Tag Archives: Holidays

Saturdays @ the South: The Ghost of Childhoods Past

quote-i-am-the-ghost-of-christmas-past-long-past-inquired-scrooge-no-your-past-charles-dickens-305003The holidays (and by that I mean any holiday, not just those that appear during this particular holiday season) are times when I like to indulge in my inner child. I’ve mentioned several times about my love for children’s books, but I also have a great love for classic children’s holidays shows. These are rarely in the form of movies. Instead, I’m a sucker for the half or one-hour specials that punctuated my childhood and that my mother dutifully recorded for me so I could watch them year after year. Some of these are newer traditions, but most come from my earliest childhood days and are among the things I most look forward to for each holiday.

It happens that this particular holiday season is an embarrassment of riches in this department. Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween and even Election Day all have their moments in the sun, but Christmas is when producers, writers and networks traditionally pull out the big guns and slather us with specials. Not all of these specials are good, nor are they necessarily lasting classics. NPR’s All Things Considered recently wondered why recent Christmas specials are either bad or seemingly a corporate mechanism. While there may be a couple of exceptions (I, personally liked the Madagascar and Toy Story Christmas specials), I tend to agree that the modern specials aren’t always up to the holiday snuff of their classic predecessors.

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ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images

That’s why it is often so good to dust off those old classics and relive childhood in a way that few other activities can achieve. it’s also why I’ve guarded collection of recorded holiday specials so closely throughout my life. I’ve flabbergasted college roommates at the breadth of my collection and we spent many an evening firmly entrenched in childhood nostalgia. I recently re-introduced a friend, who did not have the luxury of repeated viewings as a wee one, to the pleasures of holiday nostalgia and I have to say, part of the pleasure I derived was not just in the viewing itself, but in the sharing and being able to watch someone else take similar glee in reminiscing about these particular holiday memories.

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From TNT’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Joel Gray makes an oddly creepy Ghost of Christmas Past, no?

With that spirit in mind, I invite all of you to take a trip down memory lane with me with a few of my favorite titles:

3465729Mickey’s Christmas Carol – This is easily one of my favorite Christmas specials. It was surprisingly true to Dickens’s original text (albeit abridged) but with added humor that is simple enough for a child to get, but classic enough for adults to enjoy. The addition of favorite Disney characters in the classic roles of Scrooge, the Cratchits and the Christmas ghosts were all delightful, but Goofy as Jacob Marley will forever be my favorite rendition of that character.

2048621A Charlie Brown Christmas – I probably don’t really need to mention this one because this is one of the few specials of my childhood that has never been lacking for air time. And yet, few specials fill me with as much nostalgia. Maybe it was the fact that Schultz insisted on having his characters played by actual children, and not grown actors. Maybe it’s because this is one special that everyone I know has memories of and so it’s easy to compare nostalgia. Either way, few things get me into the holiday spirit as easily as watching Snoopy skate so gracefully in the opening scene.

2017291How the Grinch Stole Christmas – This is in a similar category as A Charlie Brown Christmas in terms of air time, but it’s celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, so I think that alone makes it worth mentioning. I’ll be honest here and tell you I’ve never seen the Jim Carey version as I’m just too afraid that it will mar my viewings of this classic that I’ve loved wholeheartedly for as long as I can remember. I even have the audio of the story, plus all the song tracks on my iPod because I can’t get enough.

2340402A Muppet Christmas Carol – This is the only full-length feature to make the list. While I wish NOBLE had Jim Henson’s Muppet Family Christmas special with John Denver on DVD somewhere in its catalog, this is my second favorite Muppet Christmas special. Statler and Waldorf may not beat Goofy as my favorite Jacob Marley, but Rizzo and Gonzo’s delightful banter makes this movie both fairly true to text and wonderfully innovative and original in a way that only the Muppets can be.

the_stingiest_man_in_townThe Stingiest Man in Town – What can I say, I’m a huge fan of A Christmas Carol. This hand-drawn animated special was created by the same team that brought us the stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. There was a time when the team of Rankin and Bass seemed unstoppable in their Christmas merrymaking. They created a slew of Christmas specials  in the 1970s and, with all due respect to Rudolph, this one is my favorite of theirs. It stars vocal talents like Walter Mattheau and Tom Bosley and was an adaptation of a little-known live-action musical adaptation of Dickens’s classic tale from the 1950s. The overlay of the Ghost of Christmas Present with Santa Claus in a musical number alone makes this show worth seeing, but it is actually one of the better musical adaptations of A Christmas Carol that I’ve seen (and given my love for the story, I’ve seen a LOT).

Till next week, dear readers, I encourage you to not only indulge yourself in these viewings, but to share them with someone you think may enjoy the nostalgia just as much, or maybe even someone who will experience them for the first time. There’s nothing like a fresh set of eyes to get you looking at something you’ve seen dozens of time in a brand new way.

 

Saturdays @ the South: Family Entertaining

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Last year, I wrote a post about holiday entertaining help because this time of year can be a stressful one largely due to the fact that many people are, either willingly or reluctantly, entertaining family during the holidays. For me, the holidays are a great opportunity to get together and feed people and many of my best holiday memories center on gathering with my family around some type of food (though if you remember from last year, “food” is often translated to “cookies”).

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While my tips and tricks that I mentioned last year still stand for me, I thought this year, I would focus on feeding  your holiday family. In discussing this, please note that I’ve always been a firm believer that blood doesn’t make a family, love does, so know that the term “family” used here can mean anyone with whom you are close, whose company you enjoy and feel you can trust to be in your inner circle. This does not, necessarily, mean blood relatives (although it certainly can). The late, great Jonathan Larson (composer of the musicals Tick, Tick… Boom and the runaway hit RENT offered a Peasant Feast every year around the holidays in which he brought friends old and new into his home as an ad hoc family. Anthony Rapp, who played Mark Cohen in RENT described it:

[Jonathan invited] us to his home and not in a formal way… It wasn’t like showing up on your best behavior. It was, “Welcome to my house for a peasant’s feast. Bring your food. We’ll have drink and food and sit and commune and share. This is my home, and it’s your home, and you are my friend.” And, he gave a toast in which he said, “This is a show about my friends, about my life, and you are my friends.”

This, to me, is the essence of the holidays and what family entertaining should be. Bringing people together around comforting, familiar food and sharing with each other. For me, the understanding that the holidays should be about sharing takes away a fair amount of the stress for the holidays. Because I enjoy it, I tend to experiment a bit with a couple of new recipes, but by and large, I focus on the tried-and-true family favorites that bring smiles year after year. This also helps alleviate holiday stress because when the recipes are familiar, there’s far less worry about them turning out well. There’s also the sense of coming home to a familiar recipe and the process of making that recipe can bring back good memories, heightening your enjoyment of the experience, and taking some of the focus away from the final product.

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If you are considering going with tried-and-true favorites that are more likely to bring smiles, you may want to check out some of these books, that focus on family entertaining a focus on ease and sharing:

3699694Grandbaby Cakes: Modern Recipes * Vintage Charm * Soulful Memories by Jocelyn Delk Adams

Carla Hall’s forward to this book talks about good food hugging you and that seems to sum up the overall feeling of this book. The recipes in here will easily be the star of the dessert show while still focusing on unfussy presentation and classic recipes that will bring good memories like pound cakes and sheet cakes. If you want your dessert to feel like tasting it will bring everyone home again you’ll find a sure-fire hit in this book.

2122723Al Roker’s Hassle Free Holiday Cookbook by Al Roker

The operative term here is “Hassle Free”. I wouldn’t necessarily have considered Al Roker to be a holiday entertaining maven, but with recipes like “Store-Bought Eggnog with a Twist” and spoon bread, he ensures that the recipes here are easy to follow with a light introduction that keeps the tone festive and upbeat.  His Vanilla-Cinnamon Roasted Nuts is remarkably close to the recipe I’ve been using for years and make for a *very* addictive treat. While this book covers holidays year-round and focuses on Christian holidays (sadly, no Passover sader or Channukah latkes here), who says you can’t serve his Valentine’s Day stuffed mushrooms as an hors d’ovuvre for your holiday cocktail party?

3593325The New Family Cookbook by the editors of America’s Test Kitchen

I’ll admit that I’m not necessarily the biggest America’s Test Kitchen fan, as they tend to focus on the “right” way to do things (as if there’s only one “right” way) and don’t necessarily account for people having different tastes (I happen to like my butterscotch blondies to be sweet, Mr. Kimball…). However, if you’re looking for some classic recipes to recover a family favorite and you need some step-by-step guidance, it’s hard to go wrong with the massive collection of recipes here. Since the focus of this book is family, you are all but guaranteed to find something that will make a crowd happy. Don’t try to cook your way through this book, though. It’s best used as a reference to find a reasonably fail-proof  recipe for holiday favorites like rack of lamb or pork loin and an abundance of desserts. This book has it covered from soup to nuts (literally), so peruse and see what you can find.

1406609FamilyFun’s Cookies for Christmas ed. by Deanna F. Cook

Let’s not forget how much fun it can be to include the kids in the holiday preparations. This slim recipe book focuses on what many of us thing the holidays do best: cookies. From old-fashioned sugar cookies and classics like peanut butter blossoms to finally finding out how exactly one makes the sugar plum that Clement C. Moore’s children are dreaming about in his poem, you’ll get some great, easy recipes that can be tackled by families together. Or you can take some of the stress off yourself and let the kids (old enough to put cookies in the oven, naturally) loose to make their own holiday favorites.

However you choose to entertain whatever type of group you call “family” this holiday season, know that the library has your best interest at heart. Till next week, dear patrons, feel free to stop by and check out anything that might help you this season, even if it’s a little “escapism” reading or watching to help keep the holiday stress at bay.

Saturdays @ the South: Happy Thanksgiving

Since my regular slot here on the blog doesn’t fall on a Thursday, you’re getting a slightly belated, but no less heartfelt Thanksgiving post. 

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Being thankful is not an easy thing. It’s simple to forget all we have when we’re frequently looking to the future wondering about the next thing we want. Whether it’s the next book we’d like to read, the next meal we’ll be having or what’s coming up next on the calendar. Stopping for a moment to savor and enjoy what we’re currently doing, reading or experiencing and being thankful for the little (and sometimes not so little) things we do have in our lives doesn’t always feature prominently in our regular schedule and, let’s face it, can be difficult sometimes. But it’s important to remember what we have that’s good, so we can weather the bad and look forward to future good. So in the spirit of being thankful, I’m going to take a moment here to thank all of you: for reading this blog, for using the library’s services (in person, virtually, in book form or in the form of a program or just stopping in to say hello) and for being a part of the library’s community. We couldn’t do what we do without you. The entire reason we are here is because of all of you. Thank you.

Instead of recommending your next read (I’m sure you haven plenty to do during this weekend of cleaning, shopping and, for many, decorating), I’m going to recommend you take a moment, however brief, to be thankful for whatever it is in your life you consider to be good, no matter how small. Know that the library is here for you, for respite and resources, throughout this weekend and know that, today and always, we are thankful for you.

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