We'll Have the Brightest Christmas

Started a beautiful, sunny late fall morning with breakfast and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. The first non-Disney animated holiday special featured the popular myopic curmudgeon as another famous old man, Ebeneezer Scrooge. Actually, the selling point besides this being a fairly accurate adaptation of the story (don't know why they flip-flopped the past and present sequences, though) is the gorgeous music by real-life Broadway tunesmiths Bob Merrill and Jules Styne. They did a nice score for this, including the fun opening "Back On Broadway," the lovely ballad for Scrooge's former fiancee "Winter Was Warm," and the Cratchits' number "We'll Have the Brightest Christmas."

Went into the sweet Santa Bear's First Christmas as I threw together some chewy Chocolate Fudge Chip Cookies from the Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge cake mix I had in the pantry. (I didn't have the time to make cookies from scratch, but I was craving chocolate and cookies.) I dubbed this adaptation of the 80's picture book last year. A polar bear cub becomes lost in the woods and is befriended by a little girl and her grandfather. When the grandfather gets sick, the bear tries to find wood to warm him. He's about to give up hope, when he encounters a friendly man in a red suit in the forest who not only gives him what he needs, but helps him find a way home.

Work was actually the opposite of the last few days. It was busy when I came in, but the heavy crowds started to die around 1:30. It was steady the rest of the evening, but not really overwhelming. I stayed an extra hour anyway. Ironically, the grandfather of one of the college kids had gotten sick, and her family was visiting him.

When I finally got home, I had the last of the Italian Wedding Soup for dinner while watching the 1954 Christmas Carol I dubbed last year. Fredrick March was Scrooge in this TV adaptation for Chrysler. It's a semi-musical, though most of the numbers besides one love song for the young Scrooge and his fiancee are chorus songs. Not the best version out there, but it is a chance to see TV history as one of the earliest small-screen Christmas Carols (complete with the original commercials for Chrystler!).

Did a little bit of writing after I got out of the shower. The kids follow their new friends into Toyland. They're amazed to find a world of gingerbread homes and towering factories and rock candy roads. Jack and Jill tell the kids they're trying to earn enough money from Pruitt Barnaby to buy a crumbling gingerbread theater and restore it for their own productions.