Unwrapped my gifts from Linda and James Young soon as I finished reading and writing. Linda gave me the Han-Leia story The Princess and the Scoundrel, the Star Wars history Secrets of the Force, and a nice journal. My "stocking stuffers" were You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros Story and a new set of Rich Steves Europe episodes.
Had a quick breakfast while watching A Pink Christmas. The homeless Pink Panther is having a difficult Christmas in this retelling of the O Henry short story "The Cop and the Anthem." He tries everything he can to get a good meal, from shoveling the sidewalk to posing as a Santa to trying to get himself arrested, but nothing works. After he gives his only bit of food to a hungry dog, the duo end up with a big Christmas surprise.
As I got organized, I switched to a Rankin-Bass double feature. Aaron The Little Drummer Boy lives with his animals in the desert and hates all humans after thieves killed his parents. He's kidnapped by the wily head of a traveling troupe who thinks he'll be perfect to lure the heavily-taxed crowds, but he's so angry, he drives them away instead. They sell the boy's camel to three kings who follow a star. Aaron follows them, and finds a certain child in a manger who is the only one that can help when his lamb is hurt.
Aaron, his animals, and his drum are recruited again, this time to help one of the Kings in The Little Drummer Boy Book II. A bell-maker wants to ring his silver bells to announce the birth of the Baby Jesus, but they were stolen by Greek soldiers who took them for taxes. Aaron helps distract the soldiers, so they can rescue the bells before they're melted down. The price, however, is high for Aaron...
Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus won an Emmy in 1974, but it's rarely seen nowadays. That's a real shame. This is a charming retelling of the little girl in late 19th century New York who wrote to the New York Sun's editorial department, asking them about the existence of Santa, and the editor's kindly answer. It was obviously done by the same people who did the Peanuts specials. There's a similar animation style and some of the same voices.
A friend called me to join her Christmas celebration. I had gifts for her and her daughter and son and girlfriend. I even had treats for their cat. They gave me a reading light, a huge tin of three different kinds of popcorn, and a 25 dollar Fandango gift card. (The last-named will come in handy when I go to see Wonka tomorrow.) There was a huge brunch with scrambled eggs and cheese, waffles, scrapple, sauteed asparagus, toasted bagels, and bacon.
After I ate, I walked to Rose's house and straight into a crisis. Poor Oreo the dog had gotten a bad cut on the bottom of his paw. Rose and Craig were wrapping up his paw just as I arrived. I played with my niece Finley in her toy room for a while before we came out to plates of cheese, grapes, berries, pineapple-coconut balls, sugar cookies with tie-dyed frosting, Reeces cup cookies, chocolate chip bars, and cherry-topped cheesecakes. I went home with far more. Craig brought home eggplant Parmesan, green beans, and a beet salad from Anthony's in Haddon Heights, where he works. Rose gave me some of it. She gave me cherry cheesecakes and pineapple-coconut balls, too, and sugared nuts. along with a beautiful holiday tin of tea.
The kids loved their things, too. Finley is learning to read, and she was delighted with her Dr. Seuss book and activity book. Khai was happy to get an Eagles blanket of his very own that he didn't have to share with his parents. Khai is getting so tall! His hair is really dark, too. I have to agree, he does kind of look like our father Bruce, with his broad shoulders and dark hair. I got to admire their beautiful real tree with ornaments Rose got from Mom as a kid or that Jodie gave to her after she cleared out Dad's holiday decorations.
Finley and I settled down in the living room to watch her play animal games on her iPad and to make sure Oreo didn't try to get his bandages off. Craig had the big Eagles-Giants game on. The Eagles started strong and fast. They were up 20-3 by the time Craig and Finley drove me home. (Apparently, they faltered in the second half, but not enough to lose. They still ended up winning 33-25.
Finished the night at YouTube with an extremely long Match Game marathon. The owner of the Match Game Productions channel gathered all the episodes beloved by his mother, who introduced him to Match Game. I came in just as everyone was trying to help a sweet French contestant. There was the episode where Fannie flirted with a handsome high school teacher, and the one I saw on Buzzr last week where Betty White did something like a stripping routine. In a later episode, Gene came in carrying what proved to be Patti Deusch's toddler son Max and Gary Burgoff's adorable little girl Gina.
One night time episode featured Charles and Richard sporting wide-brimmed straw hats as "Your Basic Big Picture Hat Society." Another had two of the most hapless contestants to ever play the game. The only reason one even made it to the bonus round was Charles matched each of them once, and then matched one in a tie breaker. There was also the one where Richard and Betty pretended to be Brett and Charles, and even wore their hat and glasses. At the end of an episode, when Richard was kissing a contestant, Gene tried to pull her back, only for Richard to hang on! Poor lady joked that her arms were longer when Gene finally got her away.
Enjoy the holidays matching with your mom on this very long marathon!
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