Christmas Classics, and Not So Much

We accidentally got Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, in the mail a couple of days ago, having failed to notify Disney Movie Club (or whatever it's called) in time to prevent it from being sent to us by default. Having liked the first two movies in the series, I was not heartbroken that we got the third one. But much of it was painful to watch. It had basically the same strengths and weaknesses as Santa Clause 2, only more so. On the positive side, the sets, costumes and effects were wonderful, and the story of Scott Calvin's struggle to cope with family issues during his busy season as Santa was very touching and surprisingly real. On the negative side, there was an unnecessary and annoying B story, featuring a comic, obvious, terribly annoying villain. In 2 this distraction involved a despotic toy Santa (played by Tim Allen) who takes over the North Pole and nearly destroys Christmas. In 3, the bad guy was Martin Short as the scheming, cold-hearted Jack Frost, who takes over the North Pole and nearly destroys Christmas. Hmm, where have I seen that plot before? It's not that Short isn't funny (I find him rather hit and miss myself). It's just that the other characters should be noticing his sabotage every step of the way, but don't. That's bad plotting. And really, we don't need him. Another way could have been found to maneuver Scott into losing the Santa gig so he can fight his way back into it.

Pepper and Cayenne are less than impressed with The Santa Clause 2.

After watching this not-so-good DVD, I doubled back to watch the first two films in the series. The first one is flat-out great, well thought out and well written, with a simple story about Scott gradually becoming Santa and how that affects his relationships with his coworkers, son, ex-wife and her husband. The second one has a similar dynamic in the A story, with Scott needing to resolve his son's misbehavior issues while losing his magic and falling in love with his son's school principle. That part of it is great, but the toy Santa stuff is just annoying and over the top.

But Cayenne seems to like Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.

Christmas is full of classic and sequels and remakes. As with film and tv in general, not many of the sequels and remakes ever achieve "classic" status. I personally own four versions of A Christmas Carol on DVD or VHS, not counting the parodies on WKRP in Cincinnati and Quantum Leap. Of these, the George C. Scott one isn't bad, and The Muppet Christmas Carol and Mickey's Christmas Carol are plesant but forgettable. The only version that really does it for me is Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. I'll grant you that this is partly because it's the version I grew up with, and even I must admit it's not perfect, due to how much of the original story is missing. But the music is wonderful, the performances are excellent, and the dialogue is mostly what Dickens wrote. Good stuff.

I don't have a brilliant conclusion to wrap up this entry, and I've got to go to bed now. We'll continue this discussion in a day or two, because I want to get into the whole issue of reimagining characters and stories, and when it works and when it doesn't. Meanwhile, to all a good night!

Karen

Alive and Well

It's 5:15 AM as I start to type this. John is in bed with the dogs, which is where I was until about an hour ago, when an allergy attack forced me to get up. Now I'm at the computer in the early winter pre-dawn, on the edge of shivers as we are trying to avoid running the heat, which doesn't reach my office anyway. (The furnace did eventually come on, John told me later.) It's 35 degrees F outside, probably in the mid-60s in my office. I'm about to put another layer of clothing on over my fleece pullover.

Noodle is unfazed by a rare white Christmas in Tucson, 1987.

None of that matters. After all, it's been snowing in half the country, and much colder than here in most places. This is unseasonably cold for Tucson, but weather is always a subjective and relative thing. In Syracuse this would be unseasonably warm. My body is no longer acclimated to genuine Syracuse weather, and hasn't been in decades. For me now, this is cold. But it still is nothing to complain about.

I'd love to see some snow here, though. Snow in Tucson is a rare commodity, and always good for some interesting pictures. But the weather forecasts don't seem to hold out any hope for snow between now and Christmas, except perhaps on the mountains. I think there have been a total of two White Christmases in Tucson since they started tracking such things. (There was also a trace of snow in 1974 and half an inch in 1911, but the four inches in 1916 comprised the only other snow that "stuck.") I've written repeatedly about the last Christmas snow in Tucson, which was in 1987.

But in the absence of snow, a job, more money for presents, etc., there's still room for celebration here this Christmas. If you read my Twitter feed (either on Twitter, on Facebook, or on this blog's sidebar) , you already know the news I got Thursday afternoon, at least in precis. I heard back from an assistant at my doctor's office. Remember that biopsy I had on December 10th for cancer? I'm going to be a little more specific now, without getting too graphic about it. At the time, Dr. L. said that what she was seeing was consistent with menopause, not cancer, and that it was just my wonky hormones causing the atypical transition that had raised my doctor's concerns as well as mine. Her observations when she did the biopsy relieved my anxiety about 99%, but the last 1% came with the test results. The assistant said it was negative. "Well, technically it says 'benign,'" she added, "but that means negative."

"So I don't have cancer," I said, just to confirm.

"You don't have cancer," she agreed.

So here we are, in a cancer-free household. The shadow is off me, and the worry, sadness and expense of Tuffy's cancer that dogged us last Christmas is behind us now, replaced by the joy of having two healthy, happy dogs. And if I start to take all this too much for granted, I need only remember other folks whose news wasn't so good. A friend of mine at church apparently is having a recurrence of her cancer, and is currently recovering from pneumonia. A friend who reads this blog had another form of cancer some years ago, and survived it. I lost yet another friend to leukemia on Good Friday, over 10 years ago now. Even Majel Barrett, whom I never met but sort of admired, died of leukemia the day I got my good news.

In the face of all that, I should celebrate being alive and well myself. Allergies are nothing, and a mostly symptom-free menopause is nothing. I will not undergo surgery, or the financial ruin of cancer without health insurance. Money is tight, but not unmanageable; and John and the dogs are a daily joy. Plus I had a WebEx-based teleconference orientation on the CPA review course, and it all looks rather promising, a well thought out and well realized system that will take me longer to get through than I'd hoped, but less long than I'd feared. Let the modest, but real, Christmas joy commence!

Karen

F&FF: Stockings for the Dogs

For Feline and Furball Friday: The dogs react to the stockings I'll be decorating for them over the next day or two. After all, this is their first Christmas with us! You can tell they're excited about the prospect, and know exactly what is going on. Yeah, right.

From the Picasa album Christmas

Be sure to check out Steven's (sometimes)photoblog each Friday for links to the week's cute cat and dog shots. And my you and your pets have a pleasant holiday!

Karen

Weekend Assignment #247: Home for the Holidays?

Hanukkah starts Sunday night, and Christmas is Thursday. Any minute now, people will start heading elsewhere for the holidays. Karen Carpenter is singing in my head, egging me on to ask about holiday migration patterns:

Will you or a relative wake up in a hotel room on Christmas morning?

From my Picasa album Christmas

Weekend Assignment #247:"There's no place like Home for the Holidays" - or so the song claims. Are you heading "home" to family and friends? Are other family members heading "home" to visit you? Are you heading someplace that definitely isn't home, or perhaps just staying home, with no visitors on your doorstep? In short, what are your holiday-related travel arrangements this year, and is that they way you prefer to spend it?

Extra Credit:Tell us a holiday travel story from yesteryear.

John and I almost never travel at Christmas, and it's been at least four years, probably more, since we had holiday company. Even if money were not an issue this year, we would probably still be staying put this coming week. I'd love to bring my dad and stepmother and brother out here for a visit, but the house is in no condition for that, and neither are anyone's finances.

Pepper is dubious about her future Christmas stocking.

Overall, though, Christmas for the two of us plus the dogs is just about right. In May John and I will have been married for 30 years. We enjoy each other's company, and we aren't big on parties and large gatherings. Oh, I like a smallish, alcohol-free party full of people I know really well, but that's not likely to happen again anytime soon, whether I travel or not. John, on the other hand, probably hasn't attended any party whatsoever in a couple of decades. John's parents are dead, and his sister is we're-not-sure-where. My brother is in Cleveland, my Dad and Ruth are in Wilmington NC, and my surviving aunts and cousins in New Jersey haven't seen me since the 1970s. Clearly, our situation just isn't conducive to holiday family reunions. A low-key holiday at Casa Blocher with John and the dogs isn't terribly exciting, but it's comfortable, and relatively low stress - or would be if it weren't for the whole unemployment thing.

It's A Small World Holiday, 2005

We did get out of Tucson one year, and I think only one, since moving to Tucson in 1986. In 2005 we made it to Disneyland, to see Christmas decorations around the park, reindeer at Big Thunder Ranch, and the seasonal versions of two attractions, It's A Small World Holiday and the Haunted Holiday. I loved the former, but the latter not so much, and a hotel room on Christmas morning is a bit cheerless. Nor was I able to get to church for Christmas mass. Anaheim's St. Michael's Church didn't have anything like a midnight mass, nor much of a schedule on Christmas Day. Disneyland was expected to fill up early, and if I'd gone to church I would not only miss a whole morning at Disneyland but in all probability be unable to get into the part at all for most of the day. Ah, well. I felt a little guilty, but overall it was well worth the trip! I wouldn't want to leave town every Christmas, though. Not even for Disneyland.

Your turn! Tell us about your holiday travel this year or lack thereof, whether you're traveling or someone else is coming in to visit you instead. Write about this in your blog along with a link back here, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week with a roundup of your responses. Here are the ones from last week:

For Weekend Assignment #24: Surprise! I asked about any pleasant surprises for you this year. Four of you answered, but one was for the other meme I piggybacked onto the entry:

Julie said...

So, what was pleasant? Selling a story to a major mystery anthology certainly was. I was also pleased to be invited to The Leap Back 2009.

Suzanne R said in comments...

Your doggies are precious. It's amazing what love can do. This is for Feline and Furball Friday. My link is:
http://suzyq421sphotoblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/feline-and-furball-friday-socksie-and.html

Florinda said...

The best surprise this year is almost certainly our aforementioned new home. We were reasonably content in our old apartment. Although we occasionally talked about finding a new place, we knew there weren't too many rental options in our area that had both the space and pet-friendly policies we needed, so we figured we'd be signing another lease there in October. The opportunity to lease a larger three-bedroom townhome in a nicer area of town for a guaranteed term of 18 months and a reasonable monthly payment came up unexpectedly and was just too good to pass up - so we're very glad we didn't!

Mike said...

I have a few, nothing really special. One has to do with our older car. The car is about eight years old now, and fast approaching the 100,000 mile mark. Well, now that Jenn has a job four miles from home, that magic number may take a little longer to reach.

That's it for now! I don't expect a big turnout this week, but I'll be thrilled if you can work in a Weekend Assignment in the midst of your holiday merrymaking. Write about the assignment topic in your blog or journal, and include a link back here. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below. Please don't forget your links! I'll be back in a week to highlight the results.

A reminder: I'm still running low on ideas here, so I still need your input. What would you like to see as a Weekend Assignment topic? Email me your suggestions (mavarin at aol.com). If I use your topic you'll get full credit and my undying thanks.

Karen

Gifts for My Invisible Kids

Half an hour from now, I'll be dropping off a present for some kid I've never met, hoping I'm not too late. It's for an Angel Tree program at St. Michael's, and the deadline was yesterday. If the person doing all the work doesn't pick up all the last day dropoffs until this morning, maybe I can sneak it in. If not, then I'll probably call and ask to deliver it to the person.

I hope Frank loves books!

The reason I missed the deadline was that I mislaid the Angel Tree paper ornament with the kid's name (Frank) for several hours, but really I was running behind on things all day yesterday. I never did get back to bed after blogging. Instead I ended up fussing with the ComicMaker application on the BBC Doctor Who web site (you can see the result here), catching up on online stuff, registering for an online orientation Friday for the CPA review course I finally bought, being upset and angry with a form letter from an HR department that said I do not "meet the minimum requirements" for the position of "Accountant," based on my application listing past jobs as, guess what, an accountant, and activating my replacement debit card, which contrary to printed instructions could not be done simply by entering my PIN at an ATM.

And I mailed Jacob's package. God bless the self serve station in the Cherrybell post office lobby. Really. It probably saved me 45 minutes in line. Off it went, the box with two proper presents, a couple of silly little mathoms (ooh, a bookmark!) and a copy of my ComicMaker story.

My annual glimpse of Jacob - now with a newly adopted sister!

Jacob is my godson. I last saw him nearly three years ago, on the occasion of his First Communion in the Roman Catholic Church. He lives in New Mexico. Every year I try to figure out how old he is now, and what's likely to go over well as a present. This year it ended up being leftovers, because last year I didn't get the physical gift mailed and resorted to Amazon. But that was supplemented with an autographed photo from Gallifrey One. I don't honestly know whether he'll like any of it, but I tried. It's hard to keep tabs on the changing likes and dislikes of a kid 400 miles away, when your only contact with him is a gift card and a handful of annual photos.

It's easier to buy presents for the other kids I never see, the truly invisible kids on the Angel Trees, and the receipients of Toys for Tots. Someone decided that Frank wants a bookstore gift card, and that's what he's getting. And last night, John and I made our annual Toys for Tots run.

John and I have been buying a selection of toys for the Toys for Tots campaign (and once, when we couldn't find a dropoff, for a different but similar campaign) for over twenty years, in good times and bad. It is pretty much the only Christmas activity we really enjoy together. It's fun to shop for generic kids, trying to guess what will go over well. Do poor kids have access to the Disney Channel shows? Will the kid like a tanned, blonde Barbie, or prefer a Bratz before they're taken off the market? Some of our choices are nostalgic on our part, and may not reflect current kiddom. Is the 64-crayon box of Crayolas with the built-in sharpener still desirable 45 years later? What about a Slinky? This year we got the Crayolas and skipped the Slinky and the Hannah Montana stuff, bought our traditional five Hot Wheels cards, the blonde Barbie instead of the Bratz, an Indiana Jones figure, a package of plastic dinosaurs, and I forget what else. And this year I had the sense to search online for a list of Tucson dropoff sites. They don't have them at Target or Toys R Us any more (we did our shopping at Target, for several reasons involving crowds and coolness), but LA Fitness up the street does have a box. They told me that it's been emptied and refilled more than once this year, and was overflowing when I got there last night. A local newspaper story said that this has been about the worst year ever for Toys for Tots donations, but I'm hoping that like us, some people are just slow off the mark, but will get there in the end, with toys for all those kids that for us will always remain faceless. Because really, they have faces and names, even if we never learn who they are, or who will get the Barbie and who the Indiana Jones. They're kids, and they deserve a Christmas too.

Karen

How Do I Know It's Christmas?

One of the Christmas boxes is finally off the top shelf of the laundry room.

You remember A Charlie Brown Christmas, don't you? Charlie Brown spends the first-ever Peanuts special feeling alienated and depressed as he tries to find meaning in the Christmas season everyone else seems to be enjoying. Snoopy is celebrating by entering a Christmas decorating contest, and the other kids are dancing, skating, and eating early winter snow as it falls. Charlie Brown eventually goes in search of a Christmas tree, and finds himself empathizing with a small, scrawny one whose needles are falling off. At the very end, Linus recites from the Gospel of Luke to tell Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about, and the other kids decorate his lowly tree and sing Christmas carols at him. This display of religious and community feeling and inclusiveness finally cheers Charlie Brown up, and he sings along.

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling especially Charlie Brown-y this year, disconnected from the rituals and culture of Christmas. With no job for over three months now, I can't justify buying presents for anyone except my dad, stepmother, brother and husband. Even those gifts will need to be cut back. John claims not to want anything, and we've agreed to buy each other only one gift and whatever goes in each other's stockings. "No candy this year!" John warns. Fair enough, but what do I buy him? The only thing he seems to want is a new iPod, and if I get him anything that extravagant he will probably return it. It's happened before.

Jacob's box.

So I haven't bought a single present, and time is running out. The only saving grace is that I was finally able to pack up my godson Jacob's birthday and Christmas gifts. One of them I bought in mid-2007, when the local Discovery Channel Store was going out of business. The other, an autographed photo, I got at Gallifrey One in February. Jacob comes from a family of Doctor Who fans. I sure hope he likes this particular actress, and that the robot that's been sitting on my office floor, mint in box, for a year and a half doesn't seem too babyish to him now.

In looking for the right size box, I came across one with the dregs of stuff I carried home from First Magnus the day it went out of business and we all discovered we were out of a job. In it were a few things I was able to give Jacob as mathoms.

The box is packed. Now what?

Today is the last day to turn in an Angel Tree present at church for a prisoner's kid. I'll still do that, especially considering we haven't even done Toys for Tots yet. We always do Toys for Tots, no matter how broke we are. I hope it's not too late.

The vintage tree in a happier year.

And there's Christmas decorating to be done. If I put up the aluminum tree in its usual place by the sliding class doors in the den, it won't even be visible from the couch behind all those boxes. I'll have to get John to move those somewhere. A live tree is out of the question this year.

And what about Christmas music? It's been two years or more since I last found the Christmas CDs. No Robert Rheims, no Chipmunks, no Nat King Cole and Sinatra and Jingle Bell Rock. If I start going through boxes now, what are the chances of my finding the CDs by December 25th?

Yes, yes, spirit of Christmas. Jesus in Bethlehem, midnight mass, peace on earth, people smiling at each other on the street. I will try to find some feeling to go with my half-a-mustard-seed faith. But you probably won't see me smiling at strangers much except at the dog park, and my only contribution to the peace on earth part came on Election Day. Still, I'll do my best.

Okay, okay. I'm over it. On with the day.

Karen

Sunrise, Sunset, and Adventures in Plastic

I have new sunset photos for you from the last couple of days (Saturday and Monday, to be precise), a sunrise and a few completely unrelated bits of news. Here we go!

Sunrise, Dec 12, 2008.

Here's that sunrise. I've done nothing to this photo but resize and sharpen. I think it's kind of dull myself. Somehow the sunsets around here are consistently much better than the sunrises.

Sunset at Miko's Corner, Dec 12, 2008.

See? Don't you agree that it's much more dramatic? It's got a few lens flares, but it's much more interesting than that sunrise shot.

Same place and time, more or less.

Country Club Road, exiting the dog park the same evening.

Miko's Corner, December 15th

December 12th again.

From the Picasa album Tucson Sunsets

Those last two shots are the only ones I did more to than resize and sharpen. And I didn;t do much. They didn't need much tweaking.

I sort of wanted to rant tonight about the obvious unfairness of Barack Obama being derided for his supposedly close relationship with a crooked governor who never campaigned with him, who didn't endorse him in the primaries (or vice versa), who angrily complained in a taped conversation about Obama being unwilling to offer anything but appreciation if Blagojevich made the Senate choice Obama wanted, and who repeatedly called Obama the most offensive of George Carlin's Seven Words. Today Obama had the gall to accede to the request of a highly respected U.S. Attorney for the sake of an ongoing investigation, despite the political inconvenience this causes Obama himself. How dare he do the right thing?

There. Consider that rant ranted. On to the personal stuff.

Last week, I mislaid a debit card. I had put it in a reusable cloth grocery bag along with the groceries so that I wouldn't lose it, but could not find it when I unloaded the groceries. I spend much of the next day searching the house, the car and the driveway, checking with the grocery store, and making sure it had not been used. Eventually I reported it lost and ordered a replacement.

Tonight John was finishing up a sixpack of beer I bought him last week. When he took the carton out of the fridge, my debit card landed on the floor. It was in the beer carton!

Let that be a lesson to me. Or something.

It was a credit card I turned to tonight to finally order that CPA review course, with textbooks, guided seminars and online and offline components. John and I had agreed on a version of the course that was more expensive than bare bones, less expensive than the works, and much less expensive than almost any other reputable company's courses. When I ordered it, there was a minor nasty surprise - the address was an Arizona one, so my credit card took a hit for over $111 more in sales tax. Ah, well. It will be worth it in the end. So now I have to gear up for the actual studying! But not tonight.

Karen