Let It Snow In the Morning

Began the morning with breakfast and Sheriff Callie's Wild West. Toby wants an animal of his own to ride, like Sheriff Callie's horse Sparky or Deputy Peck's mule Clementine. He thinks "Toby's Christmas Critter" is a horse with prickers, but it's really one of Santa's reindeer. Toby ends up having to help rescue his new friend and Santa's sleigh from bandits. "A Very Tricky Christmas" has Tricky Travis and Oswald the Bear claiming they've reformed. They even help the townspeople to form a marching band. They think stealing the townspeople's tree and gifts will make them happy, but the residents of Nice and Friendly Corners know better. 

Headed out even before the cartoon ended. It started snowing as I waited for the Uber driver. Thankfully, the snow never stuck to anything, and it had no effect on the drivers. The one taking me to work arrived in 4 minutes; the one going home took 5.

It snowed all morning long. It came down pretty hard at one point around 11-11:30, too. Between the snow, the sharp pine scent drifting in from the Christmas tree lot in the back, and the man gathering money for the Salvation Army, it felt pretty festive today. I spent the entire day sweeping and gathering carts with no trouble, even as the snow mixed with rain later in the afternoon.

Soon as I got home, I changed and went right back outside. Though it remained cloudy and damp at 1:30, the rain and snow was long gone. I took a short walk to the pretzel shop around the corner for two pretzels, a cheesesteak-stuffed pretzel, and a can of Diet Pepsi.

Had lunch, then put the flannel sheets on my bed while watching Tattletales. Glamorous Joan Collins and her then-husband Ron Glass joined egotistical Dick Gautier and his supremely sarcastic then-wife Barbara Stuart and Rue McClanahan and her boyfriend Gus Fisher. Gus may have been big and fairly good-looking, but he wasn't too bright. He and Rue got one answer right. The other two couples won after everyone missed a question and the money defaulted to the last question.

Switched to Thank God It's Friday after I ate. I go further into this comedy on one night in a LA disco that features the Oscar-winning Donna Summer song "Last Dance" at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.

Thank God It's Friday

Wrapped presents while the movie was on. I managed to wrap all of Lauren and her parents' gifts but one. I ran out of paper before I could finish. Darn it. This was the one thing I hadn't stocked up on. I'll pick up more from Dollar General tomorrow.

Worked on writing after I cleaned up from that. Cora searches high and low among the dolls in the tower room, but she can't find one that looks like her Stephen...until she reaches behind a book case and pulls out a lump old rag doll. She kisses it, revealing a battered, worn Stephen with a scarred face and chopped-off hair. The furious Harron can't figure out why she chose an ugly doll when there were so many prettier ones in the room, but Cora remembered what Stephen looked like before he sent him there.

Broke for dinner and Match Game Syndicated at 7 PM. Though the Steve Kanaly week is currently on YouTube, he hasn't cleared it for TV yet. We skip ahead to the week after, with Bowser showing off his "Bowser Bag" that carries his props and comb and comedienne Gina Hecht getting nearly every answer right. She didn't have as much luck with "Poke __" on the Head-to-Head. The ladies are more than happy to admire a very tall and handsome young contestant in the next episode, though they didn't have as much luck helping him with "Sue __" in the Audience Match.

Finished the night on YouTube with three vintage holiday variety specials. From the mid-60's through 1994, Perry Como appeared in a series of specials set in exotic lands or other times. I started off with Perry Como's French Canadian Christmas from 1981. Debbie Boone joins Como for a sequence set in old Montreal, as a young woman awaits the arrival of brides from France. We also get French Canadian folk dancers, Dorothy Hamill doing a random skating routine, the Montreal Canadiens hockey team knocking Como over, and a finale set during Christmas for a French Canadian family.

Como headed back across the US border for Perry Como's Early American Christmas in Williamsburg, Virginia. John Wayne, of all people, joins Perry to recite a poem from a soldier in the American Revolution and kick back a pint at the local tavern. Diana Canova handles the ballads here. We get copious glimpses of life in Colonial Williamsburg during the holiday season. There's even two little girls in red and blue cloaks who remind me of Felicity and Elizabeth from the American Girl series. 

Andy Williams traveled northwards to a Vermont village museum for a different type of American history in Andy Williams' Early New England Christmas. Hamill returns here as a figure-skating schoolteacher. Alieen Quinn of Annie is her prize pupil who gets to belt out "Let There Be Peace On Earth" and do an old fashioned comedy number with Williams. Dick Van Patten runs the local general store and passes gossip and local history along to Williams.