Busy, Busy Holidays

First order of business today was my last appointment at the Foot & Ankle Center. It was just a follow-up to make sure my foot is at least ok enough to move around. Like I told Dr. Berlin, it's 95% better. She says it probably won't feel completely right for another few months or so. I can walk on it and work on it, and that's good enough for me.

Made a few short stops on the way home. I needed a battery for the fire alarm next to the bathroom; grabbed it at the CVS a few steps from the Foot & Ankle Center. Discovered a lovely little bakery across King's Highway. Tried some delicious Christmas cake and picked up a small, fragrant loaf of Italian bread. I dropped in at the Oaklyn Library for this week's volunteering session there, but they had even less to do than Haddon Township did yesterday. I was gone in a half-hour.

The weather was just beautiful when I was out and about. The gloomy fog had been replaced by abundant sunshine, wind, and mid-to-upper 50s temperatures. It was so warm, I was fine doing my riding in a heavy college sweatshirt,

When I got in, I retrieved a Christmas card from Mom and a second package from Lauren, then headed inside for lunch. After I had chicken soup and Italian bread, I started the last of the Christmas cookies. I love coconut. I experimented with different coconut cookie recipes for a couple of years before I discovered Cherry Coconut Cookies in The Betty Crocker Cooky Book. They're pretty much lemon squares with a filling made from coconut and maraschino cherries instead of lemon juice, but they're quick and easy to make. They also have the habit of breaking easily. I always grease the pan, despite the book saying not to do that. The one year I didn't, the cookies stuck so badly to the pan, I barely had crumbs to give to everyone.

Ran two unusual musical fantasies from the 80s as I baked. Here Comes Santa Claus is a bizarre French Christmas fable about a young boy and his best gal pal who travel to Lapland to see Santa. The boy's parents were kidnapped by African rebels, and he desperately wants them back more than anything in the world. While Santa and his faithful and chatty fairy friend Mary Ellen go to Africa to rescue the boy's parents, the kids deal with a nasty ogre who eats children and fairies for dinner.

Strange, but charming, thanks to the sheer weirdness of the production. You don't often see Santa wandering around in the very real Senegal, asking directions from real African natives. Or working with a fairy instead of the American Mrs. Claus, for that matter. I don't think the dubbed version has ever been released on DVD; I found my video copy at the North Cape May Acme shortly before I moved. Interesting enough if you ever run into the video, but a little too strange for most casual viewers to seek out.

Here Comes Santa Claus wasn't the only oddball holiday-themed fantasy musical that came out in 1986. One of the major Christmas offerings on TV that year was a new version of Babes In Toyland. Unlike the Disney and Laurel & Hardy movies, this one uses a Wizard-of-Oz-style framing device to set up the plot. Lisa (Drew Barrymore) is a proud resident of Cincinnati, and a young lady who has grown up much too fast. When she's knocked out during a blizzard, she dreams that she ends up in a magical land where toys walk around in theme-park costumes. Barnaby (Richard Mulligan) wants to get rid of his nephew Jack (Keanu Reeves) and frames him for cookie robbery. Lisa enlists the Toymaker (Pat Moriata) to help her rescue her new friends and discover the wonders of childhood.

Pure, unfiltered camp. The production is cheap, the new music is awful, and Reeves is completely out-of-place. Barrymore is somewhat better, as is an over-the-top Richard Mulligan as Barnaby and a dithery Eileen Brennan as Mother Hubbard. Not on DVD, but Amazon did have it for download last year. Mainly for fans of Barrymore, Reeves, or high-camp musicals.

It was too nice to be inside all day. As soon as the cookies were out of the oven, I left. Rode into Collingswood to deliver the books I borrowed from Jodi Staton, along with a card and a small container of cookies.

As I was placing the bag with her things on her porch, I noticed dark clouds building up over the horizon. The wind was picking up, and it was getting a little colder. I needed to stop at WaWa for milk, so I hurried over to the one on Haddon Avenue, a few doors down from Yogawood. I got in just as big, fat drops were beginning to fall from the dark, cloudy sky.

Thank heavens the rain only lasted a few minutes. The sky was breaking up even as it poured. I only had to wait a few minutes before hopping on my bike and riding back to the apartment.

After that, I spent the rest of the evening at home. I made gingerbread cookies and an Angel Spice Food Cake for myself, then had leftovers and sauteed greens and carrots for dinner while running a couple of older holiday movies. Christmas In Connecticut is the tale of a wildly popular food columnist who is really a city girl who can't boil water. When her boss asks her to take in a young soldier at her farm for the holidays and then invites himself, she panics. She doesn't have a farm...but the annoying guy who has been chasing after her does. She goes along with him in order to keep her job and her editor's. This is all well and fine...until she meets the handsome soldier. As the two fall head-over-heels for each other, she finally admits to herself that sometimes, honesty really is the best policy.

One of the last major screwball comedies is cute and frothy with a solid core of character actors, including Barbara Stanwyck as the writer, Dennis Morgan as the soldier, Sydney Greenstreet as her boss who doesn't give anyone a chance to talk before assuming he's right, and S.K Sakall as her good-natured uncle who is the one who really does the cooking. The DVD is worth getting for the touching, Oscar-winning short subject A Star In the East. This features J. Carrol Naish as an Italian hotel owner in the desert who learns a little about Christmas miracles from a strange hitchiker and a desperate young couple who need a place to stay.

The 1951 British version of A Christmas Carol is one of the most famous and best regarded. Other than an expanded past sequence and changing Scrooge's sweetheart's name from Belle to Alice (and bringing her briefly in during the Present sequence), this is pretty much a faithful rendition of the novel. Alistair Sim is widely regarded as one of the best Scrooges on record.

My public-domain DVD copy also includes the 1949 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer short. Closer to the original book than the Rankin-Bass special, this one isn't as well-known but is charming and quite sweet, with some nice animation.