The Man With All the Toys

I awoke to a cloudy sky and a sprinkling of snow. It would snow and rain on and off for much of the day. Good thing I planned on spending the majority of this week indoors baking anyway. I did my next batch of cookies, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip, this morning while running Christmas programming. My favorite of Moonlighting's two holiday episodes is "'Twas the Episode Before Christmas" from the second season. When Agnes DiPesto finds a baby abandoned in her laundry, her bosses Maddie and David search for the mother and argue over the idea of parenthood and David's "Santa Hotline."

After the show ended, I moved to two movies on the existence of Santa. Ernest Saves Christmas takes us to Orlando, Florida, where the title character is working as a cab driver. When the real Santa shows up in his taxi and says he's in Florida to find a replacement, even Ernest is skeptical at first....until he sees Santa's magic sack. Ernest soon finds his hands full with Santa's snarky elves, a selfish teen runaway who just wants the stuff from the sack, and the obnoxious agent of the kindly children's show host that Santa hopes to replace them. It'll take a Christmas miracle - and a lot of Ernest-provided slapstick - to get them all together in time for Santa's big ride on Christmas Eve.

The original 1947 Miracle On 34th Street takes us from warm Orlando to chilly New York City. This time, the Santa in question is Kris, who works for the big Macy's in Manhattan and insists he's real. The lawyer who takes him in (John Payne) thinks he's a nice old man. His neighbor Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara) and her daughter Susan (Natalie Wood) are the skeptical ones; Doris was soured on romance by a bad divorce and has taught her daughter to avoid all kinds of fantasy. When a neurotic psychologist insists Kris be put on trial for lunacy, his lawyer friend takes his case...and in doing so, proves to Susan, Doris, and all of New York that "faith is believing when common sense tells you not to."

I switched to the Peanuts while I made lunch and got ready for work. I Want a Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown brings in Linus and Lucy's little brother Re-Run, who desperately wants a puppy of his own. He keeps begging Snoopy to come out and play with him. Charlie Brown finally calls Snoopy's brother Spike from the desert to make Re-Run happy. Spike and Snoopy do their best to show Re-Run how hard it can be to take care of a pet. 

I hurried out to work shortly after I Want a Dog For Christmas ended. It started raining again shortly after I left, and apparently rained off and on for the rest of the night. That, coupled with a busy week in general, may have kept our customers at bay. We were steady for most of the night, and never really crazy, even during rush hour. People were in better moods, too. One customer from Sunday even apologized to me for being rude that night! I was in and out with no major problems.

When I got home, I ran the other special on the Deluxe I Want a Dog For Christmas Warners DVD set. Happy New Year, Charlie Brown skips ahead a couple of weeks to Christmas vacation. While Charlie Brown is saddled with having to do a book report on War and Peace, the rest of the gang is looking forward to the big New Year's party. Peppermint Patty wants him to ask her out...but of course, Chuck can think of asking no one but the Little Red Haired Girl.