to my Christmas Page. Merry Christmas to you! This page has Santa's Links to other Christmas pages, the Scarecrow's Christmas Art Collection, and some other goodies. Sit back, relax, and browse. I hope you will enjoy yourself.

If you have a graphical browser with custom link colors, you may find using green and red link colors will enhance your holiday browsing enjoyment.

Well, I thought we'd start off with my email to Santa.

Dear Santa,

How have you been? I've been good, well, fairly good all year, OK, most of the year. I would like to thank you for the gift you gave me last year, that course at the Julius LaRosa School of Humility. OK, enough of this chit-chat, let's get down to the goodies.

I want volunteers to do things for me, like index the SAAAs so I can work on the Web pages. And a program specifically made for moderating newsgroups. And a faster modem. I also have a few requests for some other folks.

For my hard working sysadmin, Greg Gulik, could you bring him a new 100 gigabyte hard disk, oh yeah, and an extra pair of hands, he could sure use them. For Dave Vrona, a copy of Netscape 1.0, and the time to use it. Thanks to Greg and Dave of WorldWide Access for providing the Web server resources.

Bring Joel K. Furr a load of t-shirts, and the bandwidth to talk about them. For Kibo, how about a program to allow him to grep newtork traffic. For David Lawrence, a faster editor, and a 40 hour day.

Santa, bring Tim Pierce a Joel Furr t-shirt. And give Scott Yanoff a copy of the Book of Lists. And for Tim Berners-Lee, a medal for inventing the Web.

Let's see, send Glenn Davis a bunch of URLs to cool sites, like this page so that he can put it on the Cool Site of the Day (similar to the Spider's Pick of the Day) for the Christmas weekend.

Bring Adam Curry a TV station, and six more guys just like him to work there. And for the President, please give him my Web address.

Well that's it for this year Santa. I hope these things aren't too much trouble. I've heard you put on a few pounds. Don't worry, I'll grease the chimney.

Thanks,

Bob

You too can send email to Santa at: Santa@cris.com. On some sites all you need to do is click on the email address to send mail.

1. Move hitherward the entire assembly of those who are loyal in their belief.

2. Embellish interior passageways.

3. Natal celebration devoid of color as a hallucinatory phenomenon for me.

4. Twelve o'clock an a clement night witnessed is arrival.

5. The Christmas preceding all others.

6. Omnipotent supreme being who elicits respite to ecstatic distinguished males.

7. Jovial yuletide desired for the second person singular or plural by us.

8. Exclamitory remark about mall municipality in Judea southwest of Jerusalem.

HERE WE COME A WASSAILING by Unknown

Christmas at the White House - Christmas card and signed holiday message

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Santa Claus - A message from Santa, the elves, and the reindeer

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A Christmas Carol - The Dickens classic on line

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The North Pole - Send a message to Santa, decorate a tree

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Decorate a Tree - Link from above page

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SimTV Global Christmas - Live events on Christmas Day

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Christmas in Japan - Link from above page

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StickyWeb Christmas - Electronic Christmas Cards, and other links

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Christmas Pictures - Has inline small views (link from above page)

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Advent Calendar - Reveal something different under each date

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The Christmas Page - Lots of Christmas links

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Santa Claus Home Page - Father Christmas, and Christmas traditions

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Christmas In New York - Activities, including what's happening today

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Parade - Pictures and text (link from above page)

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Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and genorosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existance. We would have no enjoyment except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

CHRISTMAS EVE by Anee P. L. Field

- Scarecrow's Christmas Art -

For more ASCII art, go to the Scarecrow's WWW Link. It's your gateway to the world of ASCII art. It has links to all the files and sites and servers the Scarecrow knows.

Here is the title graphic for the collection of Christmas ASCII art. It's a composite pic I made last year. Like most ASCII art, the following is best viewed with a 9 point, monospaced font, light on dark.

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MMM    .'   |MM  MM|  |MM` "  |MM  MMbx/  |MM   |MM  |M|  MM  `p'. M| MMbx/

'MMl  +   . |MM  MM|  |MM  .  |MM  .`vMMl |MM   |MM  |M|  MM  , ,!. | .`vMMl
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 [][__][__]|   .|_][__][__|   .|__][__] | |||  ||    ''''   *     \\   *  |||
 [__][__][/   <_)[__][__]/   <_)][__][] | (((" ||   *      *  *     \\  * )))
 [][__][ /..,/][__][__][/..,/_][__][__] | ((( / \\    .   **    O     \\**)))
 [__][__(__/_L_L_L_L_L_(__/_L[__][__][] | (((______________*\\       *  * )))

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 [][__][_] |   .'i,#'/ ,     [][__][__] |   ><          **   o  \\   ()  ** 
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Composite by               _       ;--:-          __---------------___  __---

Bob Allison             c--U---^--''__[_  ooo___  | |_!_||_!_||_!_| |   | |_!
              _--_     _|------------'_|,[______],|_________________|_|,|____
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  \    ####|    | \__/        |..|_i_|.|_i_|..|   | |_!_||_!_||_!_| |   | |_!
  /  /  ##       \|         |_|_______________|,|_|_________________|,|_|____

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'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual Yuletide celebration

We've been warned by breifcase totin lawyers that we should print a technically correct version of this famous verse, for our protection. So we asked Data from the Enterprise to write a version. And here it is.

'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence, kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas.

The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through their cerebrums. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof.

Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing this fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian itself - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule, aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his ungulate motive power travelling at what may possibly have been more vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen - "Now Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. - guiding them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities.

As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved - with utmost celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony residue from oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle.

His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiability. The capillaries of his malar regions and nasal appurtenance were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their ambient hirsute facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water.

Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose grey fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container. He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund, multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom rendered me visibly frolicsome despite every effort to refrain from so being. By rapidly lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his head slightly to one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was groundless.

Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the aforementioned articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about- face, placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith effected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility: "Ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary constituency, and to that self same assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn."

The White House Christmas Tree - The First Lady is hostess

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Delphi Holiday Gopher - Pictures, text, sounds, facts, more

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Christmas Music - Link from above Gopher site

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Santa's Web Server - Message from Santa, links for kids

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North Pole CityLink - Santa's Workshop, weather at the North Pole

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Weather at the North Pole - The Reindeer Report (link from above page)

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The Days 'Til Christmas - Day, hours, minutes, seconds til Christmas

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Christmas Page - Floyd Vest's Christmas links

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Christmas in the Movies - Link from the above page

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Christmas Tree - Vote to turn things off and on, see the tree

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Advent Calendar - From the BBC

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Christmas Around the World - Including England, Asia, Norway, Australia

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Santa's Domain on the Web - Christmas Shopping & the Cybersleigh

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Christmas Calendar - From CERN

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'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that ST. NICHOLAS soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, DASHER! now, DANCER! now, PRANCER and VIXEN!
On, COMET! on CUPID! on, DONDER and BLITZEN!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT."

Excerpt from A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens

If you enjoyed this page, here are a few presents I have waiting for you to unwrap. They are some of my 50 or so pages. And remember to visit them from time to time, as they are always growing and changing.

Home Page - Named "Cool Site of the Day" for November 11, 1994

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The Spider's Web - Has over 1,200 Hot Links to cool places

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Top 40 - By access popularity

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The Spider's Pick of the Day - Very popular

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Cool Places - ... to go on the Web

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ASCII ART FAQ - Named 1 of 6 "Most Fabulous FAQs" by Internet World

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Fun and Games - One of the most popular pages

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The Spider's Bookmark - Things that crazy spider likes

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Newsgroups - Short list of links, with link to long (6,000 groups) list

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Every home page in the world - Almost

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Hot Lists - A hot list of hot lists

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Imagebases - Popular page of sites having GIFs, icons, clip-art

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Scarecrow's WWW Link - Gateway to the world of ASCII art

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Web Survey Averages - Comparison Chart and averages of 3 Web surveys

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Quick Look - A small selection of the Spider's links

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Star Trek - Popular list of Star Trek Web sites

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World Wide Web - About the Web, Web FAQ, Web home, HTML, etc.

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I hope you had fun, and thank you for coming. I would like to thank you all for sending so many kind remarks about this page. I will certainly do it again next year. Send any suggestions for improvements to me at the address below. On some sites you need only cilck the address link to send email.

Merry Christmas!

Bob Allison

boba@wwa.com