Get the popcorn and the Kleenex

This is gonna be good.

Lindesy Graham is thinking about running for president.

Telling

Fred says: "In our new Republican Senate, the former Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights will now simply be called the Subcommittee on the Constitution — no more “civil rights and human rights” in the name. Similarly, what had been the subcommittee for Immigration, Refugees and Border Security has abandoned any reference to refugees and is now just the subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest."

Because Rights and Refugees are so not Republican causes.

Shepherd, another view

Yesterday I noted that the sheep-wolves-sheepdog metaphor implied a shepherd and then pointed out that Chris Kyle was a vocal Christian, defiantly saying he was ready to answer to God for every shot he'd taken.

But you know, it's possible to see Kyle's shepherd as the government.

One of the biggest sins of American Sniper is that Eastwood uses his not inconsiderable skills as a film-maker to lie to his audience about the cause of the Iraq Wars. He leaps from 9/11 to Kyle in battle, leaving aside any discussion of why we were in Iraq and thereby creating the implicature that Iraq was culpable in 9/11. That's a lie. And Eastwood knew it. Any talk about how this film was avoiding politics to focus on a character misses the point: there probably is no way to avoid politics in a film about this war, and if there is, that isn't it. The audience is given Kyle's (probable, certainly in-film) belief as though it were true, told to us not by Kyle but by the omniscient narrator.

A film exploring how Kyle was betrayed by his shepherd the government could have made him into a far more sympathetic character, adding nuance to the third act, when society is tacitly blamed for his inability to reintegrate. And the realization that the shepherd this sheepdog followed so faithfully actually was just chewing him up and spitting him out ... well, that would have been a film worth making.

Sheep and Sheepdogs

One thing about that "sheep - wolves - sheepdogs" metaphor.

Sheepdogs aren't natural. Sheepdogs imply - no, mean - the existence of a shepherd.

Kyle never hid that - he was a very vocal Christian who insisted that "I'm willing to meet my Creator and answer for every shot that I took." And because of that, he really didn't seem to mind how many people he killed or to look at the war with any empathy. God was on his side.

Or he was on God's. Like the Dominicans of the Spanish Inquisition, he was God's Dog. God's Good Dog.

Oh Bing Bing Bing

OMG. Seriously, Bing. This is just embarrassing. Even though I'm sure you don't have as much experience with Ukrainian, this is just ... Well, look at it.

I was hunting lyrics to a music video I'm going to use in class, because that's faster than me transcribing them, plus the videos don't always credit the songwriters. This is the song, dedicated to the Heavenly Hundred Maidan martyrs, "Мамо, не плач. Я повернусь весною." (Mamo, ne plach. Ya povernus' vesnoyu. - Mother, don't cry. I'll return in the spring.)

Присвячується Небесній сотні... Вічна слава Героям!
Автор тексту:Оксана Максимишин-Корабель.
Автор музики і виконавець:Михайло Олійник.

Мамо, не плач. Я повернусь весною.
У шибку пташинкою вдарюсь твою.
Прийду на світанні в садок із росою,
А, може, дощем на поріг упаду.

Голубко, не плач.
Так судилося, ненько,
Вже слово, матусю, не буде моїм.
Прийду і попрошуся в сон твій тихенько
Розкажу, як мається в домі новім.

Мені колискову ангел співає
I рана смертельна уже не болить.
Ти знаєш, матусю, й тут сумно буває
Душа за тобою, рідненька, щемить.

Мамочко, вибач за чорну хустину
За те, що віднині будеш сама.
Тебе я люблю. I люблю Україну
Вона, як і ти, була в мене одна.

Bing offers this:

Dedicated to the celestial hundreds ... more Eternal glory to the heroes!
Author of the text: Oksana Maksimišin-ship.
Author of the music and the artist: Michael Olijnyk

MOM, don’t cry. I will turn to spring.
In šibku ptašinkoȗ vdarȗs’ your.
Come on svitanni in kindergarten of dew, and maybe rain threshold somewhere.
Golubko, not crying.
So fated, nenko, Word, MOM will not be mine.
Come and poprošusȃ in thy sleep quietly Tell, as implied in the House, dominating.
Me a Lullaby Angel sings I wound lethal no longer hurts.
You know, MOM, and here is the sad case Soul for thee, rìdnen’ka, aches.
Mamočko, sorry for the Black author for what now will be the same.
You I love. I love Ukraine. She, like you, was I one.
#Ȇvromajdan #Euromaidan # Square #Ȇvrorevolȗciȃ

I don't even know where to begin with this one.

For fairness, here's Google's version, much better though far from perfect:

Dedicated Heavenly hundreds ... Eternal glory to the heroes!
Lyricist: Oksana Maksymyshyn-ship.
Composer and performer: Michael Olejnik.

Mom, do not cry. I will return in the spring.
In a pane of glass ptashynkoyu your vdaryus.
I will come at dawn in the garden with dew,
Or maybe the rain fall on the doorstep.
Dove, do not cry.
Yes destined, Nenko,
Even the word Mom, not mine.
I will come and will ask in your sleep quietly
I'll tell you, as understood in a New House.
I sing a lullaby angel
I already deadly wound does not hurt.
You know, Mom, and this is sad
The soul after thee, ridnenka, schemyt.
Mom, I'm sorry for the black kerchief
Because from now on you shall itself.
I love you. I love Ukraine
She, like you, I was one

One thing I note is that neither of them know what to do with the Ukrainian word I, which means "and" or "even" or "too". They both made it "I", in "I already deadly wound/I wound lethal" instead of "and lethal wound..." And neither of them knows пташинкою or вдарюсь, the instrumental of "little bird" and the first person of the intransitive verb "to knock against, to strike", or ненько or рідненька, the vocative of "mommy" and the feminine of "one's own little (something)". There are a few other words that Bing doesn't know (window, dove, mommy, ask); with the nouns "mommy" and "dove" it may be confused by the vocative case ending, and the verb "to ask" doesn't usually have the intransitive -ся (sya) suffix, but "window"?

Also they both translated the second half of Оксана Максимишин-Корабель's name as "Ship". Indeed, the word means that, but you don't translate people's names (unless you're Mark Twain taking potshots at German). She's Oksana Maksymyshyn-Korabel'.

Google's "I sing a lullaby angel" sounds better than Bing's "Me a lullaby Angel sings", but Bing is closer to right, recognizing the accusative case for "me". Plus, what's a "lullaby angel"?

There's too much more to go into. Here's my translation:

Mother, don’t cry. I’ll return in the spring.
Dedicated to the Heavenly Hundred…. Eternal praise to the Heroes!
Lyrics by Oksana Maksymyshyn-Korabel’
Music by, and performed by Mykhaylo Oliynyk


Mother, don’t cry. I will return in the spring.
With a bird’s wings I’ll beat against your window.
I’ll come to the garden at dawn with the dew,
And maybe I’ll fall with the rain onto your threshold.

Sweetheart, don’t cry.
This was foretold, mom,
But the word, mom, won’t be mine.
I’ll come and ask you in your quiet dreams
To tell me how things are in your new home.

An angel will sing me a lullaby
And my fatal wound no longer hurts.
You know, mother, that my soul is sad
Thinking of you it aches, beloved.

Mommy, I’m sorry for the black shawl
And that from now on you’ll be alone.
I love you. And I love Ukraine.
She, just like you, was the only one I had.

Breakfast al fresco (in NYC)

So, as I said a while ago and Josh at the Comics Curmudgeon points out today, there's often a disconnect between the words and the art in Apartment 3G. And today it's pretty egregious:

Seriously. Margo's on the street.

The Week in Entertainment

Live: Annie at the Hippodrome. Goof, energetic performance, great sets, the kids were terrific dancers. Sandy wasn't really into it - when Annie was hugging him as he lay in front of her and singing "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow", he lay there, but he kind of twisted his head away and then put his feet on her arms and shoved. It was funny. She was a real pro; didn't miss a beat!

DVD: A few episodes of Search, which I vaguely remember from when it was on in 1972. The tech is ridiculous now, of course, and all three of the leading men (a different one each week) are what I now think of as obnoxiously ladies' men, but it's fun.

TV: I came home to a stack of The Mentalist episodes on the DVR, and I've caught up. This season is really a lot better than I thought it was going to be. The lack of a Red John/secret society of baddies bit is refreshing, and Jane and Lisbon as a thing works very well. The latest one, where Jane tries to keep her out of harm's way, was refreshing. Grimm - whew, they rescued Monroe (which I thought they probably would) and saved Bud (which I wasn't sure of), and Rosalie and Juliet and Renard all were pretty bad-ass.

Read: Ancillary Sword - equally as brilliant as its predecessor. I'm now waiting eagerly for the final volume. Began Mort(e), an odd - very odd - book that's fascinating so far.

Alabama!

still not tired!!!!

Martin Luther King, Jr

January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968

Something new to read for today, from Bill Moyers:

Vietnam and the ghetto riots radicalized King. “For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of the South, a little change here, a little change there,” King told the journalist David Halberstam in April 1967. “Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values.”

The Week in Entertainment

Live: The Merry Widow at the Met, in a slightly prosaic English translation, but with wonderful sets and the glorious voices of Renee Fleming and Kelli O'Hara, and Nathan Gunn and Thomas Allen and especially Carson Elrod were funny. The fan and pavilion scene made sense - hilarious sense - and Chez Maxim was great.

Film: Birdman, which was not at all what I had expected from the little I had heard but which I thought was marvelous. Keaton was brilliant.

TV: The Middle, mildly amusing, and Modern Family, very funny in the Fizzbo/Lizzbo plot. Agent Carter stays excellent. Galavant is extremely uneven. Grimm was very good but again, omg what a way to end it. Man.

Read: Redemption in Indigo, which was a very good, deceptively spare story that lured me into reading another by the same author; that one, Meeks, was downright peculiar. The Westminster Mystery, another 1930s story which at least acknowledges that the detectives' actions might be on the outside of legal, though justifying them because they catch the murderer.

Not All Anybodies

At Salon they point out two people who took on Rupert Murdoch's post-Charlie Hebdo Tweet (“Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible.”) with humor and anger, leading to

the brilliant hashtag #RupertsFault bloomed, laying at the mogul’s feet responsibility for everything terrible from Uber surge pricing to Panda Express to the popularity of “The Big Bang Theory.” Well done, Twitter, well done.

The thing is, for too many people around these parts (in a geopolitical sense of "these parts"), being Christian is like being white is like being male: it's the default.

This brilliant xkcd cartoon catches what I mean:



It's why when something happens to or is done by a black person, it's generalized to all blacks. Whites are never "a credit to their race". Disturbed white people shoot up schools or theaters and it's "a disturbed loner/person", but if a black person did his race would be the headline. White rioters can be as deadly as any, but they're never described as "mobs" or "thugs", even when the cause of their rioting is somewhat less noble than slaughtered kids (pumpkins and football games come to mind). Black-on-black crime is invoked a lot; white-on-white never (remember Rudy Giuliani saying "there is virtually no homicide in the white community"?) even though the overwhelming majority of white murder victims were killed by white murderers.

The same thing holds for Christians. Even when a murder is explicitly linked to the murderer's Christian beliefs, Christianity is not accused of spawning terror. Instead, the murderer's psychiatric state is analyzed, and his beliefs become "political". No one demands that "all Christians" take responsibility for abortion clinic bombings or murders, for instance. Just as no one insists that "all whites" are to blame for the Wisconsin Sikh temple shootings, let alone for Columbine or Sandy Hook.

Thus, for too many people - like Rupert Murdoch - when white Christian (straight) men do things, it's those individuals doing it, even if they're in mobs, er, groups. Because white Christian (straight) men are people. But when anybody else does something, like a handful of Muslims or a group, sorry mob, of black people, they represent their whole demographic.

And that's a way of looking at things that needs to change. Feminism, #BlackLivesMatter, and the like are ways of trying to change that. Until we don't automatically assume that "people" are "white, straight, male, and Christian" - for instance, when you go to a movie and 52% of the extras or minor roles are women, 12% are black, 6% Asian, and 12% Hispanic - we need to acknowledge this unfortunate fact. Only when it's no longer the default reporting and reacting standard can we can start worrying about whether "all Muslims" are "responsible" for what some do. And then we won't worry for long.

Just like we* don't worry now about Christians or whites.

* for certain values of 'we' obviously

To preadolescents? Really?

Ia a review for the Broadway version of Finding Neverland (an offer to buy tickets for which just landed in my inbox, prompting the search for reviews), Ben Brantley of the NT Times says:

In the script, a theatrical producer, Charles Frohman (the valuable Michael McGrath), is alarmed when he hears that Barrie, his star playwright, is working on a children’s fantasy. Children, Frohman says, do not buy tickets.

But oh, Mr. Frohman, children have acquired a bit more power since the Victorian era. If you could time-travel to Broadway today, you would see that some of its healthiest, longest-running hits are pitched to preadolescents: “Wicked,” “Matilda” and Disney’s “Aladdin” and the all-mighty “The Lion King.”

Wicked? Pitched to preadoslecents? Really?

I mean, really? I don't have any kids around so I don't know.Do they really sell Wicked to preteens? Not is it a show they'd like (maybe they would, though it struck me as appealing to an older audience), or a show they go to, but is it a show that's actually marketed to them?

Because that list sounds like a round of "One of these things is not like the others" to me.

The Week in Entertainment

DVD: Finished The Invisible Man, which ended with a very ridiculous episode about the leader of "the Eastern bloc" coming to get plastic surgery in secret in the US. Unintentionally hilarious.

TV: Marvel's Agent Carter, which is intriguing and stylish. Galavant, the first episode of which was very funny. The second wasn't as, but that might be because it followed the first immediately. Anyway, it's nice to see Timothy Omundson again, and I'll give it another shot. Modern Family had a nice look at various people's reactions to a near-miss (Luke was very funny). The Middle was funny, too. One of the two episodes of The Librarians, which had some nicely creepy moments in it. (I'll catch the other on DVD; gotta get up early and go to work, after all...)

Read: Finished The War of the Flowers, which was pretty good and thankfully didn't go the way I was afraid it would for a while. Blood Runs in the Family, the most recent OOTS collection. Also two graphic novels: The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman and The Wicked + The Divine: The Faust Act, which were both good, the latter especially intriguing.

I didn't because

Spotted on Facebook:
AA:Sometimes I'm glad that my stuff is not generally read widely, even if that makes me a bit of a coward.
BB: I did not "like" because I think you're a coward, AA, but because I totally understand that.

Even with the "but because", it took me a few reads to resolve the ambiguity: "The reason I "liked" that is not that I think you're a coward" rather than "I did not "like" that and the reason is that I think you're a coward".

I think in speech the distinction would be clearer.

Also, of course, normally when someone says "I didn't do X because Y", you have the knowledge that they did, or didn't do, X. On Facebook, you can't tell - on someone else's post - whether the writer of a comment is also a Liker of another comment.

well, as to that

From Rand Paul, on Sean Hannity's show:

I haven't seen any Christians or Jews dragging people of the Islamic faith through the streets, but I am seeing the opposite. I'm seeing Christians beheaded, I'm seeing people who say anything about Islam being shot, unarmed, being shot."

From John Scalzi's Whatever:

Hey, did you know that according to the UN, Christian militia in Central African Republic have carried out ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population during the country’s ongoing civil war? And yet I hear nothing from the so-called “good” and “moderate” Christians around me on the matter! Why have the “moderate” Christians not denounced these horrible people and rooted them out from their religion? Is it because maybe the so-called “moderate” Christians are actually all for the brutal slaughter? Christians say their religion is one of peace! And yet! Jesus himself says (Matthew 10:36) that he does not come to bring peace, but the sword! Clearly Christianity is a horrible, brutal murdering religion. And unless every single Christian in the United States denounces these murders in the Central African Republic and apologizes for them, not just to me but to every single Muslim they might ever meet, I see no reason to believe that every Christian I meet isn’t in fact secretly planning to cut the throat of every single non-Christian out there. That’s what goes on in those “churches” of theirs, you know. Secret murder planning sessions, every Sunday! Where they “symbolically” eat human flesh!

Just a P and R

Again, "The Middle", you canNOT solve "pardon my French" on "Wheel of Fortune" with "just a p and an r". Because while you have to pick the P, the R is given to you -- along with the N and E (RSTLNE in all). So Pam Staggs simply could not have done what they keep saying she did.

But props for the continuity!

Worth a thought or two

From Emmett Remsin and David Shor at The Baffler, a suggestion on how to help poor kids do better in school - simple AND backed by experience:

“Give more money to people”—not to specific institutions, teachers, schools, or outreach efforts, but just “people” who have low incomes and children—reeks of liberal parody. It isn’t much more sophisticated than the “throw money at the problem” reaction that’s so often deployed in a country that remains ineradicably possessed by the notion that we are short on cash.

But this is not soft socialism of the usual hand-waving variety; it does not rely on the complexities of differing economic axioms. It is only that keeping the lights on, keeping food on the table, and keeping parents from having to take a third job are all things that can demonstrably increase student performance.

One more to start the new year off right

Although some counties have decided to ban all courthouse weddings to avoid the icky same-sex ones, still Florida is in the win column.

Cardinals on Sunday

First, the pair that lives in the holly bush, wet and (him at least) not happy about it. Then in the afternoon when the sun came out there were six of them in the back eating seeds.

Coots!

That's the Bull Run Steam Plant - its water vapor turns to clouds instantly on a cold day like this! And the last shot is a pair of mallards...

Chickadees

A really lucky shot!

The Week in Entertainment

Film: The Theory of Everything, which was enjoyable.

DVD: Some episodes of a Christmas present - the 1970s David McCallum series The Invisible Man, dated but entertaining.

TV: Caught up on Grimm - my god, what a double cliff-hanger to end on! Yikes! Also The Librarians, which was not their best episode; all the villainous version were so over the top. The next one? I settled in to watch it and TNT went out. Just TNT. Will get it on On Demand. Grrrr - it was going to have Christian Kane with the axe! Watched an old Man from UNCLE instead. Saw We Are Marshall, which I'd managed to miss before. It was excellent formula.

Read: Finished The Goblin Emperor which was so good - just brilliant. Began The War of the Flowers which is very odd, at least so far.

Gray Day Birds

Yesterday was another gray East Tennessee winter's day. And it brought more birds - including some pretty good shots of the logcock!


The first blue jay I've managed to get a picture of, though he was pretty far down the ridge:

A sparrow

A Carolina wren on the woodshed, making a lot of noise

The male cardinal, in his shabby winter suit

And the logcock! This is the male; it's the female I got pictures of the last few days:

New Year's Birds

Yesterday's birds. As well as these, I saw crows, a male towhee (it is his irritating habit to go where he can be seen but not photographed), a phoebe, and buzzards.


A white-throated sparrow

A Carolina wren

 

A song sparrow

A mockingbird

 

A dark-eyed junco

An eastern bluebird

A brown thrasher

A hermit thrush

A female red-bellied woodpecker

A Carolina chickadee

A female downy woodpecker

The downy looking my way

A blurry female rufous-sided towhee

Two male house finches

Tufted titmouse

A male northern cardinal

A female northern cardinal up to her neck in leaves

Backwards

So, this Christian blogger has a post on where Progressive Christians lose him. One of his points:

I have a hard time taking seriously any argument that rejects the idea we have a natural tendency towards choosing sin. Or, maybe I’m just wrong on this issue and a really horrible person on top of it– because here’s what I know: I gravitate towards sinning. I always have. I always do. Reality is that I find myself in a daily battle to do what is right– a battle that is with a disposition deep inside me.
I don’t know a lot of things in life but I do know that I sin, and that this desire to pursue sin is something embedded deep within me. Any denial of this sin nature or original sin completely loses me, because it argues for a position that I experientially know does not jive with real life.

Sure. Of course.

But that's not because humans are inherently sinful, have a "desire to pursue sin" "embedded deep within" them.

It's because the church has carefully taken human behavior and labeled it "sinful" in order to control people. If you decide, and more importantly convince others, that normal human behavior (I'm not talking about murder here, and nor is he) - sex, for instance, or the desire to have nice things, or envy - are the worst behaviors ever and that people are damned for them, then you have a good way to ride herd on everyone. To make them conform to your instructions and follow your rules and keep you in comfort.

First bird

Well, it's an omen.

The first bird I heard was one I didn't recognize (edited to add: it was a phoebe). Then, in quick succession: crow, blue jay, Carolina wren.

The first bird I saw was too far off to make out, just a dark shape against the sky. The first one I could recognize: a sparrow. Yes, a white-throated sparrow, but still.

However, they all count in the Christmas Bird Count!

The 115th Christmas Bird Count begins on Sunday, December 14th, 2014, and runs through Monday, January 5th, 2015. The longest running Citizen Science survey in the world, Christmas Bird Count provides critical data on population trends. Tens of thousands of participants know that it is also a lot of fun. Data from the over 2,300 circles are entered after the count and become available to query under the Data & Research link.

Mae Mari Lwyd yma

In Wales, the Mari Lwyd (the Gray Mari) is brought from door to door on New Year's. Those bringing her sing a song at each house, which is usually followed by a "pwnco" or versifying contest with an opponent within the house, describing each other's singing, drunkenness, stinginess, etc - this back-and-forth challenge culminates in those outside coming in for drinks. Then the Mari's troop bid their hosts farewell and move on.

The Mari Lwyd is sometimes thought to be a tribute to Mary, but it's one of those customs which long predates Christianity... The horse's skull is likely a death-of-the-old-year avatar instead, and "mari" is most likely the English word "mare" borrowed as a later name.

Here's one version of the Mari's song as she arrives (with a literal translation; and traditional English below).

Wel dyma ni'n dwad (Well, here we are coming)
Gyfeillion diniwed (a harmless company)
I ofyn cawn gennad
I ofyn cawn gennad
I ofyn cawn gennad i ganu. (to ask your permission / to sing)

Mae Mari Lwyd yma (The Mari Lwyd is here)
A sêr a ribanau (and a star and ribbons)
Yn werth i rhoi goleu
Yn werth i rhoi goleu
Yn werth i rhoi goleu nos heno. (worthy to give light / on this night)

Mae Mari Lwyd lawen (The Mari Lwyd is happy)
Yn dod yn y dafarn (going to the tavern)
I ofyn am arian
I ofyn am arian
I ofyn am arian a chwrw. (to ask for money / and beer)

Wel, tapwch y faril (Well, tap the barrel)
Gyllongwch yn rhugl (pour it fluently)
A rhenwch e'n gynil
A rhenwch e'n gynil
A rhenwch e'n gynil Y Gwyliau. (and serve it / in the Holiday season)


This is the Mari's farewell to her current hosts.

Wel dyma'r enw feinwen (Well, this is the name of the maid)
Sy'n codi gyda'r seren (who rises with the stars)
Wel dyma'r enw feinwen
Sy'n codi gyda'r seren
A hon yw'r washael fawr ei chlod (and here is the wassail of great praise)
Sy'n caru bod yn llawen. (which loves to be merry)
A hon yw'r washael fawr ei chlod
Sy'n caru bod yn llawen.

Dymunwn i'ch lawenydd (I wish you all joy)
I gynal blwyddyn newydd (in having a new year)
Tra paro'r gwr i dincian cloch (while the man is ready to ring the bell)
Well, well yn boch chwi beunydd. (better and better may you be daily)

Ffarweliwch, foneddigion, (farewell, gentlemen)
Ni gawsom croeso digon. (we have had welcome enough)
Bendith Duw f'o ar eich tai (god's blessing be on your house)
A phob rhyw rhai o'ch dynion. (and on everyone of your men)

(Greeting:)

Well here we come,
Innocent friends
To ask for permission (x 3)
To sing

If we don’t get permission,
Let us hear out the song.
What kind of leaving (x 3)
Tonight.

We bruised our shins
Crossing over the style.
To come here (x 3)
Tonight.

If there are men
Who can write poetry,
Let us hear them now (x 3)
Tonight.

If you went too early
To bed in an angry mood,
Oh, get up nicely (x 3)
Tonight.

The fat, sweet dish
And all sorts of spices
O cut it in portions
(For) the holidays.

Oh, tap the barrel
[Which the lads deserve] (?)
Don’t divide it so miserly (x 3)
(On) the holidays.

and

Oh, here’s the name of the maiden
Who gets up with the star
And this is the Wassail, greatly to be praised,
Who loves to be merry.

I wish you joy
In having a New Year.
As long as the man rings the bell
May it keep getting better for you.

Farewell to you, gentlemen,
We had welcome enough.
God’s blessing on your houses
And to every one of your men.

Iona's Nutmeg & Ginger is a wonderful album of Celtic holiday music.