It Kinda Feels Like Christmas

I awoke to a cloudy day that was alleviated by a little Beatles. "The Beatles In 1969" was in the spotlight on Brunch With the Beatles this morning. That mainly meant songs from Abbey Road and Let It Be, along with singles that were released around that time like "The Ballad of John and Yoko."

I had a couple of apples that were getting squishy, so I just made Apple Cinnamon Pancakes again for breakfast. Called Mom after I finished. Mom was working on holiday decorating, now that her husband was at sea and out from underfoot. We had a pleasant talk about how things have improved for me. She told me about an awesome concert she attended at the Cape May Convention Center with a friend who had been a teacher of my younger sister Anny at West Cape May Elementary. They saw a performance by the granddaughter of the Von Trapp Family (of Sound of Music fame). Glorious singing must be genetic; Mom said she had the clearest, most beautiful voice she'd ever heard.

After I got off with Mom, I spent the rest of a quiet, wet day making the Molasses Cookies. These are made the same way as gingerbread men, but they use less flour and aren't quite as thick. They're taken from a variation on a recipe from the Betty Crocker Cooky Book. The original recipe calls for honey, but I like it better with molasses. Here's another version of the recipe. Replace the granulated sugar with brown sugar and eliminate the allspice - I don't have any - and this is about right. While I love cutting out the cookies in different holiday-themed shapes and choosing just the right sugar color to top them with, they do take a while to make on your own.

With the Eagles off today (they played - badly - on Thursday night), I ran children's holiday music all afternoon. I've dug up some really unusual items over the years. Probably the best-known are the sweet, funny John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together and the original Christmas with the Chipmunks, with its "The Chipmunks' Christmas Song (Please Christmas Don't Be Late)," along with Chipmunk covers of other famous holiday tunes. Disney's Christmas Collection is pretty much songs from their original Disneyland Christmas album of the 80s, plus Jiminy Cricket and Mickey singing "From All of Us to All of You" and a charming Jiminy rendition of The Night Before Christmas.

The Looney Tunes turned up in the mid-90s Rhino cassette Christmas With the Looney Tunes (which I bought at CVS somewhere around 2003) and the Peter Pan LP Holi-Daze (a yard sale find). The first is a collection of songs performed by the "characters" (or their later voice actors); my favorite is Daffy's "All I Want For Christmas Is More, More, More." The second is four holiday-themed stories featuring Bugs and other Looney Tunes. The voices on this recording are all performed by long-time radio actor Mel Blanc (even the ones that are usually handled by other actors, like Granny and Elmer). My favorite of the stories is "Santa Claustrophobia." Millionaire Elmer is willing to give his palatial home to anyone who can cure his troubles - he thinks  he's Santa Claus. Bugs and Daffy, hoping to get his money, come up with a solution that makes all three happy.

I found an episode of the Jimmy Stewart radio western The Six Shooter that did A Christmas Carol on a huge random collection of 30s and 40s radio shows almost a decade ago, back when I was still living in Wildwood. Jimmy's good-natured, mysterious cowboy Brett Ponsett tells a frustrated young boy the story of a mean old miser named Ebon who had all the gold he could ever want, but was so stingy, he refused to attend his nephew's party at his livery stable and intended to throw his foreman Bob's family out of their shack on his property on Christmas morning. Naturally, four ghosts appear to set him straight...and eventually the kid and his aunt, too.

I discovered A Merry Snoopy Christmas a few years ago at a yard sale, but never got around to listening to it until today. Side A is the original three Royal Guardsmen "Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron" songs, with additional spoken material that has the Guardsmen playing various military brass and reporters keeping us up-to-date on the War and Snoopy's adventures with the famed German flyer. Side B is a series of Guardsman songs that are pretty standard mid-60s pop. Some are related to the Peanuts and Snoopy ("My Airplane," "Behind the Enemy Lines"); most are not. My favorites of the more generic songs are "It Kinda Feels Like Christmas" (the only holiday-themed song on the entire recording besides "Snoopy's Christmas"), and the cute "I Feel Love."

Ran a Disney book and record recording of selections from The Nutcracker while I cleaned up from baking and ate leftover lentil soup and salad for lunch. As soon as the record ended and was shelved, I packed up my dinner, put on my uniform, and headed out the door.

Work was pretty much the same as it has been - busy when I came in, pin-drop quiet when I left. The weather may have had something to do with it. It had rained earlier while I was working on the cookies. It was only damp when I headed to work, but the shower had returned by 9. It wasn't really that bad; I only got a little wet as I rode home. It's rained on and off for the rest of the night.

Though the Eagles didn't play today, there were lots of other exciting games going on. The Cowboys-Steelers game was on in the back room during my break. The Steelers were winning at that point; the Cowboys had just tied it as I was returning to the registers. They went onto win in overtime, 27-24.

In more pleasant news, the Giants got their rears handed to them by the on-fire Atlanta Falcons, 34-0.