December 20, 2017 – Wednesday
It was December 1964; I’m not sure the Norelco Santa commercial was on TV yet (one of my favs – a cartoon Santa sitting on an electric razor head, shaving a path, as he glided over hills of snow!) and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas were, as yet, mere twinkles in someone’s eye. I was 7. Yes … an impressionable 2nd grader and all agog over Santa and flying reindeer and all that. I think that was the year I was recovering from osteomyelitis and I had a penchant for hair styling and all things Barbie. I couldn’t really go outside and play much (due to my illness) but I did get the Tressy doll (hair galore + curlers, etc! DREAM DOLL!) from Santa and spent many cold winter vacation days doing up that doll’s hair. And when I tired of doing her hair, I put the itty bitty curlers onto the ears of my dachshund, Marvin. That poor dog – what I didn’t put her through!
In any case, back in 1964 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (cartoon) made its debut. Now Rudy had been around since 1939 (in book form) before this cartoon came to be … but the cartoon was fabulous! Especially for a talking animal crazed 7 year old!
(And it dawned on me, just now, that I’ve been singing that he was a RED NOSE reindeer all these years instead of a RED-NOSED one! Huh!)
Anyway, it’s the same cartoon that is still on TV these days, aside from a few tweaks done in the early years. And, as I was looking this up, I uncovered something that has been a mystery all my life! During the story Yukon Cornelius (the lumberjack) keeps licking the end of his pickax after plunging it into snowbanks. I never knew why he did that – until tonight! In the original broadcast after one such ax tasting he shouts out that he’s found what he’s been looking for … a peppermint mine! The subsequent version of the TV special had a different ending than the original showing and in order to maintain the same length of film – they cut that scene. Now it all makes sense! He wasn’t just an ax licking weirdo! Burl Ives replaced the original singer and “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” will be forever etched in my brain (and everyone else’s) and whenever it comes on the radio, as it did this morning with my wake up alarm, it instantly puts me into a sugar plum happy mood while it pops me back to those early elementary school days when Christmas-time held nothing less than magic.
I’m dreaming of a white Christmas … and seems like I’ll get one this year as I’ll be away from the NW. I was watching White Christmas the other night … for the umpteenth time … and became curious as to the ages of the cast and how tiny Vera Ellen’s waist really was! So (thanks Google) I found out that Bing Crosby was 51, Danny Kaye was 43, Vera Ellen was 33 and Rosemary Clooney was a mere infant of 26! And as for Vera Ellen’s waist measurement? An itty bitty 17″ … meaning from side to side she was a bit more than the width of a piece of notebook paper! Wow … just like me!
This year I’ve been watching the Hallmark channels (too much) and all the Christmas movies. Actually, I’ve been watching them since late October! I am a glutton for punishment (of the Hallmark/sappy Christmas movie kind)! Tonight I’m giving myself a break and … do you hear what I hear? It’s the snoring of dogs! I have four here … a regular slumber party … and it’s a symphony of snores, whimpers and heavy breathing! Very sweet but not exactly a silent night.
When I was little I couldn’t wait to watch the holiday specials … because nothing came on in OCTOBER … and we didn’t have VCR’s or DVR’s to record the programs; they were on once and gone … so, it was critical that we saw them as they came only once a year. And back in the 60’s the specials were especially wonderful with all the glitz and glamour … the dresses were so lovely and “fancy”. I am part crow … I love anything that glitters! I laugh now thinking about how excited I’d get to “be able to” stay up (til 9!) and watch Dinah Shore or Perry Como, Andy Williams or Dean Martin.
Speaking of Dean Martin … now there’s a guy! I recently got a t-shirt that has written on the front Baby It’s Cold Outside and whenever I wear it I can think of him! I don’t know when I first fell in love with him … a martini in one hand, a cigarette in the other and scantily clad women draped over each arm … just crooning away with that gorgeous head of hair and handsome face. He was so easy to love! He may have been my first crush (aside from my dad!).
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way …. I have a charm bracelet that I wear, only during this month, as it’s made out of tiny bells … so, wherever I go I jingle. When I meet friends and tell them I’ll arrive “with bells on” … I actually mean it! I find it sweet and lyrical. However, I’m pretty sure others find it enormously annoying. Wearing it makes me think back to high school when I was a cheerleader. For the entire month between Thanksgiving and Christmas break the squads would wear jingle bells (big fat, loud ones!) tied onto our gym shoe laces when we wore our uniforms. And for some reason – during that time, an overlap of sports perhaps, it seemed like we lived in those uniforms that month. How the teachers must have HATED us by the time break came … 30 girls with jingle bells on … jingling down the halls, during lectures and filmstrips, during tests and in study hall. Gad!
I’m off to pack for my trip which will seem like visiting the North Pole with the temps we are expecting. That’s okay … ’tis the season! I just hope I can get the partridge I’m taking with me through security.
And with that, God rest ye merry gentlemen (and ladies), make the Yuletide gay and have yourself a holly jolly Christmas!