Like/Dislike Animated Christmas Specials? Grab Some Cocoa and Let's Dish!

by Susanne Dietze

My kids are home this week on Christmas vacation...it's a fun week of sleeping in, doing crafts, baking (click the link when you're done with this post!) and watching Christmas specials with the family.

Here on the Inkwell, we've shared some of our favorite Christmas movies, but I can't remember dishing on our favorite animated specials before. Many of them were part of my childhood--maybe yours, too--and they're still fun to watch ... although I may not experience them the same way now that I'm an adult.

So let's dish on them. What do you like? What's no longer your favorite?

(I guess I should say SPOILER ALERT. I'm going to chat as if you've watched these shows, too. If you haven't watched any of these shows and want to experience them for yourselves first, come back to this post later.)

(NOTE: This is just a fun conversation.I don't wish to offend anyone by sharing what I like/don't like.)

Growing up, I loved Rudolph (1964). It remains an undisputed favorite. Some reasons I loved it?

• Rudolph is so sweet!And I like the message: we all have unique gifts.
• It was visually appealing to me as a kid. I loved the pastel pink-and-blue outfits the elves wear. There's still a big part of me that loves candy-colored Christmas decor.
• I love when Hermey impersonates a pig. ("Oink, oink." "Put some heart into it, boy!" "Oink! OINK!")

But now that I'm an adult? Well, there are a few things in Rudolph I don't like.

• Santa is...grumpy, to say the least.Upon seeing newborn Rudolph's "unfortunate" red nose, he makes a snarky comment and dismisses him as unfit. He's also mean to his elves, who work hard rehearsing a song for him, and he is crabby with Mrs. Claus. 
• It's sexist. This may reflect the times in which the show was produced, but I cringed when my kids heard the narrator insist the womenfolk need to stay home and then later on, rather than mourn Yukon Cornelius, get returned back to Christmastown.

What are your feelings on Rudolph?

Another supremely popular Christmas show is, of course, Charlie Brown (1965). It's never worn out its welcome. 

A Charlie Brown Christmas turns 50 this year, which is cause for celebration. It's even featured on holiday stamps, available from your local post office.

Things I like about it:

• Linus' reading of the Gospel. It may be the only Gospel message some viewers ever hear. The characters also sing Hark the Herald Angels Sing. That doesn't happen often anymore on TV.
• Its focus is on the true meaning of Christmas, not commercialism.
• Adding to that theme, the hilarious uber-greedy Christmas letter Sally dictates to her brother always makes me chuckle.
• The scene of Charlie Brown skipping, his heart full of love, is sweet.
• The Vince Guaraldi score!

Things I don't like:

• The Mean Girls (Lucy and the gang) seem to have come around by the end of the show. For the holiday, anyway. Then it's back to the usual name-calling. Lucy's such a bully.

Another classic produced in the 60's is How The Grinch Saved Christmas (1966). This Dr. Seuss tale is about the Grinch who lives above Who-ville and is determined to steal every last vestige of their Christmas celebration.

I like:

• The message that Christmas is not about things. Or roast beast.
• The idea of someone's heart growing multiple sizes.
• Max the Dog.
• The way the Whos welcome the Grinch into their community. No shame. No punishment. Just love.

I don't like:

• The Grinch scared me when I was small. There. I admitted it to the world.

A more-recent show I like? Disney's Prep & Landing (2009). Watching it is a new tradition for me (as is watching one of its sequels, Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice, which usually follows it on TV).

It's the story of Wayne, a Christmas elf who is part of the elite "Prep and Landing" team sent ahead of Santa on Dec 24th to ready homes for the Big Guy's arrival. Wayne's had this job for 227 years and wants a promotion--but he gets a newbie partner, Lanny, instead. And a very, very bad attitude.

Why do I love this show?

•  It starts with my favorite puts-me-in-the-Christmas-mood song, Nat King Cole's version of "The Christmas Song".
• I love, love, love how hapless Lanny says "sorry" whenever he makes a mistake. Which is often. Our family has an inside joke of saying "sorry" just like Lanny.
• The blink-and-you'll-miss-them messages on the elves' mugs are hilarious.
• The message of forgiveness and redemption is sweet.

What I don't like?

• Nothing. Seriously. This has been my favorite animated show for the past few years. Wayne's unlikable for a while but his repentance is heartfelt and sweet.

Now for a bit of controversy. Some people hate Shrek and therefore don't care for Shrek the Halls (2007). I like it. Here's why:

• I like the message that Christmas isn't about any one person, not even our children. It's about something More. (The show doesn't say what that is, but neither does the Grinch. Same theme.)
• It sounds corny, but when Donkey says there's no wrong way to "do" Christmas, you just "do it", I felt lightened! I don't have to put on the perfect meal, wear the right thing, or live up to someone else's expectations. Family is messy. Christmas can be messy.
• The scene of Gingy's horrible Christmas, when a Godzilla-like Santa eats his gingerbread girlfriend, is a family classic around here. We quote Gingy, "You weren't there!"
• Likewise, we love Puss and Boots. When he gets distracted by the ornament...LOL.

What I don't like?

• Yes, Shrek is crass. There is bodily humor in the episode. If you are turned off by burps, etc, don't watch it.

I feel like I need to include these two because they refer to the real Christmas story, Jesus' birth, and I appreciate that very much. I'm also lumping them together because I seem to like and dislike the same things about them.

Two Rankin/Bass offerings, Little Drummer Boy from 1968 and 1977's Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, are set in Bethlehem when the Savior is born.

I also need to be honest: I haven't watched these two in years.

Likes about them:

• They're about the birth of Jesus!
• They show that meeting Jesus forever changes a person!
• Like Rudolph, they validate our individuality and specialized gifts.

Only available on VHS. Blast from the past!

Dislikes:

• They are both just...sad. My little kid heart broke for the drummer boy and Nestor. And when Nestor's mommy dies...ugh. I still remember her digging up that patch of snow so Nestor will have a warmer place to sleep--I can't go on!
• I never liked how cherubs are explained as "animal guardian angels" to Nestor. It's not accurate. Most of the time I go with the flow on these sorts of things, but it's always bugged me.

Of the rest of the Rankin/Bass shows I watched in my youth, I dug Santa Claus is Comin' To Town (1970). I still kinda like it for sentimental reasons, even though it's hokey. Why?

• I love when the elves adopt a baby and name him Kris Kringle. "And he will eat with us and sleep with us and drink warm cocoa with us..." 
• The Burgermeister Meisterburger is ridiculous, and therefore fun to watch.
• Young Kris has a red beard. Why do I like that? I don't know. I just do.
• Maybe it's the romance writer/reader in me, but I loved Kris' Christmas Eve wedding to Jessica. 

Dislikes?

• The scene where a singing Jessica goes through a groovy "transformation" is embarrassing to me (and my kids, who used to hide behind the couch for this part when they watched this show on DVD). The scene is cut from most TV broadcasts nowadays as a time-saving measure, but you know when the scene happened because after Jessica sings about her "world beginning today" etc., her outfit has a bold splash of color and her hair is a brighter shade of red.

Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) is often found on the Disney Channel. It is a sweet retelling of Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

I like:

• I love that this maintains the Victorian look and feel that's often shed in modern re-tellings for children.(I'm referring to Barbie, etc, not the Jim Carrey version, which I'm not including in this list because I count that one as a "movie.")
• Mickey and Minnie have babies!

But other people don't like it:

• Remember Siskel and Ebert? They gave it two thumbs down! Something about not enough character growth and a lack of irony. (Um, seriously? If you want irony, there are oodles of other versions of A Christmas Carol out there that do the trick.)

Veggie Tales has a few holiday offerings, but my favorite is The Star of Christmas. (Caveat: this one isn't a broadcast special like the previous offerings, but it was a staple in my house when my kids were smaller.) Cavis and Millward (Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber) are producing a musical to debut Christmas Eve, The Princess and the Plumber, illuminated by zillions of newfalngled electric lights (this is "historic" London, after all). They want to "teach London how to love!"

But, as you'd guess, a Christmas pageant is also scheduled that same night, showcasing a famous artifact (the Star of Christmas, of course!). Which event will the royal family attend? Which one will really, truly share the message of how to love?

Why I love this?

• It's sweet, convicting, and clever. 
• The lyrics to "Plugged Up Love" sung by the Princess and the Plumber in rehearsal are hilarious.
• It's set in England! The royal family has a cameo!

Any dislikes here?

• Can't think of a one. 

Other shows I liked/watched that see airtime still: Frosty the Snowman (1969), The Year Without a Santa Claus ("I'm Mr. Heat Meister,.."), Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974),  and too many others to list here. But I had to stop the list somewhere.

Ones I never really liked? Those Frosty/Rudolph crossovers where they wear orange outfits...

Did I forget your favorites? What do you like/dislike about the shows I mentioned?

Happy watching this week. And baking, and wrapping, and fellow-shipping with family and friends.

I wish you and yours the Merriest of Christmases!

***

Susanne Dietze is in the mood to watch Prep & Landing. When it's not Christmas break, she writes historical romance, including next month's Austen in Austin Collection. Please visit her website, www.susannedietze.com.

Oh, and do click the link for more ideas of things to do with your kids this week!

All photos from Amazon.com

Are You an Old Movie "Purist"?

by C.J. Chase

My family kicked off the holidays this year by watching Miracle on 34th Street. To be honest, I don't like this 1947 classic about a man who might--or might not--really be Santa Claus as much as most people, but I spied it while browsing the library DVD section. Our eight-year-old (adopted from another country two years ago) had never seen it, so I checked it out.

I didn't expect to find two DVDs in the case, but there they were--one for the original black-and-white version and one for a colorized version. And that got me to reminiscing how scandalized some of my older friends and colleagues were "back in the day" when Ted Turner first started broadcasting colorized versions of old movies.

So, here's the question: colorized or black-and-white? Are you a purist who will only watch old movies in their original black-and-white format? Are you a product of modernity who prefers watching in color? Or are you the flexible sort who will try them both?

To get you started, here are two clips of the same scene from my favorite Christmas classic:

 

What Happened to Christmas Oranges?

by Anita Mae Draper

I’m missing my Christmas oranges this year. That’s not to say that we don’t have any oranges, they’re just not the same ones I relate to Christmas. Oranges and other subtropical citrus fruit aren’t grown in Canada due to our cold weather and must be shipped in and/or railed in depending on where it is grown. Historically in Canada, there was a lack of oranges in the autumn, and then a burst of excitement as oranges miraculously appeared in time for Christmas.

Christmas morning 1967, Port Arthur, Ontario

Even during the tough times of my childhood, the one thing I could be sure of was finding a green tissue-wrapped orange in the toe of my stocking on Christmas morning. As in the above photo, a bowl of oranges held a spot on our holiday table along with other treats, such as chips and nuts.

Bowl of tissue-wrapped mandarin oranges

The green tissue paper helped develop my anticipation for the fragrant gift inside. I loved the excitement of breaking open that first Christmas orange—the only one I could easily peel due to the skin slipping off the flesh without effort—yet I knew that first juicy bite would have a sour snap to energize my sleepy tastebuds. It was only after eating several segments that I appreciated the tangy sweetness which left me craving for more. 

And this year, I'm really craving them because I can't find any of the Japanese ones, and not many of the Chinese variety, either. It seems we've seen less with each passing year, especially as the original Japanese mandarins competed for space and attention with the Chinese ones. Except I didn't like the Chinese variety or any of the other tangerines that appeared not only at Christmas, but various times of the year. 

The small, sweet mandarins and tangerines we're finding in the stores lately is paler, it has seeds, and the thin skin is so tough that I almost wreck my thumbnail breaking through the surface to peel it. 

So I started wondering what happened. I was hoping my research would give a definite reason, such as a Pacific typhoon, the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami combination, or even a trading dispute. Instead, my search led me on a different quest—the history of what Canadians call Christmas orange.

I knew that the mandarin orange was first brought to Canada about 1890 by Japanese workers who received them in parcels in the weeks heading up to Christmas. I was quite surprised then, to find that the first mention of them was not in a Canadian newspaper, but in a 1901 and 1916 American one.

In Canada, the oranges were shipped across the Pacific in 9 pound wooden crates and unloaded in Vancouver.

Christmas mandarin oranges being unloaded from the ship, S.S. American Mail. VPL Accession Number: 81110. Courtesy of Vancouver Public Library

I found a 1926 article in the Montreal Gazette reporting that 1,452,000 oranges filling eleven Canadian National rail cars were on their way from Vancouver, British Columbia on Canada's west coast. So approx 40 yrs after the first oranges came across, special trains of refrigerated  cars were needed to carry the shipment across the nation.

The Montreal Gazette - Dec 4, 1926

That led me on a search for an image of one of the specially marked trains, dubbed the Orange Express, but it seems they're as elusive as the old Silk Express Trains. The following image is a bit murky, but it's the only one I was able to locate of an orange train. 

The Japanese orange trade was so successful that a 1931 Drummondville, Quebec newspaper, reporting on an article from the Canadian prairie province of Manitoba, said that over 2 million oranges crossed the citrus-starved Canadian landscape by Dec 7th of that year.

The Drummondville Spokesman - Dec 7, 1931 

And then Canada joined WW 2 and Japan was our enemy. The trans-Pacific orange shipments stopped, and Canadian parents told their children that everything was fine. But Christmas wasn't the same. Even with the availability of tangerines shipped in from Florida, Canadians felt the loss of their beloved Christmas orange. 

When the war ended, countries worked to restore their economies and Canada renewed trade with Japan. But Canadians felt the loss of  their servicemen and women who'd given their lives for freedom, and resentment against the Japanese people was hard to put down. 

Japanese oranges were scarce during the 1947 Christmas season, but by 1948 they were back with a new name. In an attempt to take the onus off their origin, they were introduced as Japanese mandarin oranges.  

  

We didn't care what they were called, our special Christmas orange was back—more than 3 shiploads of them filling over 32 freight cars. And that was just the beginning of the resurgence of its popularity.

I read that the orange express trains had special markings, but the only one I found was a 1978 CP Rail boxcar marked, Mandarin Orange Express. Only one car carried this paint scheme in a shipment of almost 60 cars. As before, it was elusive to photograph and apparently it has been out of service for some years. I don't know where I found this photo, so if it's yours, please let me know so I can give you the credit.

Which brings me back to my original question... what happened to our favourite Christmas orange? 

Did you receive an orange in your stocking? Care to share?

Giveaway #1

Leave a comment and you will be entered in a draw for a trio of hand-knitted Christmas bells similar to the ones below but with different colours. Deadline for this draw will be midnight, Dec 20th, 2015.

Giveaway #2

On Dec 21, 2015, I will draw one person's name from my quarterly newsletter mailing list, and that person ​will win the pictured Christmas Bell Trio, specially knitted for this draw by my mom. 

If you'd like to add your name to my mailing list, visit my website Contest page.

Since one giveaway is for leaving a comment here, and the other giveaway is for subscribing to my newsletter mailing list, there is a chance that one person will win both bell trios. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anita Mae Draper's stories are written under the western skies where she lives on the prairie of southeast Saskatchewan with her hubby of 30 plus years and the youngest of their four kids. Romantic Refinements, a novella in Austen in Austin Volume 1, WhiteFire Publishing, will be released January 15, 2016.  Anita is represented by Mary Keeley of Books & Such Literary Management. You can find Anita Mae at  www.anitamaedraper.com

Books Make Great Christmas Gifts

 by Dina Sleiman

If you're a book lover like me, you probably realize that books make great Christmas presents. You can hand select books that you think your friends will enjoy, especially hardback and early editions. Giving Christian fiction as a gift can be a subtle way to reach out to those in your life who don't yet know the Lord or who are struggling in their faith. Or, you can buy a book that you loved in bulk and give it to most everyone on your Christmas list. For this purpose I generally choose inspirational nonfiction, since it can bless a broad variety of people.

The Inkies have written tons of great books that would make amazing presents, including many Christmas novellas, books, and collections. Check out our books in the feature in the right hand column or search our names on amazon. And here are a few Inky written Christmas favorites to get you started (any Inkies feel free to add more.) Take special note of Debra Marvin's debut release novella, Desert Duet!!!

Desert Duet
A Wild Goose Chase Christmas
Mistletoe Memories Novella Collection
Christmas Traditions Novella Collection
Gold, Frankincense, and Murder

Ebooks Make Great Gifts Too!
Several above are only available as ebooks. While books are fairly typical gifts, perhaps you've never considered giving ebooks. All you need is the recipient's email address to send an ebook as a gift from amazon or barnesandnoble, just be sure you know which type of ereader they use before ordering. You can order now and schedule for a Christmas delivery or catch a good sale between now and Christmas. Ebooks are also perfect for last minute shoppers. You can order an ebook on Christmas day for a friend across the country and still get it to them in time.

Right now my Love in Three-Quarter Time, a Zondervan ebook original, is on sale for $1.99, and many of the Inky novellas are available for as low as $.99. Why fight the crowds at the mall when books make such great gifts?

What books have you received as gifts?