other parts of the country (and around the world).

Ms. Cladrite, who grew up in New Jersey, had the darned thing memorized after just three or four Christmas seasons’ exposure to this seasonal delight and can sing along whenever it’s played or performed.

It’s just that catchy a tune.

But be forewarned—listen more than two or three times, and you’ll be hooked, no matter how far away you live from the nearest B.C. Clark location. And soon, as with the millions of Okies who have come to associate this venerable jingle with the Christmas season, you’ll come to feel that it just isn’t the holidays until you’ve heard the jingle once or twice (or a dozen times).

Your New Favorite Christmas Movie

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This post was first published on December 6, 2013.

image-Remember the Night posterIf you think you’ve seen every classic Christmas picture (and most of them one too many times, at that), you’ll be pleasantly surprised, we hope, to learn of one that’s flown under the radar of many a classic movie buff.

Remember the Night (1940) was the last movie Preston Sturges wrote before moving into the director’s chair with The Great McGinty (1940). Mitchell Leisen directs here, and though Sturges was said to have been disappointed with Leisen’s efforts, it’s hard to imagine why. It’s a terrific picture, one that should be every bit the holiday favorite that pictures such as It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, The Shop Around the Corner, and others have become.

Remember the Night finds Fred MacMurray portraying an ambitious assistant D.A. in NYC who finds himself with shoplifter Barbara Stanwyck on his hands because he has asked for a delay in her trial, so as to avoid the jury feeling any holiday-inspired sympathy for her.

It soon comes out that both the D.A. and the dame are Hoosiers, so she accompanies him on a road trip to visit their respective families. Stanwyck’s brief visit with her mother doesn’t go so well, though, so she sticks with MacMurray, whereupon romance and laughs ensue.

Remember the Night is plenty sentimental enough to qualify as a holiday classic, but like It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s got a dark side, too, delivered with gimlet-eyed bite.

It’s a favorite of ours, a picture that deserves much greater fame and acclaim that it has been afforded. Turner Classic Movies has teamed with Universal to offer it on DVD, but if you’d like to try before you buy, it’s airing on TCM tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. Set your DVR now and give it a look; you won’t regret it.

Merry Christmas from Cladrite Radio—and Carole Lombard!

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Here’s wishing a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year to Cladrite Radio readers and listeners everywhere!

And as a gift from us to you, we’re placing Carole Lombard, ca. 1927, under the tree.


P.S. A reader sent this image our way, so we don’t know who “The Giant” might be—we would otherwise give due credit for the picture’s tinting. But here’s a tip of the fedora to said Giant, wherever and whomever he (or she) may be.