Bluey is excited to be a "Verandah Santa" when she and her cousins take turns being Santa and pretending to give gifts while waiting for the real one. She's upset when her littlest cousin Socks bites her and gives her no presents. Bluey thinks she's justified, until her father Bandit points out how badly she's hurt Socks' feelings.
Though it was a little bit warmer than yesterday, it was still pretty cold. I took Uber again. The driver was on time, but he had to make a detour that took him through Audubon and around the shopping center. Thankfully, I called early enough to be right on time.
That may have been the last time things went right the entire four hours at work. It was a mess there today. One of the cashiers called out, and the head bagger took her place. I could have used her help. The carts kept vanishing. It wasn't as bad when I arrived and when I left, but it got insane in between. They'd call me to put away cold items or clean up a mess, too, and that would put me behind on carts. I just couldn't keep up with them. Needless to say, I was very happy when I finally finished.
Maybe the weather brought everyone out. It was sunny and breezy, not warm, but not quite freezing like yesterday. Still too cold for this time of year, but much easier to tolerate without the wind.
Didn't have as much luck with Uber going home. Everyone is busy transporting people to their families or parties for the holidays. I couldn't get a driver for 15 minutes. At least this time, he turned up when he said he would, and there was no trouble with traffic once we got started.
Took out the trash and recycling when I got home, then changed and brought my laundry downstairs. After I got them in the wash, I decided to try something I'd been wanting to do for three weeks now. Amanda gave me a gourmet mix for apple cinnamon scones as part of my Christmas gifts, but not only did I not have the time to try them until now, I didn't have the heavy cream, either. All it called for was heavy cream. That's why I bought the big bottle last week. I wanted enough for the scones. I even added an apple I had with a top that had a big brown spot. I still had a bag of cranberries, too, so I decided to give cranberry sauce another chance.
And this time, they both turned out very well. I had a hard time patting the scone dough into a disc, so I made drop scones. Other than I browned the bottoms slightly, they tasted like a rustic apple orchard and smelled amazing in the oven. The cranberry sauce came out perfectly too, just sweet-tart enough and the right jelly-like consistency.
Went upstairs after putting the laundry in the dryer for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. All Clark Grizwauld (Chevy Chase) wants is a good old-fashioned family Christmas like the ones he remembers from his childhood. As usual, what Clark imagines and what he gets are two entirely different matters. None of the grandparents he invites over get along. He wraps his house with so many lights, he shorts out the neighborhood power grid. His misery boss (Brian Doyle Murphy) barely seems to notice him, much less give out the bonus he badly needs. Even after he finally gets the lights going, his cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) and his family show up in their rattletrap RV and cause even more chaos. In the end, as the SWAT team is coming through the windows and his tree is burning to a crisp, Clark finally realizes that we can't make Christmas perfect...but we can make it memorable.
By far my favorite of the five Vacation comedies, even over the original. The sentimentality that John Hughes' work is prone to actually blends pretty well with slapstick antics that border on black comedy at times. Mae Questal and William Hickey steal the show in the last 20 minutes as senile Aunt Bethany and her sarcastic husband Lewis, along with Quaid as the backwoods cousin we all dread showing up at our holiday gatherings,
Scatological and sexual humor makes this perfect for teens who are now on their own Christmas breaks and adults who have probably gone through just about everything Clark does here at one time or another.
After Clark, I brought the laundry upstairs, then switched to another famous family celebrating the holidays. Joanie Cunningham spends her "Christmas Time" in the sixth season of Happy Days complaining about her father bringing home one of the tinsel trees that were popular in the 50's and 60's instead of a real one. Her brother Richie, his buddies, and his girlfriend Lori Beth are having more trouble trying to decide how much they should spend on gifts for one another and how to stick to that budget. Fonzie is so upset that the father he's never known wouldn't show his face to him, he won't even open his present, until the Cunninghams remind him that this is the season for forgiveness.
Worked on the Seasonal inventory next. Added the Happy Holidays series Volume 26 through 30. I've been hitting eBay over the past few years and buying some of the older titles from before I started collecting. My cassette for Volume 29 is the original one from 1994. I picked up Volume 30 on CD at a yard sale a few years ago.
Watched Match Game Syndicated while I worked. Fred Travelena did not have an easy time of it in these episodes. He nearly started a riot twice over answers that were too specific for Ira. Elaine Joyce spent most of these episodes arguing with Brett and Charles.
(Oh, and the next Buzzr marathon after Betty White Christmas will be Match Game '90 starting January 13th. It sounds like they're about to add it to the schedule. Awesome! I like this version of Match Game. While the Match Up round does slow things down a bit, this is otherwise a lot of fun, especially given I was 11 when it debuted and remember many of the celebrities on the panel very well.)
Went to Plex for the wonderful Remember WENN Christmas episode as I ate dinner. It's "Christmas On the Airwaves" as the cast of radio station WENN in Pittsburgh prepare for the holidays in 1940. Writer Betty Roberts is happy to be going home to Indiana for the holidays, but she's also worried that the station won't be there when she gets back. Mr. Pruitt, a miserly financier, tells them to take down their decorations and stop mentioning Christmas on their shows. Seems the station's owner, former singer Gloria Redmond, doesn't want to be reminded of Christmas after she lost her husband during the holidays the year before. It'll take an effort from everyone at the station to remind Gloria that our loved ones are never far from us, and Christmas is a wonderful time for a heart to start healing.
Finished the night at YouTube with more Christmas game show episodes. Match Game Productions is really spoiling us this year. He's going to be running Christmas game show episodes all week from 8 through 12 PM, starting with the 1978 Card Sharks. One lady really had a lucky Christmas, barely managing to get to the Money Cards before picking up $3,600 on them. The next round was tougher, as she and the other woman would get to the end of their cards, only to miss the last card and have to go back.
Richard Dawson had more luck with Family Feud in the mid-70's. The show did Christmas episodes from the start in 1976 and would do them again in '77. Some of the answers to these questions seem a little racier than they would in later years, including the woman who answered "Naked body" to "name something you'd find in the bathtub." Two families did great and hit the Big Money, one barely one question into the second round. The other did not.
Richard returned to Television City to celebrate Christmas week 1976 with Gene Rayburn and Match Game. Mary Wickes and Orson Bean were also along for the ride, the latter for the first time in over a year. Mary Wickes couldn't help commenting that she was a little jealous of the champ's very slender and pretty waist.
Speaking of Match Game '90, they really got into their Christmas week, with huge trees and tons of decorations everywhere. Rip Taylor and his toupee and confetti were more than happy to replace a vacationing Charles Nelson Reilly for the week. Meanwhile, Marcia Wallace relates the story of how her cut finger somehow ended up on a splint.
Christmas 1980 at Password Plus didn't bring out decorations, but it did debut new host Tom Kennedy after Allen Ludden proved to be too sick with stomach cancer to continue. It replaced trees with star power in the form of Gina Hecht, Debralee Scott, David Doyle, and Dick Gautier. The ladies made it to the Alphabetics round first, but Debralee got nervous, and they didn't do very well.
Super Password was far more festive, with two big trees on either side of Bert Convy's entrance door and lots of decorations. Married couple Mary Ann Mobley and Gary Collins kept it a family holiday this week as they played each other. Gary and his contestant got to the Super Password bonus round first...but Gary muffed a clue and he only got 900 instead of $20,000
Celebrate the holidays game show style with these thrilling and festive treats!
And here's even more vintage holiday programming to tide you over until Santa comes tomorrow!
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