October, 2015 Issue: The Christmas Times<sup><small>TM</small></sup>


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	Bible Story of Christmas	More Stories of Christmas
	Christmas Music	Craft Resources
	About Nativities	Christmas Musings
	Christmas Poems	Christmas Memories
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	Recipes	Activity Ideas
	Advent Resources	Other Resources
	Christmas Movies	Christmas Books

Written by Paul and Shelia Race for Family Christmas Online^TM

The Christmas Times^TM, the Official E-Mail Newsletter of Family Christmas Online^TM and Affiliated Sites

This newsletter is for people who like celebrating holidays, especially Christmas. It is produced in conjunction with the following web sites.

Family Christmas Online^TM
Cardboard Christmas^TM
Old Christmas Tree Lights^TM

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In this Issue

Welcome to the October, 2015 issue of The Christmas Times^TM.

If it seems like you haven't gotten a newsletter for a very long time, it's because you haven't gotten a newsletter since March. We have had all kinds of site maintenance issues, including a mandatory server upgrade that forced us to modify thousands of pages, and a server hosting change that broke one of our Christmas-themed sites several times.

On the bright side, we've had many, many signups this year, so interest in our content is continuing to grow. Questions keep coming in, and those have caused use to add content in a number of sections. Also, we've answered many reader questions on the Family Christmas Online discussion forums. So the content there is gradually growing as well.

Looking forward, we have new stories and features to add, so please stay tuned.

Topics discussed in this update include:

Christmas Train Day, 2015 - Regional Christmas train festivities for the holiday season, starting with ours, on November 14, near Springfield, Ohio.
Thoughts About Halloween (Redux) - last months remarks about Halloween generated some great reader feedback.
Jan Brett's Kids' Activity Pages for Halloween - Fun pages from a popular Children's author and artist.
Big Train Availability for Late 2015
Putz House Forum Explodes - More ideas for collecting, restoring, and building cardboard Christmas houses than you can imagine.

Christmas Train Day, 2015

Get a jump start on your holiday vibe! Our eighth annual Christmas-themed open railroad on our own New Boston and Donnels Creek is scheduled for November 14 this year (2015) (near Springfield, Ohio). We have a movie-style popcorn popper, outdoor movies after dark, several garden trains running, four or five trains for the kids to run, including Thomas and James, about 30 miniature trees covered with lights, Christmas music playing, and more. Plus there will be two big Large Scale indoor railroads in the region, and, come December, a VERY nice outdoor railroad on display in northern Kentucky, Christmas lights, Christmas trains, and all.

Click on the following link to see the page of information we have so far:

http://familygardentrains.com/outside_resources/openhouses/christmas_open_houses_2015.htm

"Thoughts About Halloween"

Last year we posted an article about the bad and the good side of Halloween (yes, we found a "good side" or two). To my surprise, all of our reader feedback was very positive. But several of the responses were worth sharing as well. So we've expanded our musings on this misunderstood and much-abused holiday, including links to many family-friendly projects. After you've had a look, use the contact link at the bottom of that page to let us know what you think.

To see this article, click on the following link:

http://familychristmasonline.com/other_holidays/halloween/halloween.htm

For a related blog by Christian songwriter and producer Scott Wesley Brown, click the following link:

https://scottwesleybrown.wordpress.com/2015/10/28/open-your-doors-and-turn-the-lights-on-for-halloween/

Jan Brett's Halloween Coloring Pages

Here are some more of Jan Bretts's activity pages, including printable coloring sheets and placements, with Halloween themes:

Jan Brett's other coloring sheets are here:

Big Train Availability for Late 2015

If you're interested in having a train around your tree or town, you might be interested in a "status report" of what kinds of trains are available right now. You should know that:

The economy is improving enough for people to start buying trains again,
Several manufacturers underordered last year and are still trying to catch up, and
If you want a specific train under or around the tree this year, you shouldn't wait too long.

Here is a link to our Trains-N-Towns newsletter (for Big Indoor Trains and Christmas trains) that gives details on what was available early this week.

http://bigindoortrains.com/trains_n_towns/15_10_newsletter_indoor.htm#train_market

Putz House Discussion Forum Explodes

In a good way. Putz houses are those cardboard Christmas houses with holes in the back for lights that sat under millions of Christmas trees between 1928 and 1965. We started a web page about them in 2010, then in 2011, we started a discussion forum where people could ask talk about what they're doing with putzes and related traditional Christmas decorations. Discussions include:

New putz projects, many of which include tips and plans
Putz restoration projects
Putz identification ("What is this?")

The first time you log in, you may be a little overwhelmed with all the content. But if you sign up, and catch up, then every time you visit you'll see little icons that show you which sections have content you haven't seen yet. And from then on, it's a lot like joining in on a friendly conversation that is already in progress.

Also the word "friendly" is important. We have a manual signup process to keep fake people and robospammers off the list. Everybody on the list is very supportive of each other, and we keep it that way on purpose.

http://cardboardchristmas.com/forums/

After you've taken a look around, if you decide to join our little community, please use the following contact page to sign up:

http://cardboardchristmas.com/html/contact.html

Halloween Putzes - Yes, it's too late to start a Halloween village, but this excerpt from this month's Trains-N-Towns newsletter will show you the kind of creativity you'll see on this site.

http://bigindoortrains.com/trains_n_towns/15_09_newsletter_indoor.htm#putz

And, by the way, if you look over that newsletter and would like to sign up for it, too, just look for the signup information on the top of that page.

Keep in Touch

Each month, we get more interest in this newsletter, in our Christmas sites, and in the Christmas traditions, ideas, and memories we discuss. We welcome your questions and comments as indicators of what we should be working on next (also, we always try to answer reader questions quickly). In addition, if you have any photos, tips, or articles you'd like to share with your fellow Christmas enthusiasts, please let us know.

Best Wishes!

As always, our hope is that we can continue helping you and your family (as Dickens said of Scrooge):

Honor Christmas in your heart, and
"try to keep it all the year."

In the meantime, please keep in touch, and let us know what you'd like to see added or changed.

May God grant you joy and wonder every season of this year,

Paul and Shelia Race

http://FamilyChristmasOnline.com

http://CardboardChristmas.com

http://OldChristmasTreeLights.com

Click the following link to view our March, 2015 newsletter:

http://familychristmasonline.com/fco_newsletter/15_03_c_times.htm

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