Site of the Week: Christmas Junkie

Why do we love topsites? Because they reflect what real surfers really like in their topic areas. Nothing shows this better on the topic of Christmas than ChristmasJunkie.com.

We have reasons to hate topsites, too. Topsites are just scripted sites that track visitors to certain websites. When a website enrolls for membership in a topsite they put a voting graphic back to the topsite on their website. (Following this? Hang in there). When someone clicks on the graphic they, in essence, register a vote for that site. The more votes a site gets, the higher up on the list a site will go. (Still with me?). There are, however, three problems with many topsites: cheaters, sites that aren’t really in the topic genre and topsites that simply are run on autopilot.

And that’s why we love ChristmasJunkie. It’s actually managed day-by-day year round. Cheaters are eliminated and old sites are purged. Every site on Christmas Junkie is a legitimate Christmas site. No games, no bull, no kidding.

So if you are a — ahem — Christmas Junkie, give them a click. We’re sure you’ll be delighted with the variety of Christmas sites they list.

Tags: christmas topsite

Site of the Week: Christmas Scrapbook

We’re getting nostalgic in our search for Christmas online recently. This week we feature yet another site frozen in Internet-time — Christmas Scrapbook.

This site has nothing to do with scrapbooking. This site is merely a diversionary celebration of Christmas that combines 1990s era Internet technology of music, animated graphics and old fashioned good humor.

Built in 1999 — and firmly stuck there — Christmas Scrapbook will give you chuckles with it’s hokey artwork and blaring midis. By today’s flashy standards online this site is decidely behind the times. But Christmas is best celebrated in “classic” mode, we think. We’re hoping the creators of this site stick to never updating this collection of dancing artwork.

Tags: Christmas Online