MARKING OFF DAYS 'TILL THE HOLIDAY

Twenty days and counting. That's right, Christmas is less than three weeks away.

Christmas is a busy time for families. But let's not forget that it's also a great time to have some fun, especially with holiday traditions and music.

The Internet is bursting with sites for kids -- and adults -- to get you in the Christmas cheer.

In fact, Reader's Digest is hosting an interesting chat session on Friday with the big guy in red. That's right, you can ask Santa all those burning questions about what reindeers eat and how they deliver all the packages in a single night.

www.readersdigest.com

The hourlong chat begins at 6 p.m. CST, and is sponsored in conjunction with Yahoo. You'll need a free Yahoo ID to participate.

But Readers' Digest also has other fun stuff about Christmas, including holiday craft ideas for kids. Just click on Reader's Digest Christmas or "I Made It Myself" on the front page.

The site provides instructions on how kids can create simple gifts themselves for grown-ups or for other kids. Grown-up gifts include candles, bath powder, spoon rests and clay pots. The kid gifts include such treats as a "bodacious" bubble solution, bounce-a-rama superballs and sensational slime.

At the bottom of the page, you can also click on other Christmas links. Make sure to click on Stories and Carols. You'll find a great story called "12 Ways to Remember the True Meaning of Christmas." There's some good advice here. "Amid the bustle and buying, the eats and treats, take time to rekindle the real spirit of the season" suggests this page. It lists a dozen great ways to do just that.

You can also download a 28-page book containing sheet music to 15 well known Christmas carols. You'll need Adobe Acrobat to read the music.

You can also learn a little history about these famous Christmas songs, and even listen to the tunes online.

Save yourself a stamp and send some great holiday e-cards from the site. Just click on the button along the bottom or top of any page.

Waiting is sometimes hard for kids around Christmas. To help the wait, you might want to check out this Advent Calendar with stories about how kids around the World celebrate the holidays.

www.algonet.se/~bernadot/christmas/calendar.html

This Advent Calendar comes to us from an international school in Denmark.

Each day features an explanation in both the native language and English. It also shares pictures drawn by children about their traditions.

In Denmark, the children love to eat oatmeal balls as Christmas treats.

In England, it's Father Christmas who brings the toys.

Simply click on a present under the tree with the corresponding day of the month. You'll notice that Dec. 24 is on the tree.

You can travel to Santa Claus.com for more holiday fun.

www.claus.com

You can check your naught or nice rating or play games in Elf school. You can even print out your very own honorary Elf diploma. (But what about the pointed ears?)

I couldn't resist. I had to check my own naughty or nice rating. You must type in your first and last name and click on the "Ask Santa" button.

Here's what I found out: I'm still on the nice list, but I must continue my good behavior. I should eat more vegetables instead of junk food, and I was very polite last Thursday. Hey, this guy really knows me!

You can also check out the Top Ten lists for Naughty and Nice. It might give the kids some good ideas.

As to the Elf diplomas, you earn them for playing different games. You can earn 11 different diplomas, personalized with your name.

There's lots to do at this site, including learning more about all the reindeer or sending a card. On Christmas Eve, you can use the Santa Monitor to watch regular updates on Santa's progress throughout the evening, or check out the Santa Scope to see how close he is to your home.

If you love Christmas music, you might want to stop by Kids Domain, which has a sub site on Christmas Music on the Web.

www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/xmas/music.html

This site points out that Christmas cheer is all over the Web, and they would like to highlight some of the best files they could find.

They suggest that Midi files are the smallest sound files. If you're going to download them, they would be the best to pick. However, they also promote RealAudio, which allows you to listen to the tunes without having to bring them to your computer in the form of a download.

You can choose the story and music of the Nutcracker, which is certainly one of my favorite Christmas stories. You can also link to "Our Favorite Tunes," "Music Fun for Kids" or "Links to More Music." Under holiday favorites is a link to the MGM site for some clips from the animated "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." This includes a .wav file of the Grinch Song and a movie clip in Quicktime.

Almost every children's site has activities geared for Christmas. But one fun thing I found at Christmas.com is a countdown to Christmas in every time zone around the World. It tracks the holiday by days, hours, minutes and even seconds.

On Monday, there were more than 1.7 million seconds until Christmas.

www.christmas.com

From the Countdown Clock, you can click on Worldview to get a better idea on how other cultures celebrate Christmas. Simple click on a country to find out more about their traditions. The page also includes an explanation of the various Christmas symbols from around the world.

If you have a rather fast connection, you might also want to check out XMAS103, an Internet radio station that plays only Christmas music.

In the "Spirit of Christmas" category, you can also check out holiday music, recipes and decorations.

What's your favorite holiday site? E-mail me at jonia@sehosp.org

See you in Cyberspace.

Joni Adams is the Webmaster at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau, www.southeastmissourihospital.com