All Tied Up

Began today with the Rankin-Bass feature-length film Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas In July, a bizarre 1979 attempt to show what happens when Rudolph's nose stops glowing. Other than a nice voice cast that includes Red Buttons, Ethel Merman, and Jackie Vernon, Mickey Rooney, Hal Peary, and Shelly Winters reprising previous Rankin-Bass characters, there's not much to recommend here. The songs are mostly either holiday novelty tunes or 70s pop songs; only the cute "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" circus number stands out. Fans of the Rankin-Bass specials will enjoy looking for references to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Frosty's Winter Wonderland, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, and Rudolph's Shiny New Year, but those of you unfamiliar with the specials or with young children (or who aren't big on kitsch) will want to start with the originals.

(Incidentally, as far as I can tell, this marks the only appearance of Frosty and his snow-wife Crystal in stop-motion animation. The first two Frosty specials were done in regular 2-D mode.)

Work was insanely busy today, even after the Eagles game began at 1PM. The closer we get to Thanksgiving, the more people are going to start coming for their pumpkin pies and canned goods and free turkeys...and did they ever fuss about those turkeys! One man didn't understand about the coupon at all and assumed the turkey just came off with the card. My very last customer of the day complained that she couldn't find the free turkeys at all, and then when we did find the free turkeys (turns out she'd looked in the wrong place), she complained that it wasn't the right brand to use a second coupon, even though the manager brought her the brand that's free! With so many people struggling, those free turkeys are going to be more important...and more of a pain...than ever this year. I just hope people stay in a decent mood. Last year, I dealt with so many grouches the week before Thanksgiving, I was ready to tear out my hair.

I went home and made a French Vanilla Mousse Pie. After that was in the fridge, I called Uncle Ken to see if he'd invited anyone to watch the Eagles-Bengals game with him. He said "There's people over here, we have food," so I figured it was clear for me to go over.

It was, indeed, clear. There was food - cheesesteaks, fancy Gorgonzola and Brie cheeses with garlic toast, chips, Doritos, a chocolate cookie "pizza" (chocolate chip cookie dough baked in a pizza pan with icing), very fudgy brownies, an apple pie, mini-brownies, and small soft pretzels. Unlike the last few weeks, there were also people. The game was still on when I got in, and Uncle Ken's den was full of screaming Eagles fans, including Dolores, most of her kids (their kids were upstairs with Jessa), Mark, Al, and Uncle Ken himself. Daddy and Jodie opted for the quieter living room.

I had a great night. I chased my older cousin Karen, her 2-year-old son CJ, and my other older cousin Samantha and her 3-year-old daughter Faith run around the front yard, playing sword fight with sticks, before CJ decided he wanted to play his favorite thing in the world - golf.

After it got dark, Faith and I went back inside and joined the other kids, Faith's older brothers Matt and Ethan and Dolores' grandchildren Mercedes and Blake. They were playing some kind of game Matt called "Scary Pillows." As far as I could tell, the gist of the game was this - one person hides upstairs, while the others creep up the staircase, holding pillows. The other person, also holding a pillow, jumps out and tries to touch the others with his pillow. The others try to avoid him, using their pillows for defense.

I hadn't laughed so hard in months. "Trying to avoid the scary pillow person" consisted of racing downstairs, squealing and ducking flying novelty pillows from Jessa's room. Noisy, but a lot of fun. I kept getting caught in the tide of fleeing children and swept along with them, whether I wanted to be or not! At one point, Blake apparently "ankled" Ethan, grabbing him by the ankles. Whatever he did, it sent all five of us tumbling head-over-heels downstairs. No one was hurt, but we couldn't sit up for several minutes because we were all laughing so hard! (We did make Blake promise to lay off the football moves after that.)

You are never too old to have a good time...especially when Matt, Samantha's oldest boy, told me later after the other kids had left how much he appreciated me playing with him, Ethan, and Faith. I don't think he realized it, but what he said meant as much to me as gold. I do genuinely enjoy playing with the kids. It was probably more fun than listening to the other adults complain about the game, which ended in a rare 13-13 tie, the first since 2002. Apparently, neither team played very well.