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Holiday classics just get better with age"You'll shoot your eye out kid!" "Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on and we're gonna have the hap-, hap-, happiest Christmas...." "Look, Daddy! Teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings!" I have a rule in my house. No Christmas music, no decorations, no "holiday specials" until the last dish is washed and put away from Thanksgiving dinner. I don't want to hear Jingle Bells while there are still pumpkins in the stores and leaves on the ground. I don't want to see a made-for-TV movie of the week with any holiday connotations until the last piece of pumpkin pie is polished off. Maybe it's my sense of fair play, but I just don't think we should start celebrating the big grandaddy-of-them-all holiday of Christmas while we're celebrating the minor holidays of--oh say--Labor Day. But after that last piece of pumpkin pie is settling in my tummy, and all the relatives have trekked back to their happy homes after a fabulous Thanksgiving meal, then all bets are off. It's officially Christmas and it's time to rev up the old one-horse DVD player for the traditional movie marathon at the Latzke homestead. The turkey carcass won't even be cooled in the fridge before I pop in the first Christmas DVD at my house. Nothing beats a triptophan-induced slumber like watching the first Christmas movie of the season. I'm not picky either. I'll watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, followed by White Christmas, with a chaser of A Christmas Story and a dish of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas on the side. Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life, Frosty the Snowman, even A Charlie Brown Christmas all have their spots in my holiday viewing line-up as I'm putting up decorations and baking cookies. I don't care what other people think, either. I laugh whenever Clark W. Griswold starts putting up those holiday lights and ends up falling down a ladder, or when Santa tells little Ralphie "You'll shoot your eye out kid." I sing along with Rudolph and Frosty and the Grinch, and always wish I could dance with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. And, every blessed time Linus recites the Nativity story, or when that dumb little bell rings on George Bailey's Christmas tree and Clarence the Angel gets his wings--no matter how hard I try not to--I bawl. It can be embarrassing to get caught singing along with a Claymation snowman by your friends and relatives, though. Maybe it's good that I just watch these at home, alone, curled up on the couch with the dog and a bowl of popcorn. There's something to be said for traditions like watching the holiday classics. Every year I watch Miracle on 34th Street I get a different meaning from it, depending on my age and my status in life. When I was a child I just thought Mr. Scrooge was a terrible ogre, but now that I'm an adult I empathize with his misery. And, if you've ever watched a Christmas movie with a child who's seeing it for the first time themselves, you'll get a new message too. The classics do get better and better with age and reviewing. I know there are people out there who think the holidays are all commercial and there's no real spirit of Christmas--and to that I say "Bah humbug." Really, if you want to hold on to that black little thought that's fine--just do it in your own house, away from me. I've been a holiday fanatic since I was three and first saw Rudolph's shiny red nose and I'm not about to change now. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas waiting for me at home and a sad, homely little twig of a tree that needs decorating. Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached by phone at 620-227-1807, or by e-mail at jlatzke@hpj.com. 12/3/07 Date: 11/27/07
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