Chuck Fischer is an American muralist, designer, and author of pop-up books. He was featured in an exhibit in the National Museum of American History entitled Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn along with paper engineer Bruce Foster. [1] His fabric and wallpaper designs are part of the permanent collection at the Cooper–Hewitt, National Design Museum. [2]
A Christmas carol is a carol on the theme of Christmas, traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas holiday season. The term noel has sometimes been used, especially for carols of French origin. Christmas carols may be regarded as a subset of the broader category of Christmas music.
Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music on a variety of topics, religious and otherwise, regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Christmas carols remain a large part of the popular Christmas song canon, with numerous titles being added in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s in the United States. Subject matter ranges from the nativity of Jesus Christ, to gift-giving and merrymaking, to mythical figures surrounding the holidays such as Santa Claus and his elves. Many songs simply have a winter or seasonal theme, or have been adopted into the canon for other reasons.
In the Christian tradition, a nativity scene is the special exhibition, particularly during the Christmas season, of art objects representing the birth of Jesus. While the term "nativity scene" may be used of any representation of the very common subject of the Nativity of Jesus in art, it has a more specialized sense referring to seasonal displays, either using model figures in a setting or reenactments called "living nativity scenes" in which real humans and animals participate. Nativity scenes exhibit figures representing the infant Jesus, his mother, Mary, and her husband, Joseph.
Promises, Promises is a musical that premiered in 1968, based on the 1960 film The Apartment. The music is by Burt Bacharach, with lyrics by Hal David and book by Neil Simon. Musical numbers for the original Broadway production were choreographed by Michael Bennett. Robert Moore directed, and David Merrick produced. The story concerns a junior executive at an insurance company who seeks to climb the corporate ladder by allowing his apartment to be used by his married superiors for trysts.
Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas is a 2004 American computer-animated direct-to-video fantasy comedy anthology film produced by DisneyToon Studios. A standalone sequel to Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (1999), the film features Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Max, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie and Scrooge McDuck in five different segments. Along with the Mickey's PhilharMagic theme park attraction, this production was one of the first to depict the Mickey Mouse characters in computer animation. It is also the final direct-to-video film to all feature Wayne Allwine, Alan Young, and Russi Taylor; who died in 2009, 2016, and 2019 respectively.
The Grinch is a fictional character created by Dr. Seuss. He is best known as the main character of the children's book How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957). He has been played/voiced by many different actors, including: Boris Karloff, Hans Conried, Bob Holt, Anthony Asbury, Jim Carrey, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
The term pop-up book is often applied to any book with three-dimensional pages, although properly the umbrella term movable book covers pop-ups, transformations, tunnel books, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs, and more, each of which performs in a different manner. Also included, because they employ the same techniques, are three-dimensional greeting cards.
Robert James Sabuda is a children's pop-up book artist and paper engineer. His recent books, such as those describing the stories of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, have been well received and critically acclaimed.
Christmas Present is the third Christmas album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released in October 1974 by Columbia Records and, apart from the title track, focused strictly on traditional carols. While his previous holiday LPs were released during the run of his variety series, which ended in 1971, this album was promoted the December following its release through one of his many Christmas specials. An article titled "MOR Artists Are Ailing" in Billboard magazine's November 23, 1974, issue describes the hopes that the record company had for the album: "Columbia is releasing Andy Williams' newest LP, 'Christmas Present,' with considerable advance orders and expects it to become a holiday classic to continue the string of album winners for the artist."
Carol Barton is a book artist, paper engineer, curator, and educator. She is the proprietor of Popular Kinetics Press and has published several editions of artist books. She may be best known for her series of interactive workbooks, The Pocket Paper Engineer.
Vic Duppa-Whyte was a British paper engineer and author for pop-up books.
Merry Christmas II You is the second Christmas album and thirteenth studio album by American singer and songwriter Mariah Carey. It was released by Island Records on November 2, 2010. Recording began in April 2010 and continued while Carey became pregnant. She was the executive producer of Merry Christmas II You and worked with various record producers, including Bryan-Michael Cox, Jermaine Dupri, Randy Jackson, James Poyser, Marc Shaiman, James "Big Jim" Wright and Johnny "Sev" Severin of RedOne. The album features Carey's mother Patricia Carey as a guest vocalist on "O Come All Ye Faithful" / "Hallelujah Chorus". The album is composed of original songs and covers, ballads and uptempo tracks. It incorporates R&B, soul and house music in its composition.
"For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls" is the eighth episode of the sixth season of American Dad!. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on December 12, 2010. The episode follows the events caused by Stan Smith, as he gives his son Steve a rifle for Christmas, even though his wife Francine forbade him to. When Steve is practicing shooting, he accidentally kills a mall Santa. The family decides to bury the body in the woods, but it then turns out that it was the real Santa, who wants revenge by killing the Smiths.
We Need a Little Christmas is the fifth Christmas album by American pop singer Andy Williams that was released by Unison Music in 1995. It gives an adult contemporary treatment to songs that Williams had previously recorded for 1963's The Andy Williams Christmas Album, 1965's Merry Christmas, 1974's Christmas Present, and 1990's I Still Believe in Santa Claus and includes three songs that Williams had not recorded before. In a brief note on the back of the jewel case Williams writes, "These all-new recordings feature fresh, innovative arrangements of some of my favorite carols. I felt like I was singing them for the very first time."
Ken Miller is a curator / writer-editor. He has presented exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Asia, often with private sponsorship. He has published several books of art, fashion and photography and initiated a recurring multimedia feature for T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
Colette Fu is a photographer, book artist and paper engineer based in Philadelphia, PA who makes pop-up books from her photographs. She teaches pop-up courses and community workshops with marginalized populations at various art centers, universities and institutions internationally. Her large-scale, three-dimensional pop-up books feature photographic images which extend towards the viewer for many layers. During an artist residency in Shanghai, Fu designed China's largest pop-up book. Pop-up and flap books originally illustrated sociological ideas and scientific principles; she constructs her own books on how our selves relate to society today. In 2008, Fu was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to create a pop-up book of the 25 ethnic minority groups residing in Yunnan Province, China, from where the artist's mother's family descends. 25 of 55 minority tribes of China reside in Yunnan and comprise less than 9% of the nation's population, with the Han representing the majority. She uses her artistic skills to spread knowledge and provide a brief portrait of their existence.
Bruce Foster is an American paper engineer and graphic designer who specializes in pop-up books. Called a "paper magic master", he has created more than 40 pop-up books for both children and adults, in addition to the pop-up designs that appeared in the 2007 film Enchanted.
Andrew Baron is a self-taught, award-winning paper engineer and singled out by Robert Sabuda, a leading children's pop-up book artist, as a wunderkind of pull tabs, specific devices used to cause movement in pop-up books.
Edward "Ed" Hutchins is known as "one of the most inventive book artists" and proprietor of Editions, a small press publisher of artists' book multiples, since 1989.
Christmas traditions include a variety of customs, religious practices, rituals, and folklore associated with the celebration of Christmas. Many of these traditions vary by country or region, while others are universal and practiced in a virtually ubiquitous manner across the world.