Christmas and holiday season

The Christmas season, or festive season, (also called the holiday season or simply the holidays, mainly in the U.S. and Canada), is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and Western-influenced countries that is generally considered to run from late November to early January, defined as incorporating at least Christmas, and usually New Year, and sometimes various other holidays and festivals. It incorporates a period of shopping which comprises a peak season for the retail sector (the "Christmas (or holiday) shopping season"), and a period of sales at the end of the season (the "January sales"). Christmas window displays and Christmas tree lighting ceremonies when trees decorated with ornaments and light bulbs are illuminated, are traditions in many areas.

Originally within the Roman Catholic Church, the term "Christmas season" was considered synonymous with Christmastide, a term associated with Yuletide, which runs from December 25 (Christmas Day) to January 6 (Epiphany), popularly known as the 12 Days of Christmas. However, as the economic impact involving the anticipatory lead-up to Christmas Day grew in America and Europe into the 19th and 20th centuries, the term "Christmas season" began to become synonymous instead with the traditional Christian Advent season, the period observed in Western Christianity from the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day until Christmas Day itself. The term "Advent calendar" survives in secular Western parlance as a term referring to a countdown to Christmas Day from the beginning of December.

Happy Holidays (Magnus Carlsson album)

Happy Holidays is a 2014 Magnus Carlsson Christmas album.

Track listing

Chart positions

References

Happy Holidays (disambiguation)

"Happy holidays" is a spoken or written greeting commonly used during or before the Christmas and holiday season.

Happy Holidays may also refer to:

See also

Pyramids (novel)

Pyramids is the BSFA winning seventh Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1989.

Plot summary

The main character of Pyramids is Teppic, prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi. Djelibeybi is the Discworld counterpart to Ancient Egypt.

Young Teppic has been in training at the Assassins Guild in Ankh-Morpork for several years. The day after passing his final exam he mystically senses that his father has died and that he must return home. Being the first Djelibeybian king raised outside the kingdom leads to some interesting problems, based on the fact that Dios, the high priest, is a stickler for tradition, and does not, in fact, allow the pharaohs to rule the country.

After numerous adventures and misunderstandings, Teppic is forced to escape from the palace, along with a handmaiden named Ptraci. Meanwhile, the massive pyramid being built for Teppic's father warps space-time so much that it "rotates" Djelebeybi out of alignment with the space/time of the rest of the disc by 90 degrees. Teppic and Ptraci travel to Ephebe to consult with the philosophers there as to how to get back inside the Kingdom. Meanwhile, pandemonium takes hold in Djelibeybi, as the kingdom's multifarious gods descend upon the populace, and all of Djelibeybi's dead rulers come back to life.

Take Off Your Pants and Jacket

Take Off Your Pants and Jacket is the fourth studio album by the American pop punk band Blink-182. Produced by Jerry Finn, the album was released on June 12, 2001, through MCA Records. The band had spent much of the previous year traveling and supporting the album Enema of the State (1999), which launched the band's mainstream career. The title is a tongue-in-cheek pun on male masturbation ("take off your pants and jack it"). The cover art has icons for each member of the trio: an airplane ("take off"), a pair of pants and a jacket. Several different editions were released with additional bonus tracks.

The album was primarily recorded over three months at Signature Sound in San Diego. During the sessions, MCA executives pressured the band to retain the sound that helped their previous album sell millions. As such, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket continues the pop punk sound that the group honed and made famous, albeit with a heavier tone inspired by groups such as Fugazi and Refused. Regarding lyrics, the album has been referred to as a concept album chronicling adolescence, with songs dedicated to first dates, fighting authority and teenage parties. Due to differing opinions on direction, the trio worked in opposition to one another for the first time, and the sessions sometimes became contentious.