One of my little Christmas rituals is to watch “A Muppet Christmas Carol” either on one of the days leading up to Christmas, or on Christmas Eve itself. Of course, I had to include my favorite song in the advent calendar:

This is the final window of the Advent Calendar 2009. I hope that you enjoyed reading, watching and listening to all of the videos and texts as much as I enjoyed putting them together for you.

Merry Christmas to all of my readers, thanks for all of your visits, comments and for all sorts of support I get from you. Have a great time with your loved ones, and don’t forget to come back after the holidays!

The movie “Rent” is about a group of friends who live in New York’s East Village in the late 1980s, and who are struggling with life, love, the impacts of AIDS to their community, and paying their rent. Both the first and the last scene of the movie are set on Christmas Eve, and a lot happens in the passing year – falling in love, breaking up, getting back together and losing a loved one.

But in the end, it all comes down to this one message: There is no day but today, so you better make the most of it.

In 2006, Sarah McLachlan released a Christmas album called “Wintersong”. This is the beautiful title song:

For some people, it is Wham’s “Last Christmas”, some prefer Chris Rea’s “Driving Home for Christmas”, and some like to listen to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas” to get into the Christmas spirit.

For me, it is the unusual pairing of a bigmouthed lesbian and a cute, red, furry puppet from Sesame Street:

For her album “Wintersong”, Sarah McLachlan recorded this song together with the The Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach Children’s Choir and Youth Choir:

The Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach Project is a free music program in Vancouver, Canada that provides high-quality music instruction to children. Learn more about it here.

A few weeks ago, the Muppets provided us with a unique cover version of Queen’s legendary classic “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Just in time for Christmas, they are back to bring us “Ringing of the Bells”, Muppet-style:

In 1984, Bob Geldorf and Midge Ure gathered a large group of famous musicians to remind us that even at Christmas time, there were people out there in the world who did not have enough food and were starving.

Amidst all the discussions about climate change and terrorism, we should not forget that even today, 25 years later, there are still so many people who need help to be able to survive:

It is common knowlegde that once Christmas is over, the number of people who file for divorce rises significantly. Some of them might just have waited for the holidays to be over for the children’s sake, but others might have gotten into a fight that made them question their relationship altogether – like Joanne and Maureen in the movie “Rent”:

If you are like me and have not written and sent all of your Christmas greetings yet, maybe it is easier to do what Serena Ryder does – “Calling To Say… Merry Christmas”:

H/T aur for suggesting the video.

One of my best decisions of 2009 was, undoubtedly, to start writing recaps of the Carla & Stella storyline on the German soap opera Verbotene Liebe.

Not only did I get to watch a beautiful love story that I might have missed otherwise, as I had given up on watching VL a while ago. And not only did it bring so much more readers to my blog than I would ever have dreamed when I first launched it in the summer.

Thanks to those recaps, I got in touch with some wonderfully creative and passionate people, who dedicate so much of their time and energy to keeping the love between Carla & Stella alive:

Thanks adsullata for creating this beautiful video. You can find more of her wonderful Carla & Stella videos on her YouTube channel, so make sure to check them out!