up on the housetop

 

Did you spend 250 hours on your holiday card? Google did.

Can you imagine a team of five people spending over 250 hours on a holiday card? Just think how many people you’d have to send that card to in order to justify such an effort, not that you’d ever pony up that kind of labor just to spread holiday cheer.
But Google would. And did. Today, the search engine unveiled its brand new doodle, a holiday card of sorts—one for the entire world to enjoy. All you have to do to receive yours is click on over. And if you do, you won’t be sorry.
Katherine Rosman of the  reports that Michael Lopez is in charge of Google’s doodles and as such was the point person on the enterprising project. Rosman writes: “For Google, the goal is to burnish its brand image and engage the legions of people who conduct more than a billion searches a day, without offending any of them.” This is undoubtedly the reason why there are so many images, 17 in all, which depict scenes from around the world ranging from St. Basil’s cathedral to a canal in Venice. When you click on a particular image, it automatically conducts a correlating search.
Though all 17 images are wonderful, my personal favorite is the one of Santa on a roof, as in Up on the Housetop. My toddlers would love it, too. That’s their favorite Christmas song. Every night we read to them before they go to bed. Lately they’ve requested us to “read” the same book over and over.
I put the word read in quotes, because we’re really doing anything but. We’re actually singing the book to them. Their book of choice is simply called Christmas Songs and it features a series of buttons a youngster can push. These buttons are adorned with pictures which represent the song which will emanate from a tiny speaker once said button has been pushed.
The “Jingle Bells” button, for example, has a picture of (get this) jingle bells on it. My kids’ favorite button is the one with Santa atop the roof. Once they push it, we all sing along to Up on the Housetop. You know… Up on the housetop reindeer pause, out jumps good ol’ Santa Clause…
Of course my kids don’t really sing along until the chorus… Ho ho ho, who wouldn’t go? Ho ho ho, who wouldn’t go? Up on the housetop, click, click, click. Down through the chimney with good St. Nick.
Incidentally, I, for one, most certainly wouldn’t go up on the housetop and down through the chimney with Santa, but then again, I’m both scared of heights as well as prone to (Santa) Claus-trophobia.
Oh my. So sorry for that. Simply horrendous!
Anyway, I can’t wait to go home today and show the kiddies the Google page. Their depiction of “Up on the Housetop” is very similar to the one on the book’s button. I wonder if my guys will recognize it as such. I hope they do, because I’m going to let them click the mousepad once the curser is on the picture, and BOOM, up will pop a page which prominently displays this video gem which my kids are sure to love.
What’s your favorite image on the new Google doodle? And do your little ones have a favorite Christmas song?