Ever since Irving Berlin's song "White Christmas" was immortalized by Bing Crosby, it just doesn't seem like the holiday season until I hear that familiar voice for the first time during this time of year. Naturally, having a white Christmas just puts everyone in a festive mood for the season, but if it was actually snowing on Christmas eve, well that would be something from a Currier and Ives lithograph. Of course, it certainly makes it easier for the jolly old elf himself, Santa, to navigate the globe too. However, when you have several sentimental older sisters who just love the old movies, a "man" and his brothers had no choice but to watch the holiday classic.
Long before the era of videos and DVDs, if you didn't catch the television broadcast of a movie or special, that would have been the last opportunity to see it again for some time, maybe next year. In the time leading up to Christmas consequently, my sisters were frequently checking the TV listings to see when the specials were airing, in particular "White Christmas". Frankly, I couldn't quite understand why they thought this movie was so wonderful, when we could have been watching Charlie Brown's Christmas, Rudolf, the Grinch, or maybe just cartoons or the Three Stooges. However, my brothers and I evidently must have just gone along with their wishes, probably because they were older, and well, they made us.
Over the years, I have come to appreciate some of their passion for watching those holiday classics. "It's a Wonderful Life" is perhaps my all time favorite movie, and I scarcely remember that one being on their short list when we were kids. However, these behaviors served to be very valuable in that they created traditions, and that's what we all carry forward from the past and share with our own children today. In this case, I guess I owe a lot to my sisters, and in the words of Irving Berlin, "there were never such devoted sisters". Merry Christmas, and may all your Christmas' be white!
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White Christmas is, for us, the oldest tradition, but now you really need the Christmas movie trifecta: White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Story. Of course, Rudolph and Charlie Brown need to be squeezed in somewhere!
ReplyDeleteMy daughter and I watched "Love Actually" several times each year as our holiday movie tradition, and Charlie Brown's Christmas was her very first movie video. I loved creating these memories with her.
ReplyDeleteOh I remember those ice cream eating sessions with "White Christmas." As far as "It's a Wonderful Life," that movie was not a popular favorite when it came out- ranked 27th in the 1946-47 year- Lost $500,000, Jimmy Stwart once said it was his favorite movie part. I think it was only shown on PBS stations until the copyright ran out in 1973 at which time it then became widely available. I guess that's why we weren't familiar with it. All my info is from the IAWF trivia book with I hold in my hands right now- Written by Jimmy Hawkins and Paul Petersen- Hawkins played Tommy Bailey in the movie and Paul Petersen was Donna Reed's son in the "Donna Reed Show," a great one I remember well. Donna was from Denison Iowa-She was a beauty.
ReplyDeleteWell, enoughof that- other great one's I love are the "Bells of St Mary's" and "Meet me in St. Louis" (though Christmas is not the primary theme.
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I also liked Bing's - Going My Way - I think that is where Barry Fitzgerald's Mother was flown in from Ireland at the very end of the movie - I still shed tears! J
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