Christmas on the Radio
November 1st, 2008 at 2:50 am by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog
White Christmas A couple of Grand Rapids radio stations flipped to all-Christmas/Holiday music on Halloween. Star105.7 was first at 10 AM on 10/31 and W-Lite (95.7 FM) followed 46 minutes later. This was nearly two weeks earlier than the stations started the Christmas music last year. The Bing Crosby rendition of White Christmas, recorded in 1942, is the biggest selling single of all time, as confirmed by the 2008 Guinness Book of Records. The song was written by one of the most famous, if not the most famous songwriter of all time, Irving Berlin (he lived to be 101).
He stayed up all night writing the song and in the morning he went to his office and told his secretary, “Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I’ve ever written - I just wrote the best song that anybody’s ever written!”
If record sales are the measure of what’s best…he was right! Including all versions of the song (inc. albums) White Christmas has sold over 100 million copies. The song was #1 for 11 weeks in 1942 and was also #1 during the Christmas seasons of 1945 and 1946. It remains the only single song to reach #1 in three different years.
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh
My sympathies go out to all the people who have to endure 2 months of Christmas music at work. By the time you have heard “Rudolph” 10 times in one day, you are ready to choke anyone who speaks to you.
Blech.
why do they do this, it’s mind numbing!
Thats a very dramatic fall on the AO, I cannot remember such a extreme fall as this graph..in quite a while
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.sprd2.gif
The only “christmas” song I wish to hear is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qz5M4gtTvM&feature=related
it’s a special dedication to a fellow snow lover, blogger and friend..
Happy 49th Birthday today Craig H.!
Dad, Bing is going down just as soon as you put out your piano single, “O Christmas Tree.”
)
Bill – since it IS my birthday, what I want is for you to post your single on YouTube!!!
Thanks Michelle
It’s the only song he can play on the piano and every time he comes over, no matter how far from Christmas it is, the first thing he does is walk over to the piano and play it. I’ve offered to teach him another song…
LOL, Michelle.
“Film at 11″, Bill…
Lets see it Bill!!!!
Hooray!
Charles, get that Camera ready for Frdiay, maybe we get a good ole fashoined fall thunderstorm…..!!!!!!
Temps near 70 could be a nice trigger for that front, now what about the avaliable moisture?
First off Happy Birthday Graig, (of little note I have a birthday comming up next Friday).
Its a nice sunny November day, and I am looking forward to the nice warm up comming (too bad it won’t last) Bob I can see where we could get temps into the 70’s next week…..you know one of the years (my birth year LOL 1950) that Accuweather Joe Bastardi has been comparing this fall to. We had the warmest November temp on record here in GR of 81° on the 1st….of course we had the coldest November temp on record of -10 on the 25th. Dose anyone know how much snow we got in November of 1950?
SlimJim
lol john we listen to 105.7 i was like fricken great
Michelle, teach him COME SAIL AWAY by STYX. Nice piano work in that one =) Or ROLL WITH THE CHANGES.
John I’m with you… Christmas music should be played at the beginning of Dec. Maybe even the second week of.. LOL
Good thing I always listen to rock & metal stations, like The Fox, LAV, and KLQ!!
Happy Birthday Craig!!!!
This warm air is awesome I actually have my window open! I worked outside yesterday in a SHORT SLEEVE!!! IT’S SUNNY!!
Bob I have my camera all set and ready to go, just waiting on the storms now =)
I could wait a month if we had warm air like this!!!
You need an updated Santa
THIS ONE!
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c52/RockCandyOnline/RockinSanta.jpg
maybe this one?
http://www.embroidery-by-ruth.de/assets/images/RockinSanta03.jpg
Good Day,
No, No… Bob and Doug Mackenzie’s Twelve Days of Christmas eh… I kid.
So, warmmer than average this next week with snow the week after?
Steelie
Teach him to play Piano Man.
Michelle if you have the goods on your dads piano playing let’s see them.
I can’t play a lick of any instrument. I used to be able to play clarinet pretty good back when I was a kid.
Ugh!!! Please, please spare me!
:):):)
Hey SlimJim,
I have records for St.Johns back to Nov 1951, but not 1950.
You are right Nov 1950 was a wild temp month for the state & area.
The winter of 51-52 was the snowiest for St.Johns 76.8 in and that Nov we recieved 15.7 in here..
I’ll se what I can find for ya!
Thanks Bob…
SlimJim
Thanks for the birthday wishes all. I had the best yet!
Predictions for first snow of an inch or more-anywhere in Southern Michigan south of let’s say Mt. Pleasant….
I’ll say Novemember 14th.
I like the Bob & Tom version of the 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS LOL
1950 was a wild year according to what records I could find… with the temps swings, winds, and snow. It might be an interesting one
I’ll go Nov 8
lets hold off the xmas music untill after turkey day!
I wrote a nice little note to Jerry Tarrants at WLHT letting him know that I can’t stand to listen to Christmas Music every single day for 2 months. It really takes the shine off the holiday for me. What’s wrong with a song or two (or maybe even three!) every hour? That’s plenty! Anything 24/7 gets tiresome!
anything more than a song in a day before Dec 10 is tiresome..LOL
Texas /TT games was a hoot! WOW
Interesting stats from GRR for 60 degree days in early nov. on thier web page..
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=grr&storyid=19037&source=0
So I used Lansing Nov. Stats kind of a baseline, for St.Johns.
But used actuall St. Johns data for my findings as follows.
White Christmas’s after a early record Nov warmth and snowy decembers following a early Nov warmth
I do not have records back into the 1800’s, so I will use the seven years I have records for..
I found out
White Christmas’s following records as desrcibed above.
5 out of six, with one christmas it snowed most of the day but melted
St.Johns averages about 8in for a December snow,
4 were well above average snowfalls, 2 average and 1 below average.
So if we used analog years as a example for upcoming Dec…
I would say it will be snowy and 90% or better chance of a white christmas..
Bob P,
One thing that may interest you is that many of those years with a warm spell in November had a lot of snow in the following winter. The one exception may have been 1949. and I hope 2008 LOL
nice and sunny start here today.
SlimJim
Also I see the NWS is now thinking the same as me and calling for a 70+ day next week…Oh I can feel the warmth now, going for a nice walk with short sleves on in Michigan in November…too bad it can’t last.
SlimJim
SlimJim
Yep Jim, the data is very interesting..
Winter of 66/67 was the biggest here in St.Johns normal Dec, but huge Jan/Feb
followed by 78/79
Corect again Jim….49/50 was way below normal snowfall..here
hmmm my spelling of correct …was incorrect above..Heehee
maybe a little lightning later??
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1otlk.html
I am looking forward to the warm up! The boards need to update their time. It’s off by 1 hour.
Hey everyone, just picked up some sprinkles.
I have recently been linked to a video from a friend of my Mom;s who is very reputable about tainted candy. The guy put the video out before Halloween, but I never got the news until today. Please check MY BLOG FOR DETAILS comment #19 is the video.
This could mean the same for Christmas Candy too. Apparently these candies contain MELAMINE. The same substance found in the dangerous pet foods and other products that have killed children and pets.
Did I kill the blog? Is it just that no one cares?
What the heck is going on today sheesh!!
The Lions losing was about the only thing I knew was going to happen..
The Lions lose again. Bill Ford should bring the jobs back and send the Lions to Mexico.
Gawd, I hate this time change. I am about ready to head to bed, but it is only 8:40 PM….
Charles–are you seeing any lightning up there? Your area looks to have a pretty good number of lightning strokes on GRLevel3 right now.
I hate Christmas, and Christmas music….I want to smash something whenever I hear it! lol. Good thing I work at a grocery store where they play all Christmas music…not. :-p
WLHT has been playing Christmas music every weekend for some time – it just isn’t right without snow on the ground…
I do love Christmas though – it’s my birthday!
I gotta admit. It’s EXTREMELY annoying with the radio stations that won’t quit playing christmas songs over and over for around 1 to 2 months. Christmas music shouldn’t be played any earlier than December 1 since Christmas is in December. I bet a lot of people would agree with me on that.