TODAY
Kerry Washington has had quite the year. The in-demand actress's television show, "Scandal," is a sensation – and her latest film, Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," just nabbed a Golden Globe nomination.
Lucky for us, Washington found time Friday morning to strike a pose at our holiday photo booth outside of Studio 1A.
More from the booth:
Is this the best rendition of the famous poem ever? Thanks to popular demand, Dateline's Keith Morrison reads the classic holiday verse.
Dateline's Facebook and Twitter fans had commented so much on the calming effects of Morrison's voice, the team decided it was time he actually lulled us to sleep!
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Tree brings Christmas spirit to Sandy-damaged town
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Festive felines: 11 cats in Christmas trees
Copyright Sarah Pasley
Infant Kiptyn Pasley "meets" a very special Santa Claus for the first time in December 2011. This photo of the sleeping baby boy's encounter with St. Nick has become a holiday Internet sensation this year.
Moms everywhere snap — and cherish — photos of their squishy, adorable babies. But sometimes, in the rarest of circumstances, a mother captures her own infant in an image so moving that it makes hundreds of thousands of people around the world gasp.
That’s what happened to an Idaho mom named Sarah Pasley, and for the past few days she’s been stumbling around in shock because of it.
“I can’t even believe it!” Pasley, 32, told TODAY.com. “I mean, I loved the photo, but I didn’t expect other people to be so uplifted by it.”
Pasley’s photo shows her youngest son Kiptyn meeting Santa Claus for the first time in the middle of a crowded Boise shopping mall. She took the photo last December when Kiptyn was 8 months old and very sleepy — so sleepy, in fact, that he slumbered blissfully right on the good-natured mall Santa’s chest.
Her friends and family loved the photo when they saw it last year, and that seemed to be the end of that. Then, about a week ago, Pasley saw that children’s clothing company Carter’s was seeking online photo submissions of kids meeting Santa for the first time. Pasley shared her beloved 2011 photo on Carter’s Facebook page.
And then ... KA-BOOM! The image of Kiptyn and St. Nick became an Internet sensation. In about three days’ time, the photo had more than 360,000 Facebook likes and had been shared more than 50,000 times. Media outlets around the world ran the photo and provided commentary about it. Pasley began experiencing a sensation that might affect many mothers in such a situation.
“I panicked!” she said. “I went online and actually took the picture down.”
Courtesy Sarah Pasley
Mom Sarah Pasley had this photo taken with baby Kiptyn last Christmas.
Despite that, the media attention intensified more than ever — and Pasley decided to take a deep breath and let it be. She re-posted the image herself and stopped asking Carter’s to take it down.
“I saw so many people commenting that they couldn’t find the Christmas spirit because of so many bad things happening in the world, but now they’re finding it again because of this picture,” said Pasley, a mother of three who pursues photography as a hobby. “That’s what this picture is all about to me.”
Courtesy Sarah Pasley
This family photo taken in December 2012 shows Sarah Pasley with her husband, Chance, and their three sons, Aidan, 12, Brennan, 10, and Kiptyn, who is now 20 months old.
Pasley doesn’t personally know the Santa who meets hundreds of children each year at Idaho’s Boise Towne Square mall, but she adores him nonetheless. She said she never would have gotten the photo if Santa hadn’t motioned to have Kiptyn brought over to him, even though the baby had fallen fast asleep minutes before his first Santa encounter.
“His generosity and the way he treats people has impacted my life,” Pasley said. “I get choked up just thinking about it. ... He’s Santa Claus. He truly does embody what Santa is — the magic, the wonder, the joy and the love. He’s just so special. I hope he knows that!”
Need a Coffey break? Friend TODAY.com writer Laura T. Coffey on Facebook, follow her on Twitter or read more of her stories at LauraTCoffey.com.
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Courtesy Fallon
Scrotum-shaped Christmas baubles benefiting the London-based Orchid Cancer Society were created to raise awareness of testicular cancer.
Just in time for Christmas, a London-based charity that wants to raise awareness of testicular cancer is selling hand-crafted, shiny red ornaments — in the shape of, well, balls.
The "Bauballs" were created by Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth of the London-based Fallon advertising agency, who conceived of the idea while doing pro bono work for the U.K.-based Orchid Cancer Charity, which is dedicated to fighting male cancers. "Lots of men don't walk to talk about things like this unless you make it funny," Robinson told TODAY.com.
Similar products benefiting another U.K. cancer charity, Everyman, are for sale on Etsy and have names such as "Santa's Sack" and "Baby, It's Cold Outside."
The charity stunts bring to mind the annual "Movember" tradition, where men grow mustaches to also promote testicular cancer awareness.
The National Cancer Institute estimates that nearly 9,000 men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2012. If detected early enough, the five-year survival rate is nearly 99 percent. Doctors recommend that men perform a self-check monthly by rolling their testes between their thumb and forefinger to check for lumps.
The first batch of ornaments sold out online at checkyourbauballs.com within an hour of going live on Dec. 10, with the proceeds benefiting Orchid. Fallon hopes to have another batch of 50 ready for sale on Dec. 17, for 15 pounds each — about $25.
The agency has plans to expand the campaign next year based on this year's unexpected success, including adding international shipping.
Courtesy Fallon
The "Bauballs" were designed so they wouldn't look out of place on a classy Christmas tree.
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Wayne Parry / AP
Dan Canales (left) and Ashley Papa admire the 'Tree of Hope' in Union Beach, N.J., on Dec. 12. Canales is one of many Union Beach residents who have adopted the tree as a symbol of hope after Sandy.
In the days after Superstorm Sandy wrecked the gritty blue-collar enclave of Union Beach on the New Jersey shore, creating iconic scenes of devastation and loss, the artificial Christmas tree was just an inconspicuous part of tons of rubble, the detritus of people's lives in a town ripped open for all to see.
A local youth soccer coach drove past it for three days straight, on his way to volunteer by helping neighbors rip out the carpets, floors and walls of their flooded homes.
He plucked it from its waterlogged storage bag, set it up in a vacant field — and watched in amazement as grieving residents made the tree their own, adorning it with handmade ornaments, lights, and messages of hope, defiance and recovery.
A month later, Union Beach has rallied around the tree, a rare bit of encouragement in a depressing holiday season like no other.
"It's become the sign of our hope, that life goes on and you move forward. It's just amazing," said Gigi Liaguno-Dorr, whose destroyed restaurant, Jakeabob's Bay, was flashed across TV screens during Wednesday night's telecast of the Sandy benefit concert in New York.
This town of about 6,200 just across Raritan Bay from New York's Staten Island suffered major damage from the storm surge and resulting flooding; a house on the bay front that was literally cut in half by waves has become one of the defining images of the storm.
Wayne Parry / AP
A hand-made ornament adorns the 'Tree Of Hope,' in Union Beach, N.J., on Dec. 12. The artificial Christmas tree was fished from the gutter following Sandy.
It is devastation that may chase many of the town's blue-collar residents away for good. Union Beach's median household income was $61,347; unlike wealthier Jersey shore oceanfront communities where many of the homes destroyed were summer getaways, most of the houses wrecked in Union Beach were people's only home.
"People say that Sandy brought that tree here for us," said Angel Barbosa, who works in a pizzeria just down the street.
County parks employee James Butler, the man who rescued the tree, says much of its appeal is that the community as a whole has taken ownership.
"It's an amazing thing to see it keep growing," he said.
Butler was very reluctant to be identified. He wants the focus to be on the community coming together, not him.
He came to feel the town's despair — and the reason to be hopeful — while helping an elderly widow haul out the waterlogged contents of her flooded home, including all her furniture and mementos of her husband.
"I took that same deep breath in that people whose homes are ruined take, when you realize that all the stuff that made that house a home is gone," he said. "She saw me do that, and she came over and gave me a hug. That was the spark I needed, the thought that things were going to be OK."
That night, in early November, he plucked the tree out of the debris in the curb.
Wayne Parry / AP
The decorated 'Tree Of Hope' is surrounded by gifts on Dec. 12. The town has decorated it with hand-made ornaments, messages of hope, lights and presents.
"I took it out of the bag," he recalled. "It was like the rest of the town: It smelled bad and it was sopping wet."
He tried to set it upright, but it had no stand. He went to a store and bought a tree stand for a real tree, but because his tree was artificial, it didn't quite fit right, and to this day it lists a little to the side. He put up a handmade sign next to it, which read: "Dear Sandy: You can't wash away hope. You only watered it so more hope can grow. Signed, Union Beach."
Then he got out of the way as the town started adopting this forlorn storm survivor, a Charlie Brown tree if ever there was one.
A few ornaments appeared within a day or two. Others followed. Then still more. A neighbor ran a string of extension cords from his house to the tree so it could light up at night.
People started surrounding the tree with pieces of driftwood; kids left toy trucks at its base. The ornaments began getting personal, with hand-scrawled notes of support. One family wrote, "We believe! We have hope! We will recover!" on a flaming-red glass ornament. Another scrawled "We love Union Beach" on another. Ornaments from as far away as Tennessee and Florida now adorn the tree, mailed by relatives of Union Beach residents looking to show their support.
Dan Canales lives near the lot where the tree sits and checks on it daily. When it leans too far over, he straightens it up. He says he saw it lying in the street in the days after the storm but could not make out what it was. Now, he's delighted with the way Union Beach has made the tree its own.
"I think it's pretty awesome," he said. "A lot of people were hurt by this storm. You feel bad for everybody involved. But this is making people feel good a little bit."
More:
Holiday bash: Town pummels peppermint pigs for holidays
There arose such a clatter over pipe-free Santa
Festive felines: 11 cats in Christmas trees
Submitted by Michelle Wiggins
I'm watching...always watching...
With Christmas only two weeks away, a lot of people are getting out their decorations and decking their halls for the upcoming holiday. Of course, that also means that your pets will have some new items to explore — and new trouble to get into — around the house.
One of the biggest attractions will be the tree, and from the photos you sent us it's fairly clear that cats in particular enjoy exploring these additions to the home décor no matter what their size!
From 2 cats squeezing into a 4 foot tree to a feline with a taste for pine, enjoy these photos of your cats in Christmas trees!
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Is your mind blank on what to buy that last person on your list? TODAY experts Lilliana Vazquez, Tyler Thoreson, and Elizabeth Mayhew have some ideas. Find featured products below.
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TODAY guests and correspondents displayed a lot of holiday cheer this morning, posing with merry props for the behind-the-scenes photo booth. Up first: TODAY's Natalie Morales and Willie Geist, followed by TODAY national investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen.
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TODAY
After offering his expertise on must-buy holiday gifts for viewers, Tyler Thoreson, VP of men's editorial and creative at Gilt Groupe, marched with his own sugary props.
TODAY
Jason Kennedy posed with a stuffed puppy for the camera.
TODAY
And next in the booth: producer Josh Davis, sporting garland and a Santa hat.
TODAY
Last but not least: Actor-comedian Finesse Mitchell gives us a big holiday grin.
TODAY
More from TODAY's photo booth:
From loud family dinners to waking up at the crack of dawn on Christmas Day, the TODAY anchors share some of their favorite childhood memories of the holiday season with Jenna Bush Hager, as well as a few of the traditions they’ve started with their own children.
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TODAY unveils its own holiday window display
Vote on TODAY's funniest moment of 2012
TODAY's Life Illustrated: Holiday season
twitter.com/sternshow
The Stern family's 2012 Christmas card features Howard Stern's wife, Beth Ostrosky Stern, with the couple's four cats, Apple, Walter, Leon Bear and Charlie Boy.
Seasons Greetings from the Sterns!
On Wednesday, radio host Howard Stern shared this year's over-the-top Christmas card with his nearly 400,000 Stern Show Twitter followers. Though the 58-year-old is M.I.A. in the festive photo shoot, his wife, Beth OstroskyStern, 40, happily strikes a pose with their four cats, Apple, Walter, Leon Bear and Charlie Boy.
PHOTOS: Stars' family holiday traditions
Wearing a red and white polka dot ensemble that matches her home's decor, "Mom Caves" host Ostrosky Stern is pictured serving cookies in the shape of kittens as her four felines lounge nearby.
PHOTOS: Holiday gifts for the homes
At the "Fitzgerald Family Christmas" premiere at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in New York City on Nov. 27, Stern's wife told Us Weekly how she was getting into the holiday spirit. "I just put up our Christmas tree and it's beautiful," Ostrosky Stern said. "It's very colorful. It's like every decoration I've ever had on it with colorful lights. I usually have a theme — it's really neat — but not this year. It's like, the more the merrier!"
The New York-based couple — who wed in October 2008 — will be spending the holidays at home this year. "Christmas Eve is the gift exchange," Ostrosky Stern revealed.
PHOTOS: Star-inspired stocking stuffer gift ideas
In 2011, the former model opened up to Us about why she's still head over heels for the "America's Got Talent" judge. "I still get that fuzzy feeling in my stomach every time I see him," she gushed. "We are just so blissfully happy. I wish this feeling for everyone. He's the most thoughtful person I know."
This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Howard Stern and Beth Ostrosky Stern Share Over-the-Top Christmas Card!
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Alessi
How cute are these eggcups? Perfect for cooking up one of our fave eats.
For the breakfast lover
Most eggcups are for the hard-boiled variety, but fans of scrambled eggs or soft eggs en cocotte will love this new over-sized, 6-inch-tall egg-shaped Le Nid ramekin from Alessi. It’s equal form and function: Bake eggs right in it in the oven, or use it in a bain-marie, then bring to the table to serve; $60.
For the entertainer
Hard-core entertainers can never have enough tea towels, especially adorable ones like these. The hand-printed tea towels—with butter, sugar, and salt and pepper designs—come packed in a fruit basket, so your wrap job is all set; $38 for 3.
For your hostess
An enameled cast iron Dutch oven is every cook’s dream—but if it’s not in your budget this year, hand out these cute new mini versions from Cucina instead. No, you can’t cook in them—they have candles inside!—but they look perfectly cute on the counter, which is half the point right? Stock up on a few of the perfumed candles, in scents like Coriander and Olive Tree, or Clementine and Candied Ginger, as last-minute gifts for the season; $15 each
For the semi-pro
Last holiday season, almost every chef out there wanted a copy of the “Modernist Cuisine,” the $625, six-volume cookbook from Nathan Myhrvold, the billionaire and former Microsoft executive who runs a high-tech cooking laboratory outside of Seattle. Now this year, Myhrvold rolled out a more attainable, abridged version of his behemoth book with “Modernist Cuisine at Home.” It still has more than 400 recipes and loads of scientific tips for getting perfect eggs, ultra-frothy milkshakes, and pizza as crispy as a wood-fired oven’s; $113.
For the kiddos
These LEGO Drinking Bottles are meant for kids, but we know lots of former Lego-loving grown-ups who’d love them too—either way, the 13.5-once BPA-free bottles are a great way to encourage us all to drink more water or bring kids’ juice drinks on the road; $12.99 each
Williams-Sonoma
For the whole family
If you’re tired of sending far-away relatives popcorn tins or boxes of pears for the holidays, check out these handmade tamales from Williams-Sonoma—the meat- or veggie-filled pockets of corn dough are a Mexican-American Christmas staple. Send them pork, chicken, beef, or the vegetarian blue corn, stuffed with green chilies and jack cheese—all they’ll have to do is steam them; $60 for 12
For the baker
For friends who secretly pine to open their own cupcake shop, order a spool or two of Divine Twine. They’ll be able to package up baked goodies like a pro, in whimsical colors like Peppermint, Lemon and Cotton Candy Pink; $15 each or $42 for 3
For the wine lover
Chefs often get asked for their favorite go-to wines, and now Emeril Lagasse has put together a collection of his top picks, with the Emeril’s Everyday Sampler. The elegant black box comes with six mini bottles of wine to try with everyday dinners, plus tasting notes and suggested pairings from the celeb chef; $32.95
Tracy Saelinger is a freelance writer based in Portland, Ore.
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Ross D. Franklin / AP
Less can be more.
Kristina Green realized she couldn't compete with her Maricopa, Ariz., neighbor Eric Cyr's 20,000-light display.
So she took a different tack. And now her 450-bulb effort is getting all the attention.
Ross D. Franklin / AP
Kristina Green, right, her daughter Breanah Gray, second left, and grandson Cameron Gray, left, laugh together with neighbor Eric Cyr as they pose in front of their homes.
Too much? Not according to queen of decorations Martha Stewart.
“If you can afford the electric bill, go with it,” she said on TODAY.
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Best Halloween house ever goes 'Gangnam'
Christmas light shows that wake the neighbors
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