Season's Watchings

On a list I'm on there's been a good deal of conversation of late about holiday TV to watch; most of the people on the list are animation fans (as am I, to a point) and this time of year is catnip to them: Rudolph! Frosty! The Grinch! Charlie Brown! To a point, I agree: I adore A Charlie Brown Christmas and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. However...Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer and all the other Rankin-Bass stop-motion animated specials do less than nothing for me*, and heresy as it might be to say it, neither The Grinch animation nor the horrid movie of a few years ago capture the book for me. I'll pass.

On the other hand, my family has a long list of things that Must Be Watched during the Holiday season, to wit:

Miracle on 34th Street -- the original, with Natalie Wood. That's taken care of, since it was on on Thanksgiving day.
A Christmas Story -- "You'll shoot your eye out!"
Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol --just humming "A Hand for Each Hand" can make me teary, and the manic energy of the gravepicker's song cheers me curiously.
A Charlie Brown Christmas -- the best. My daughters sock-skate all over the livingroom floor to the soundtrack every year.
A Christmas Carol --I like the George C. Scott version; I know many people (including my Spouse) prefer the Alistair Sim, but this is the one that bit me.
White Christmas and Holiday Inn -- because one Irving Berlin Christmas musical is not enough
It's a Wonderful Life -- which is curiously marketed as a cheery schmaltz-fest. In fact, it's a very dark fantasy, and Jimmy Stewart is particularly wonderful. (I have a thing for Jimmy Stewart. I know, he's dead. Oh well.)

I will not watch heartwarming Hallmark Christmas specials. I will watch the Albert Finney musical Christmas Carol if it passes under my nose; ditto Scrooged, if only for the inspired moment when they decide to cast Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim. I tend to avoid "very special episodes" of anything.

Oh: and I used to be very fond of the Rugrats' Hannukah special when the girls were into Rugrats...

So there. Anyone have any must-watch stuff for the season?



*I grew up knowing the guy who composed "Rudolph" and many other Christmas songs. I probably heard my lifetime's allotment of the song before I was six; everything after that was just Hell.

That Was Interesting

I got an email about six weeks ago from my grade school.

Understand: I went to Little Red School House from nursery school through 8th grade. It's a private progressive school in Greenwich Village, and a terrific place. Until about fifteen years ago, LRSH didn't do much alumni outreach; I was on the alumni board when we started turning that around. So when they contacted me and asked if I could host a cocktail party or dinner or something for alumni, I figured, why not?

So I did. Chili for twenty, with bread, salad, cookies and fruit. They bought the wine, which was kind of them. It was a nice evening; what was particularly interesting was that Lucy Rudolph was there. Lucy lived four doors down from me on 11th Street, growing up; her brother John was in my class at LRSH. She was in my brother's class. So we caught up a little. It was fun. We have left over everything. Anyone want Ciabatta bread and chili enough for a small army?