Christmas Camp: How to Make a Garland for Christmas Stairs

As long as we’re talking garland, let’s talk location for the garland and what you might have to do to make it special. This video covers creating garland for the stairs. If you have a two story house, garland on the stairs is an absolute must. It’s a snap. Just pay attention to the nice lady in the video.
To set the mood, check out the Christmas One More Time XV playlist at Spotify…just type http://sptfy.com/12dC into your browser and you’ve got music to get you through all your projects.
 
Fine Print: Video Embed courtesy of YouTube. It has not been altered in any way. We thank them for sharing. All rights belong to the respective rights holders and we thank them for making their videos available for distribution and sharing. Christmas Camp,  a guide to the essential skills of Christmas, is a project of DonaldPierce.com….. Copyright (c) Donald Pierce, all rights reserved. Enjoy the holidays.

Christmas Camp: How To Make A Christmas Garland

Decorating for Christmas goes way beyond just putting up a tree and some lights on the house (and in the yard). Inside–go all out: with collections (a close friend has a massive collection of snowmen that come out once a year); flowers (you do have Poinsettias, right?) and garlands. Stringing garlands–across the mantle, over the bookcases, on the deck, up the staircase–is a key component of getting ready for Christmas day. As part of the Christmas Camp series, we present a couple of very good videos on making and draping garlands in your home. Remember the old saying–“deck the halls”. Hope to it. Here’s all you need to know to get started.
To set the mood, check out the Christmas One More Time XV playlist at Spotify…just type http://sptfy.com/12dC into your browser and you’ve got music to get you through all your projects.
 
Fine Print: Video Embed courtesy of YouTube. It has not been altered in any way. We thank them for sharing. All rights belong to the respective rights holders and we thank them for making their videos available for distribution and sharing. Christmas Camp,  a guide to the essential skills of Christmas, is a project of DonaldPierce.com….. Copyright (c) Donald Pierce, all rights reserved. Enjoy the holidays.

The Nightshift: 20 December 2017

Press Clippings:
Embed from Getty Images
Good Morning, it’s Wednesday, 20 December 2017, and this is the Morning edition of The Nightshift, the World’s Daily News Source.
After a (typical) mistake in procedure, Congress pushed through the tax reform bill late last night. Is this good or bad for you? Good or bad for the Republican party? Once someone actually reads the whole thing, we may know.
Today is National Sangria Day. You know what to drink.
The CNN “text news” site, which is much faster than their full multi-media site,  is below at the end of the links.
Stay safe, stay dry, and help one other person today. Merry Christmas and, in keeping with that spirit, our annual Christmas playlist is now on Spotify, thanks to our friends at the world’s largest streaming service. Use this link: http://sptfy.com/12dC . Turn it on and turn it up.
The International Headlines are all at your fingertips, below.
The Times (London
Financial Times (UK)
The Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)
The Wall Street Journal (European edition)
Washington Post (Washington, D.C.)
New York Times (New York)
The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles)
Daily News Egypt (Cairo)
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
The Moscow Times (Moscow)
Le Figaro (Paris)
Bloomberg.com (New York)
The Jerusalem Post (Jerusalem)
The Japanese Times (Tokyo)
Sputnik (Moscow)
The Buenas Aires Herald (Buenas Aires)
The Sidney Morning Herald (Sidney)
Deadline Hollywood (Hollywood)
FiveThirtyEight (New York City)
Politico (Washington, DC)
Lawfareblog (Washington, DC)
Wired (San Francisco, CA)
The Weather Channel
CNN News Text Site
 
The Fine Print: Image embed courtesy of our friends at Getty Images, who have the photographic history of the 20th and 21st century on file. This photo has not been altered in any way. We thank them for sharing. The Nightshift is a production of Perception Engineering and The Media Bunker. This post is number 1491 for this site. The Nightshift is a continually evolving experiment in news communications. It’s rapid iteration. Thanks for reading. Now–catch up on the world.

Christmas Camp: How to String Lights on a Christmas Tree

The Christmas Tree (we’re taking liberties with capitalization). You’ve seen it forever, in all its’ lighted glory. And, of course, you’ve no doubt put the lights on many a tree. But did you know that–like most things in life–lighting up a tree is neither as simple or complicated as it looks. There are, actually, three different schools of thought on how to best light a tree. The method you use will depend on a)your tree, b)the trees’ location, c)the number and type of lights you have available and d)your personal taste.  This short education in lighting a Christmas tree, one of a series of very good, very useable, videos on the craft of Christmas, is part of our Christmas Camp series. which features the essential skills of the biggest holiday in the Western World.  Plug into tree lighting now.
To set the mood, check out the Christmas One More Time XV playlist at Spotify…just type http://sptfy.com/12dC into your browser and you’ve got music to get you through all your projects.The
 
Fine Print: Video Embed courtesy of YouTube. It has not been altered in any way. We thank them for sharing. All rights belong to the respective rights holders and we thank them for making their videos available for distribution and sharing. Christmas Camp,  a guide to the essential skills of Christmas, is a project of DonaldPierce.com….. Copyright (c) Donald Pierce, all rights reserved. Enjoy the holidays.

Christmas Camp: How to make a Christmas Centerpiece

Christmas is for entertaining–friends, family, work buddies. Mid-week or weekend parties, outside events if you live in a warm climate.  Entertaining means holiday food (and of course, there will be a Christmas dinner, right?) and when you spread a table with food and refreshments, you should also decorate the table–it’s that time of the year. Everything gets spruced up. How about some expert instruction and motivation for making the best Christmas Centerpiece ever? Here it is. Live and in color…all you need to know to produce a knockout Christmas centerpiece. Our instructor uses multiple types of greenery and lays out all the tools necessary to do the job. Do it right and you, not the centerpiece, will be the center of attention.
To set the mood, check out the Christmas One More Time XV playlist at Spotify…just type http://sptfy.com/12dC into your browser and you’ve got music to get you through all your projects.
 
The Fine Print: Video Embed courtesy of YouTube. It has not been altered in any way. We thank them for sharing. All rights belong to the respective rights holders and we thank them for making their videos available for distribution and sharing. Christmas Camp is a project of DonaldPierce.com….. Copyright (c) Donald Pierce, all rights reserved. Enjoy the holidays.

Christmas Camp: How to Put Christmas Lights on the Roofline

This is the second of two videos about Christmas lighting (we haven’t touched on laser lighting yet..). This one deals with the very stylish trend to light the roofline of your house. Please note that this can be hazardous–if you’re not used to being on ladders or working twenty to thirty feet above the ground, leave this to the professionals. Whether you do it yourself or bring in a pro, as before, it’s good to know what the basic moves are so that you can provide the right type of assistance and guidance to those who are stringing the lights for you. Allyn Hane, who produced and stars in the video, is very competitive in terms of what he expects from Christmas lighting and wants you to have the best house in the neighborhood. But, he doesn’t want you to have that house because you’ve put a million lights on your house, he wants to achieve standout perfection by being simple, clean, and classy.
To set the mood, check out the Christmas One More Time XV playlist at Spotify…just type http://sptfy.com/12dC into your browser and you’ve got music to get you through all your projects.
 
The Fine Print: Video Embed courtesy of YouTube. It has not been altered in any way. We thank them for sharing. All rights belong to the respective rights holders and we thank them for making their videos available for distribution and sharing. Christmas Camp is a project of DonaldPierce.com….. Copyright (c) Donald Pierce, all rights reserved. Enjoy the holidays.

Christmas Camp: How to Hang Exterior Lights

During the holidays, it’s time to light up the house. You do not want to be the occupant of the only house on the block (or in the neighborhood) who has not put up Christmas lights. First–a word of caution. At a certain point in your life, you may want to delegate hanging the lights to a professional company. Standing on the top of shaky ladders and stretching out to clip in lights is very hazardous. But—even if that is what you end up doing–you still need to know the process and techniques. Here we present one of two short videos on how to hang exterior lights. Please note that the battle for neighborhood light supremacy is a very real thing: you do not want to get “light shamed”. Also know that the battle has moved to ground level in a lot of neighborhoods–where once the roof/roofline of the house was lit up, now there’s a trend to light at ground level, outlining walkways and spreading lights throughout the shrubs around the front of the house. Whatever your decision for lighting, it’s always good to know as much about the process as possible.
To set the mood, check out the Christmas One More Time XV playlist at Spotify…just type http://sptfy.com/12dC into your browser and you’ve got music to get you through all your projects.
 
The Fine Print: Video Embed courtesy of YouTube. It has not been altered in any way. We thank them for sharing. All rights belong to the respective rights holders and we thank them for making their videos available for distribution and sharing. Christmas Camp is a project of DonaldPierce.com….. Copyright (c) Donald Pierce, all rights reserved. Enjoy the holidays.