Family Fun: Track Santa’s Sleigh with NORAD
Dec.24
NORAD Tracks Santa Claus (Double click for a minute by minute update)
NORAD, the air defense command center for the United States and Canada, is now reminding us that there’s a little kid in each and every one of us.
The men and women burdened with the life-or-death responsibility of keeping our skies safe also will be using their sophisticated satellites over the next 24 hours to track the exact global whereabouts of Santa Claus. The NORAD Santa Tracker tells you where St. Nick and his flying reindeer were last spotted, where he’s going next and their estimated time of arrival!
As I am typing this around lunchtime, Santa has already delivered 1,618,121,164 gifts, and is currently spreading cheer in the chimneys of Laos, with the nation of Burma getting giddy for his pending arrival.
So now that all your Christmas decorations (which hopefully include removable wall decals) are up, there’s time to gather around the radar screen and let the holiday anticipation build!
If your kids get a little more curious how Santa Claus is able to pull off such an impossibly complicated logistical operation, the Physics Department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have explained the science behind his gift distribution.
Professor Germano Iannacchione has calculated that Santa Claus’ speed is equivalent to that of The Flash. With more 2 billion kids on earth, he has only .00046 seconds to deliver gifts to each Christmas-celebrating home. And his sleigh with full cargo weighs more than 220 million lbs. (100 million kg) and must hit an average speed of 6.3 million mph (10.1 km/hr).
The WPI physicist shares more of his lighthearted (but scientific) insights on Santa logistics in this fun Boston Globe interview.
(To all our customers who celebrate Christmas, wishing a very Merry Christmas to you and your families!)
Not Your Mommy and Daddy’s Candy Canes, But Still the Sweetest Wall Decals Ever
Dec.10
The Next Generation of Candy Canes: Smarties Pastels
You’ve heard of sticker shock? Well, after my latest visit to the candy aisle at Target, I was just hit with sugar shock.
I fully realize I didn’t stumble on a new phenomenon, but I was blown away with how many different candy cane options there are out there now. Maybe it’s because I’ve been trying to eat less sweets recently that these brands didn’t hit my radar earlier. But Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa isn’t a time to skimp on sweets. That’s what New Year’s resolutions are for, right?
As with any product line, the more choices you have, the better (have you seen all the WallCandy choices of chalkboard, dry erase and special occasion wall decals?)
Gobstopper Candy Canes
In the candy aisle, I saw licensed flavored candy canes for Jolly Rancher, Spree, Gobstoppers, Starburst, Swedish Fish, Jelly Belly, Smarties, Hershey’s, Sour Patch Kids and Trolli brands. These are booming times for the genre as the World’s Longest Candy Cane is about to be unveiled in Geneva, Illinois this weekend!
Swedish Fish and Jelly Belly Candy Canes
Personally, I think the Swedish Fish tie-in is blasphemous because those sweet-smelling creatures are supposed to be soft and chewy. I’ve always avoided real Jolly Ranchers because they seem stronger than diamonds and I tend to chew hard candies (don’t tell my dentist).
Jolly Rancher Candy Canes
With WallCandy’s Candy Cane Christmas Decals, we’re going back to the basics. No magic changing colors. No pastels. No mood rings. Just the classic reds and greens that instantly symbolize Christmas. We’re not breaking any world records like the folks in suburban Chicago, but I’m betting that your kids will find these charming removable stickers to be plenty large enough.
Our peel and stick candies also don’t leave a thick sticky residue on your hands — or the walls.
With 48-hour shipping in the U.S. and three days shipping available in Canada (see guidelines), there’s still plenty of time to decorate for the holidays.
WallCandy's Candy Cane Christmas Decals appeal to even the youngest Santas! (Double click image for more info)
(What’s your favorite Christmas or holiday decoration? Share your photos and ideas with us at hello@wallcandyarts.com to be possibly featured in a future WallCandy blog post.)
Gingerbread houses that sweeten the holiday spirit
Dec.16
Remember when the expectations for making a gingerbread house was the 3D equivalent of a children’s stick-figure drawing with simple crosses on the windows?
Those days are long gone. The above architectural cookie masterpiece is a replica of the Winchester Mystery House, a 160-room Victorian mansion with twisting halls and secret passageways built by Sarah Winchester, the heiress to the Winchester Rifle fortune. The allegedly haunted house is now a huge tourist attraction in San Jose, California, drawing especially large crowds around Halloween. No word if this gingerbread version of the Winchester abode is occupied by ghosts as well.
The Winchester cookie mansion is one of a slew of over-the-top gingerbread designs featured on WebUrbanist, a hip architecture site.
With the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primary right around the corner, I’m partial to this fabulous White House design:
This one just looks too gorgeous to give to Sasha and Malia Obama to snack on — not that their health conscious mom would let them munch too far!
Walt Disney World, which once coaxed me into buying a gigantic $8 candy apple that I felt pressure to finish, has mastered the art of cookie construction.
Disney is famous for creating life-size gingerbread houses which their costume characters can “live” in and greet amusement park guests. Check out the sugar-coated fun that Stitch from “Lilo & Stitch” fame is having this year.
But as impressive as the world of Larger Than Life 3D Cookies may be, there is still an amazing appeal to decorating gingerbread houses with absolutely no mess (or chances of ants or mice occupying the home).
WallCandy’s Design Your Own Gingerbread House is a way for kids to repeatedly enjoy the nuances of ice cream cone and lollipop construction without fear of long-term dental implications or a lecture about the childhood obesity epidemic.
The removable wall decal set comes with gingerbread walls and roof, candy cane lamp posts, ice cream cone chimney, snow ball pastries, snow icing, snow mounds, jelly rolls and various hard candies, gum balls and jelly beans.
It’s a way to extend the holiday fun all winter long, whether you live in a snowy climate or not.
Happy decorating!
