So Much To Do!

Started off a very busy day with breakfast and Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving. This direct-to-video movie has two episodes of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh together with the Pooh Thanksgiving special and some new linking material. In the first story, Piglet is recruited as a groundhog to tell the others when spring is. In the second, Rabbit's attempt at a "traditional" Thanksgiving doesn't go nearly as well as he'd hoped. It's Pooh who reminds the bossy yellow bunny that Thanksgiving is about sharing what we have with others, whether what we have is turkey and stuffing or honey and haycorns. Rabbit is also in the spotlight in the third story. He adopts a little girl bird, but has a hard time letting go when she's old enough to fly south for the winter.

I did the Cranberry Bread while Pooh was on. Every year, I bring at least one loaf of bread to Mom's house for Thanksgiving. This tradition dates back to when I was in college. Bread was pretty much the only thing I had time to make between classes, and it was easy to bake in a small dorm oven and bring home. I used Pillsbury bread mixes in college. Nowadays, I just make them from scratch. I'll do the Pumpkin Bread tomorrow.

Switched to Arthur's Perfect Christmas as I gave the bathroom a much-needed scrubbing. Arthur Read is a normal, good-natured aardvark kid who is looking forward to a perfect holiday of snow, big meals, and lots of presents. Meanwhile, his friend Brain is preparing for Kwanzaa, Muffy is upset because her best friend Francine went to her family's Hanukkah party instead of her big Christmas bash, and Buster's mother keeps getting him up early because she's worried he won't have a good Christmas without his father. Arthur and the other kids finally discover that perfection is in the eye of the beholder...and the holidays can be a lot of fun, whether they're perfect or not.

As soon as the bread was out of the oven and all the cleaning supplies were put away, I hurried out. I badly needed to get to Haddonfield to get the bike fixed. It wasn't the nicest day for a walk, but at least the precipitation held off for now. It was cloudy and damp, cooler than yesterday but not too cold. I picked up the PATCO in Collingswood. The train station in Haddonfield is a block from the Free Ride Bike Shop. Thankfully, they were mainly doing inventory and had the time to fix my bike. I bought a new tire and two inner tubes, one as a spare. They also tightened my chain gear and recommended I get a new chain as soon as I can get up to Haddonfield again, which will probably be in January.

The moment I got out, I raced home. Quickly finished out The First Christmas Snow as I ate and changed into work clothes. More lesser-known Rankin-Bass takes us to a church in a warm climate. When Lucas, a sheopard boy, is struck by lightning, he loses his sight. The nuns in the church take him in. He becomes especially fond of gentle Sister Teresa (Angela Landsbury, who also narrates), but worries that the priest (Cyril Ritchard) will send him to an orphanage. He finally decides to give Sister Teresa his sheep for Christmas, but what he really wants is to see snow, just as the kindly nun has described it to him.

I got to work right on time. Good thing, too. It was insane for almost the entire night. Thanksgiving preparations crossed with snow jitters (we may be getting one or two inches mixed with some rain tomorrow) added up to a mess right until around 7, and even after that, it was still steady. It did slow down enough by 8 that I was able to leave quickly without a relief.