Top 5 Chrismas Songs

 As heard on the CWK Pourover, here are my top 5 Christmas songs:

5. Santa Claus is Comin to Town performed by Bruce Springsteen (1985)

This song, besides being performed by the legendary "Boss," will always remind me of my childhood and the good times hanging out with my brother.  He introduced me to Rock and Roll and some of the greats like The Boss.  My brother would always get a kick out of Springsteen when he couldn't stop laughing at all the "Ho ho ho's."  Classic performance!

4. Christmas Time is Here by Lee Mendelson and Vince Guaralaldi (1965)

Who doesn't love the Charlie Brown Christmas special?  This program and this opening song to the show wrap up all the feelings of Christmas to me.  It makes me feel nostalgic, it gives me serenity, and it brings me joy.  When I hear this song on the radio, all those feelings come back to me.  

3. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Andy Williams

The hot start to this song brings images of the city all decorated in lights.  I picture holiday shopping, and happy people carrying packages on a snowy night through the streets of the city.  It might be Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The title says it all with the uplifting performance of Andy Williams, when I hear this song, I know Christmas is here!  

2. Silent Night performed by Bing Crosby (1945)

Take one of the most beautiful songs of the holiday season and add one of the most memorable singers of the last 100 years, and you have a song that can change a life.  When I was young, WLS radio in Chicago would play Christmas music from noon on Christmas eve to Midnight on Christmas day.  This was

1. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas performed by James Taylor (2002)

There are certain songs that resonate with us all year round even though it is a "summer song" or a "break-up song."  This is my Christmas song that stays with me every year.  The lyrics "Let your heart be light, from now on our troubles will be out of sight" speak to me, because I am a person who tends to let my troubles stay with me.  In this Christmas time and anytime really, I need to "be light."  

I hope you all have a Merry Little Christmas and a Happy Holiday in 2020.  And as I think about all of you, I can't help think about the lyrics, "Faithful friends who are dear to us, gather near to us, once more."  Let's use this time to come together in peace for the good of all of us.  

Top 5 Things I Love about Halloween

 Here is a seasonal Top 5:  My Top 5 Things I love about Halloween

1.  It is the gateway to the Holidays!

2. It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

3. Costumes

4. Backyard bonfires

5. Spooky Stories

What are your favorite things about Halloween?  Leave a comment below!  

Top 5 List: Top 5 Colors

Hi everyone it's Kaleigh from Sistercast! If you don't already know who I am, I have a YouTube channel with my sister and we call it Sistercast. Come check us out!  

In my opinion, colors are what make the world beautiful! Colors are important for so many different things! Some things that I do every day where colors are important are arts and crafts, knitting, painting, gymnastics, etc.

Arts and crafts:

Colors are super important when doing arts and crafts, because when doing an image collage (like in the picture), I had to think about what colors would look good together and I had to decide 

how I needed to space the colorful pictures and the simpler pictures.  

Colors are extremely important in painting because when you might be blending colors together to make like a sunset you would need to know the color wheel and warm and cool colors to know which colors would mix well and which colors would not turn out so great. 

Now lets actually get into my top 5 colors! Here is my Top 5 Colors list:

1. Pink

2. Yellow

3. Blue

4. Purple 

5. Green

Pink and yellow are my all time favorite colors because they both give me a happy feeling, like yellow reminds me of the sun and summer. Pink gives me a happy feeling. Yellow and blue also somewhat connected to each other because they both remind me of a summer day. The blue is the bright  sky and the yellow is the amazing sun! Purple is on my top 5 because it reminds me of plants and flowers that are really pretty. The color green made it on my Top 5 list because it reminds me of plants and growth. I also really like to go on hikes with my family in the forest.  

What are your favorite colors and why?  Leave a comment below and check back next week for our Top 5 List!  

Top 5 List: Top 5 Baseball Players

This list challenge of Top 5 Baseball players was given to me by my daughter, and she would not really put parameters around it.  So, I went with my Top 5 Baseball players I would have watched in my lifetime.  So here is the list:  

1.  Greg Maddux

2.  Mark Grace

3.  Dave Winfield

4.  Jack Morris

5.  Anthony Rizzo

It is a tough list to make because as I'm typing I keep thinking Wade Boggs, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, Mitch Williams, Brett Saberhagen, Ozzie Smith, Alan Trammel, Ichiro, Charlie Hough, Tim Wakefield, Will Clark, etc.  It really isn't fair, but that's my list!  Greg Maddux is by far my top pitcher and player.  Even though I saw him lose many games, I always knew the Cubs or Braves had a great chance to win when he was on the mound.  He was a pitcher that didn't rely on the heat, but rather he relied on cunning and outsmarting the hitter with amazing movement.  You rarely saw Maddux shaken on the mound and late in his career, I enjoyed watching him in the dugout mentoring young pitchers.  

Mark Grace and Anthony Rizzo have protected first base at Wrigley field the majority of my time as a Cubs Fan.  They both are amazing at defense and while Grace is an overall better hitter, in my opinion, I like their approach at the plate.  Grace was more about the extra-base hit where Rizzo is more about putting the ball in play with an eye to helping the ball exit the park.  

Dave Winfield was just impressive.  Besides being a great guy with a great attitude, he was an amazing athlete.  Coming out of college in Minnesota he was one of six players to ever be drafted by three major professional sports teams (Minnesota Vikings NFL, Atlanta Hawks NBA, San Diego Padres MLB).  I liked Winfield's presence on the field and his home run hitting power.  He was also aided in longevity in the league because of the designated hitter rule.  Winfield lasted a long time and slowly crept up many statistical record lists.  

Jack Morris was an amazing pitcher.  I will never forget the pitching performance he made in game 7 of the World Series for Minnesota.  He pitched a 10 inning complete game to close it out for the Twins.  He was the kind of pitcher who didn't look for the best ERA or pitching stats.  Morris wanted to put his team in a position to win a game.  It didn't ever seem to matter to him whether it was a 1-0 win or a 11-10 win.  He pitched to keep his team in it.  

So, there you have it!  The first Top 5 in my Top 5 series.  What do you think?  Who are your Top 5 Baseball players?  Do you have some other Top 5 topics you would like me to rank?  Leave a comment.