Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Put a Little Love In Your Heart

Started off a late morning with breakfast and the recent Disney Junior show Alice's Wonderland Bakery. Alice is delighted when she, Hattie, and her sentient recipe book Cookie are invited to the Queen of Hearts and her daughter Rosa's big Christmas dinner at Hearts Palace. Her friend Fergie the White Rabbit is upset when he's not invited, causing Alice to decline the invitation. She'd rather spend the holiday with her best friend. After Mome Raths invade the castle, it looks like there may not be a dinner at all. Alice finally rounds up all of Wonderland to help build "The Gingerbread Palace" and make it a place where everyone can enjoy dinner...Mome Raths and rabbits included.

Headed out to run errands after breakfast. The weather was much too nice to be hanging out inside! The sun warmed my nose despite the biting chill, and the sky was an unwavering ice blue. It was a lovely morning to run errands. Went to Dollar General first. They looked like a hurricane blew through. The shelves were empty of almost everything. I managed to pick up laundry detergent, more boxes for candy, a bag for Rose and her family's gifts, and trash bags, but couldn't find powdered sugar. Hiked down to a better-stocked Family Dollar to pick up the sugar. Treated myself to a tasty and spicy Gingerbread Cookie Smoothie and soft pretzel across the street at WaWa.

After I got home, I put everything away while watching A Scooby Doo Christmas. In the second Scooby holiday special, he and Mystery Inc find themselves stranded in Winter Hollow on Christmas Eve. The town is hardly a friendly place. A monstrous snow man terrifies them every Christmas Eve, destroying their chimneys and forcing them to take refuge in the local inn. While Scooby and Shaggy dodge this monstrous Christmas creep, their friends learn more about the local legend of a robber that hid his gold in one of the houses and how that might relate to this unwelcome holiday visitor.

Started in on the fudge after the cartoon ended. Since I'm not using my own kitchen, I wanted to keep things very simple. Used the Carnation kit for the chocolate fudge; found an easy recipe for peanut butter fudge on Pinterest that only required butter, powdered sugar, peanut butter, and evaporated milk. I was even able to melt the butter and peanut butter for the latter in the microwave. They came out perfectly, thick, rich, and sweet. 

A friend of mine was riding down to Hammonton with a load of gifts. A woman she knew was recovering from drug addiction and had a hard time getting presents for her two young daughters. In addition to the toys she bought and donated from her own daughter, I gave her two large Beanie Baby teddy bears that used to belong to Jodie and Dad. They only used them for display, so they were in perfect shape. I don't really need them. I have plenty of bears, including ones for Christmas.

Put my laundry in the washer, then watched A Flintstones Christmas Carol while cutting paper snowflakes for my doors and window. Fred's playing Scrooge in a local Bedrock play, and he's getting a little too into the role. He spends so much time rehearsing, he forgets to buy presents for his women or pick Pebbles up at daycare. Wilma's the stage manager along with designing costumes and playing several roles after actors come down with "The Bedrock Bug," and she's absolutely furious with her husband's insensitive behavior. It takes a scare at the department store and really listening to the story for Fred to understand what Christmas really means to him...the love of his wife and daughter.

Worked on writing for a while after I moved my laundry to the dryer. Debralee is somewhere between amused and horrified when she realizes the Mouse Queen is Jo Ann Worley, and the Mouse King resembles producer Ira Skutch. She's not laughing when she realizes what they intend to do to her and the Nutcracker, though...

Broke for dinner at 6:30. Ate while watching The Littlest Angel. I go further into this popular Hallmark musical from 1969 with Johnny Whittaker as the title character and Fred Gwynne as his kindly friend at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog. 


Finished the night after a shower and putting my laundry away with a pair of holiday tales about curious bears at Tubi. Ted E. Bear (Dick Smothers) wants to know everything about Christmas. Most bears hibernate through the holidays and neither know nor care about it. Even his girlfriend (Barbara Felton) thinks he's insane for wanting to find such an abstract thing. He's determined to not be The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas, finally stumbling to the city to find it. With the help of a jolly old man in red, he learns Christmas is a day...but it's also a feeling, and one best shared with someone you love. 

Christopher and Holly are teddy bears who want to be The Bears Who Saved Christmas when their family is stranded at a barren cabin on Christmas Eve. Joined by a compass with a bad sense of direction and a flashlight who is afraid of the dark, they go out in search of a tree to brighten their family's holiday. On the way, they help a young beaver out of the ice and stop a real bear from being caught in a trap. They discover just how important friendship and helping others is when their new buddies help them find a tree and get it home. 

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