Smells Like Holiday Spirit at Online Magazine Blogcritics.org

Blanket coverage of the holidays is how award-winning online magazine Blogcritics.org fights the cold and brings on the cheer. It's also the place where a community of 50,000 daily visitors gathers round the warmly-lit digital fireplace to discuss music, politics, books, film, TV, popular culture, sports, and gaming written by more than 1,100 superior bloggers.

As Blogcritics.org Publisher Eric Olsen writes:

In the broadest terms, the winter holiday season begins Thanksgiving week and extends through New Year's Day or so, incorporating Winter Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, New Year's Eve and Day, and a gauntlet of festive gatherings in between. And since holidays require a lot of planning, we are well into the holiday mode mentally, if not yet physically.

We are covering the holiday season — movies, music, books, TV, entertaining, traditions, social commentary — like a windless midnight snow.

Here's a selective sampling of the veritable cornucopia of holiday delights:

Home, Family, Travel, & Food
* Natalie Davis seeks out the spirit of goodwill during the holiday season and tops things off with festive inter-denominational recipes such as "My Sweet-Potato Christmas Latkes"
* Running the numbers, Eric Olsen tells us what Americans look forward to the most during the holidays
* Eric Olsen also checks in with a timely report on holiday decorating safety

Movies & TV
* Going to the movies is a cornerstone of the holiday season for many, and Legendary Monkey lays down the lowdown on a movie season replete with apes, Quidditch, and gay cowboys
* Annie takes us through the documentary journey of Search for Santa
* Tony Figueroa reminds us that the 40th annual viewing of A Charlie Brown Christmas is afoot
* The "eyesore" of Surviving Christmas is bravely survived by reviewer Brandon Valentine

Music
* The 25 most performed holiday songs from the last five years (according to ASCAP) are given the run-down by Eric Olsen
* Warren Kelly looks at classic Christmas music and A Windham Hill Christmas: The Night Before Christmas
* Modern Pea Pod reviews Steve Lukather & Friends' SantaMental
* Christmas jazz divas grab the attention of Stephen V Funk

Theater
* Natalie Bennett reviews The Super Slash Naughty XXXmas Story, live from East London

The Grinches of 2005 Speak Out!
* Dave Nalle unfurls a list of five incessant holiday songs that will ring your ears through the New Year
* The darker side of the holidays is looked at with care and insight by Gypsyman
* Nukapai attempts to simmer down the over exuberance of the holiday season

The "Battle" of Christmas
* Politics usually finds its way into even the most festive of seasons, as Pete Blackwell's "Liberals and the 'War on Christmas'" attests
* Eric Olsen takes a meta-view on the politics of the holidays in "Dismantling Christmas"
* Christmas v. Holiday Tree: It's no contest according to Bird of Paradise
* Margaret Romao Toigo brings her own take to the holiday nomenclature debate
* Mark Schannon rethinks Christmas in "Christmas, Christians, and the State"
* The legal side of the "holiday wars" is analyzed by Thomas M. Sipos

Hanukah
* Ruvy in Jerusalem sheds the light on Hanukah and its place in Judaism

"Black Friday"
* Eric Olsen explores the eShopping phenomenon in light of the biggest shopping day of the year
* Victor Plenty confronts holiday consumerism via International Buy Nothing Day

Thanksgiving
* Thanksgiving traditions are nostalgically recalled by Justene Adamec
* The historical origins and meaning of Thanksgiving is explored by Guarav Sood
* Al Barger counts his blessings and his favorite things come Thanksgiving time

Blogcritics.org would also like to wish everyone a joyous, wonderful, and safe holiday season and a happy, healthy, and rocking new year!

About Blogcritics.org

Blogcritics.org is a new kind of online magazine, an interactive community in which writers and readers from around the globe talk about stories, issues, and products. If it's happening in the world – from global political issues to obscure rock bands, from the latest best selling novel to the TV shows that aired last night – Blogcritics.org has it covered.

Blogcritics.org was founded by Eric Olsen, who has enjoyed a 25-year career in writing and broadcasting on a vast array of topics including politics, music, and media. Co-owner Phillip Winn built Blogcritics.org, nearly from scratch, and continues to manage the technical and design elements of the site.

Working with Olsen and Winn is a team of over twenty editors dedicated to making Blogcritics.org the premiere Web destination for interactive news, commentary, and reviews.

Blogcritics.org is an official Google News and My Yahoo! source, syndicates content to online editions of newspapers around the United States via the Advance family of websites, and has won numerous awards, including a Bloggie for best music site, Forbes.com's Best Media Blogs, and was recently showcased on the prestigious AlwaysOn and Technorati "Open Media 100" list.

Are you a blogger? Would you like to increase your visibility and reach a very large and growing audience? Then Blogcritics.org may be for you. Visit http://Blogcritics.org and click Become a Blogcritic for details.

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Eric Berlin
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Blogcritics.org Publisher
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ecolsen2003@cs.com

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Links

Blogcritics.org
http://blogcritics.org
Blogcritics on the Holiday Season '05 Master Post
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/11/16/184036.php