Christmas

12 5, 2020

All Booked Up With Cailey & Meg: Season’s Readings

By admin|2020-12-05T12:00:37-05:00December 5, 2020|

It’s the most wonderful time of year… for a mug of coffee and a stack of books! Cailey and Meg share some of their favorite Christmas-themed reads. It’s totally tinsel.

They discuss:

Mr. Dickens & His Carol by Samantha Silva
25 Days ‘Til Christmas by Poppy Alexander
The White Christmas Inn by Colleen Wright
Christmas in the Movies by Jeremy Arnold

Most of the books they discuss can also be borrowed as ebooks using OverDrive or Libby. All you need is your Mentor Public Library card.

11 20, 2020

Holiday origami at Mentor Public Library

By admin|2020-11-20T16:00:59-05:00November 20, 2020|

Welcome to our online Holiday Origami series with Jenn Cline from the Ohio Paper Folders!

Every week from Nov. 20 until Christmas, Jenn will share a new craft that you can make with paper (and occasionally some scissors and glue.) We’ll post a new Holiday Origami video at 4 p.m. each Friday on our Facebook page, YouTube channel, and right here!

We’ll even provide the paper if you want to make some of these crafts on your own. You can pick pages up from the Reference Desk at our Main Branch. Or, if you prefer, call ahead and we can have paper ready for you in our drive-thru.

Jenn’s crafts will be:

Making maple leaves on Nov. 20
Paper wreaths on Nov. 27
Santa gnomes on Dec. 4
5- and 6-pointed stars on Dec. 11
3-dimensional Christmas trees on Dec. 18
Paper snowflakes on Dec. 25

(The bold links will go live at 4 p.m. on their respective Fridays.)

You can also follow Jenn on Twitter and Facebook for more origami inspiration.

By the way, if you are looking for craft ideas that you can make at home, check out our Artpocalypse series. At noon each Tuesday, Mr. Josh shares a video with ideas for crafts, art projects, and science experiments that you can do at home!

12 28, 2019

Christmas in a Civil War Camp

By admin|2019-12-28T06:00:26-05:00December 28, 2019|

Our friends from James A. Garfield National Historic Site have taken us to Gettysburg, Antietam, Atlanta, and beyond during their Civil War lecture series.

But now Allison Powell of JAGNHS leads us somewhere new: Christmas during the Civil War. She depicts for us Christmas scenes from Union camps, Confederate camps, even prison camps, and both home fronts.

She also explains how the war changed Christmas traditions for our nation.

By the way, our Civil War series will continue in 2020. We’ll discuss The Battle Of Middle Creek at noon on Wednesday, Jan. 10 at our Main Branch. As always, the talk is free and open to all. Don’t miss learning about Colonel James A. Garfield’s finest hour.

By the way, if you’re interested in Civil War history, several talks in our Civil War series can be viewed online in their entirety.

11 16, 2019

Freegal Christmas

By admin|2019-11-16T06:00:55-05:00November 16, 2019|

Download Christmas music (from Dolly Parton to Run DMC) for free with Freegal and your Mentor Public Library card.

Halloween is over. Break out the Christmas music (unless you’re one of those purists who prefers to wait until after Thanksgiving. In that case, bookmark this page and we’ll see you again in four weeks.)

If you haven’t heard of Freegal, it’s one of our digital services. It lets you stream or even download DRM-free mp3s of your favorite songs. Moreover, once you download a song, you can keep the mp3 forever. Put it on your phone, your computer, your iPod–wherever you want. It’s yours.

If you have a Mentor Public Library card, you can download five songs for free every week, and there’s no limit to how many songs you can stream.

Here are 30 of our favorite Christmas and holiday albums that you can start streaming now:

1. John Legend, A Legendary Christmas

Enjoy a Christmas house party with Legend as your amiable host. Stevie Wonder and Esperanza Spalding make for excellent guests.

2. Pentatonix, Christmas Is Here!

By now, you know the routine. If you loved A Pentatonix Christmas and That’s Christmas to Me, then you’ll love the newest holiday offering from everyone’s favorite a capella quintet.

3. William Shatner, Shatner Claus

Merry Kirk-mas! Our third favorite Star Trek captain* guides your through standards like “Winter Wonderland” and “Run Rudolph Run.”

4. Mariah Carey, Merry Christmas

Mandatory holiday listening, if only for “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

5. Jessie James Decker, On This Holiday

The country chanteuse gives a little twang to “Santa Baby,” “Christmas in Cabo,” and “The Christmas Song.”

6. The Piano Guys, A Family Christmas

The Piano Guys have a knack for creating music that’s catchy and innovative while still recognizable as classical.

7. Wham!, Last Christmas

Andrew Ridgely. You were just trying to remember the other guy’s name. It’s Andrew Ridgely.

8. Sarah McLachlan, The Classic Christmas Album

McLachlan already has the voice of an angel, so it feels natural to hear her sing “Silent Night,” “What Child Is This?” and other seasonal standards.

9. Superstar Christmas

The rare compilation that’s not exaggerating when it claims to contain superstars. Mariah Carey, Frank Sinatra, Cyndi Lauper, Placido Domingo, Michael Bolton, Gloria Estefan and Barbra Streisand are all on this eclectic guest list.

10. Polka Christmas

What’s a Cleveland Christmas party without a little polka?

11. Christmas Rap

With all due respect to Kurtis Blow, Run-DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis” is the most important hip-hop holiday song ever.

12. She & Him, Christmas Party

Because it’s not Christmas until Zooey Deschanel sings “A Marshmallow World.”

13. Earth, Wind & Fire, The Classic Christmas Album

Yes, they remake “September” into “December.”

14. John Denver, The Classic Christmas Album

Yes, it’s John Denver, so there’s some schmaltz, but he also sings, “Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk this Christmas.”)

15. Kelly Clarkson, Wrapped in Red

With all due respect to Shatner, Clarkson has the voice to make a new cover of Run, Run Rudolph worthwhile.

16. Harry Belafonte, Christmas

Belafonte could sing about muddy slush and it would still sound great with his voice.

17. Dolly Parton, Home for Christmas

As a general rule, we love Dolly. This is doubly true during the holidays.

18. Pete Kennedy, Top Christmas Favorites

This album’s for all the people who loved Israel Kamakawiwo`ole’s version of Over the Rainbow. And, no, these standards aren’t performed by IZ, but they have that same combination of earnestness and sweetness.

19. Kirk Franklin, Christmas

If you need some gospel music this time of year, Kirk Franklin and the Family have you covered. Standards like Go Tell It on the Mountainand O Come All Ye Faithful sound sweeter than ever.

20. Harry Connick Jr., When my Heart Finds Christmas

Connick has a lot of Christmas albums in his discography. This one’s our favorite but they are all available on Freegal. Personal favorite: I Pray on Christmas.

21. NSYNC, Home for Christmas

If you bought the CD or even *gasp* the cassette when you were in middle school, here’s a chance to update your medium for free.

22. New Kids on the Block, Merry Merry Christmas

In case your taste in boy bands is a little older…

23. Glee Cast, Blue Christmas

If you don’t like Glee…

24. Elvis, The Classic Christmas Album

Freegal has the Elvis version of Blue Christmastoo.

25. Loretta Lynn, White Christmas Blue

Only Lynn could pull off a tune called “To Heck with Ole Santa Claus.”

26. The Manhattan Transfer, The Christmas Album

Any of the kids who enjoyed the Pentatonix album atop this list owe it to themselves to check out The Manhattan Transfer, who were (in many ways) the progenitor of Pentatonix’s style.

27. Johnny Cash, Classic Christmas

We love Johnny Cash, because he still scowls on the cover of his Christmas album.

28. Miranda Cosgrove, Christmas Wrapping

Not to be confused with Christmas Rap.

29. I’ll Be Home for Christmas

A short fun compilation with Meghan Trainor, Sara Bareilles, Fiona Apple, Fifth Harmony and A Great Big World giving their spin to holiday classics.

30. Wilson Phillips, Christmas in Harmony

We were going to put Wilson Phillips on this list no matter what. They just happened to also have a Christmas album.

Other Freegal playlists:

*after Picard and Sisko.

12 4, 2018

Research before you buy with Consumer Reports

By admin|2018-12-04T06:00:55-05:00December 4, 2018|

Check bias-free reviews from Consumer Report before you do your holiday shopping.

Whether you’re shopping for Christmas gifts, a computer, or car, you can get free and unbiased reviews of competing products from our Consumer Reports database.

Read rankings and recommendations on hundreds of types of products: mattresses, car seats for your baby, store credit cards, tablets, TVs, and more. (It also ranks bacon, weirdly enough.)

You can even read other shoppers’ reviews to see if they jibe with Consumer Reports’ assessments.

Consumer Reports doesn’t accept advertising or have shareholders. They also test all products in house. Because of this, they are a trusted source and buying guide.

Get professional insight when you’re shopping this holiday season with Consumer Reports, and get them for free with your library card.

By the way, Consumer Reports is just one of dozens of databases you can use for free with your library card. You can search your family history, check product recommendations, learn a foreign language, fix your car, get help with your job search or pick your next book.

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