Christmas (not so) Specials

With no cable and extremely small amounts of viewing time, our kids look at any time in front of the tube as a grand event. With the Christmas specials, they think their lives will never get any better. For some reason, watching this year has been excruciatingly eye-opening (for me).

1. Rudolph - Cute, nice reindeer is born. Shows talent. Is attracted (and attractive) to the opposite sex while still practically in diapers. Is cruelly dissed and rejected by his father, his friends, Coach, and SANTA because of an aspect of his appearance. Things turn around with the Nosists due to a freak weather occurrence. The Burl Ives-voice snownarrator is almost as scary as the Abominable Snowman.

2. Frosty the Snowman - Love Jimmy Durante's voice and the title song. Not much else. The animation looks like it was rush job done over a boozy weekend in some Eastern Bloc country. The magician reneges on a promise. Karen nearly freezes to death. Not much redeeming.

3. Frosty Returns - more crappy animation with much worse music. Jimmy Durante gets replaced by a truly god awful Jonathan Winters. Plot involves spraying chemicals everywhere to melt all the snow.

4. A Charlie Brown Christmas - a classic, I suppose, but Charles Schultz was one depressed dude. Love every scene that snoopy is in. Could do without Linus's bible speech.

5. All the other Charlie Brown Specials - competing with each other for ever higher levels of suckitude.

6. It's a Wonderful Life - "Help you down?" is one of my favorite lines in all of cinema. I used to love this movie (and sort of still do) up until George's father dies. Fantastic screenplay, great acting, a hot Donna Reed. After that point I have to get up and leave the room as it's just too painful for me to watch. Sure, give up your dreams so that others can have the fantastic life you always wanted!! Do it over and over again! Seems I'm not alone in my opinion.

7. A Christmas Story - You'll hear no complaints from me about Ralphie. Wherever this movie came from, I wish they'd go back and make about a dozen more.

Did She Fall, or Was She Pushed?

We had a nice, snowy Thanksgiving up in Maine that allowed the construction of a curvy snowwoman. Four of us rolled balls instead of the traditional three which made her extra tall and a little tippy to one side. As a result, we named her Eileen.

The carrot nose was clearly a mistake. Gus sniffed it out within minutes and was chomping on the proboscis soon after. His don't-shoot-me-hunters deer vest looks a little like Iorek Byrnison's sky-iron armor from The Golden Compass (great book, spotty movie) which we saw the night before.

Not long after this picture was taken, Eileen was found face down. The investigation is still underway.