Kicking Off the Holidays

The wind howled as I awoke this morning. Warmed things up with breakfast and Match Game. The late Bill Macy joined Richard, Brett, Charles, Gene, and Betty White for a PM episode in 1975. He actually does quite well and has a lot of fun with the group - wish he'd turned up again.

Work was just as quiet as it was over the weekend and has been all week. We're between holidays, and Thanksgiving is late this year. Not to mention, while it was sunny with a bright blue, it was also windy and bitterly cold for mid-November, in the mid-30's. Not a day to be out running around. I did do the trash inside and out in the morning, but I mainly alternated between gathering carts and sweeping the store later.

When I got home, I tightened my seat again, then went upstairs and changed. Finished out more Match Game while I got organized. They had Kirstie Alley as a contestant in a series of episodes from the syndicated show in 1979, but she wasn't even the best thing about the first of them. One of the contestants who came in before her took so long with her answer, Gene lay down on the floor and took a nap!

After I got organized, I made this year's Christmas lists. No, it's not what I want. It's what I'm giving. I only give non-edible gifts to Lauren and Amanda (who come from small families and don't have many people giving them presents) and my nieces and nephews (who will be getting food with their family gifts and don't need the extra sugar). There's also what I'll be baking and who gets that and my list of people getting cards.

Watched Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving while I worked to kick off my holiday season. This rather thrown-together anthology features three story with mildly seasonal themes. In the first, the others dress Piglet as a groundhog to find out if it's still winter. The second is the Thanksgiving special. Rabbit insists that his friends have to adhere to "tradition" and find all the fixings for a big Thanksgiving dinner. Pooh knows what Thanksgiving really means. Rabbit is also the focus of the last story, where he raises a baby bird and has a hard time letting her go when she wants to fly south for the winter.

Worked on writing for a while after I finished the lists. Charles' music is enough to distract Malade. Richard shoots her hand to keep her from casting spells, then shoots her cape into the wall. It gives them just enough time to escape. When they're on the ground, Elaine shows off her powers - healing. Her tears heal Bobby's eyes, to the delight of the lovers. Richard gets them away from the tower before Malade can pursue them.

Broke for dinner at 6:30. Had leftovers, then made chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Tried the "Chocolatetown Chocolate Chip Cookies" recipe in the 1934 Hershey's Chocolate Cookbook I picked up earlier in the year. They use butter, unlike my usual chocolate chip cookie recipes that requires oil. Not bad. Soft and sweet and a little chewy.

Finished the night with The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. Clara Stalbaum (Mackenzie Foy) is excited about Christmas, but not about having to dance with her widowed father at a big ball. She'd rather spend time with her Godpapa Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman), trying to figure out what's in his gift to her. The golden egg from her mother is said to hold "all you will ever need inside." She follows a key he gives her to the Land of Sweets, only to have it stolen by a mouse. Captain Hoffman, the Nutcracker (Jayden Fowara-Knight), claims the mouse is the lackey of the evil Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), the regent of the Fourth Realm. He takes her to the far more pleasant Land of Sweets, where the Sugar Plum Fairy (Keira Knightly) claims she's the queen of the land. Her mother had been queen when she'd lived there, but had returned to the regular world. But things aren't as they seem, and as Clara discovers, all she really needs to have confidence in herself.

Wonderful cast and some truly nifty special effects...but what does any of this have to do with The Nutcracker Ballet or The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.A Hoffman? Other than a short ballet sequence with prima ballerina Misty Copeland, there's barely any ballet, and not really a nutcracker, either. Disney was trying for the Alice In Wonderland-type dark retelling again, but this time, it didn't work. The movie was a major flop last November, and I can generally understand why. Fun if your little girl loves ballet or other relatively dark fantasies, but nothing you need to go out of your way to see.