Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown (A Good Cry)

[Trixie]

Why, I couldn't believe it. Surfing around the tv tonight I happened upon this dear old classic. "They still play this every year??!!", I thought to myself, and watching it with one eye firmly planted in 2003. It seemed so still, and slow. I couldn't imagine that any child nowadays would still long enough for a full half-hour Peanuts holiday special. Nothing blows up, nothing "morphs", a child searches his soul about the commercialization of Christmas, all to an ACOUSTIC JAZZ soundtrack. These days it sounds like a recipe for a ratings disaster.

Yet as I watched, I started to get teary eyed. Tears of nostalgia for my own childhood, when I truly believed the Christmas Season hadn't really started without the parade of cartoon and stop-animation half-hour features that kept me glued to the TV screen all through December. MC,CB was as much a part of Christmas as was the tree, and gramma & grampa coming, their yellow Buick station wagon full to the gills with presents. Paper snowflakes on the windows, pink flocking on the tree. Those were the days.

Nowadays, Christmas means doing my nails up red & green, renting a "Yule Log" for an hour, and downing a whole bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream in a single sitting.

But I still love Charlie Brown!

Miss Trix

[theDCeBOY]

why are WE getting along lately, trix???

 

anyway, i'm Jewish (hold onto to your bloomers: big surprise there, huh?) but i LOVE MC,CB anyway!

[theDCeBOY]

what's pink flocking? it is a gentile thing?

[duke37]

Pink flocking?

 

It's news to me and I'm painfully goy.

 

I have to agree about ole CB. I watched it tonight. It was very much a reminder of a simpler gentler time. A good way to get started in the holiday season. Reminds me I gotta get a tree for the apartment.

 

Jeff

[Guest gentle guy]

I'm with you, Trix!

 

Charlie Brown, the Grinch, Andy Williams and Bing Crosby specials, White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life (I was addicted long before it became the "in" thing)... Wonderful memories. I fondly remember the first airings of Charlie Brown and the Grinch.

 

I still insist on playing my White Christmas video while wrapping presents and writing cards.

 

No man is a failure who has friends. Clarence's words still make me cry!

[theDCeBOY]

A Christmas Story with the messy marvin kid is still kick-ass funny!

[Guest gentle guy]

More holiday words of wisdom

 

You'll shoot your eye out! :+

[theDCeBOY]

RE: More holiday words of wisdom

 

the leg lamp & the chinese restaurant crack my little ass up

[duke37]

RE: More holiday words of wisdom

 

I'm from Florida so I'm both horrified and amused by the kid getting his tongue frozen to the metal pole. Its completely alien to me but funny.

 

Dumb question? Does that ever happen? If you give me a straight answer I will tell you the truth about cow tipping. grin

 

Jeff

[Guest gentle guy]

Winter dares

 

Wet tongue, cold metal pole.

Do you get stuck?

Yep! (But not me. Even I am not that naive.)

[guptasa1]

RE: Winter dares

 

Huh. Lemme go try it...

 

Me <----- Naive.

 

(Yes, it does work I believe, and no, despite my naivity, I don't think I've ever tried it.)

[Guest fukamarine]

>what's pink flocking? it is a gentile

>thing?

 

No - It's how they describe the wallpaper on your bedroom walls.

 

fukamarine

[Trixie]

RE: Pink Flocking

 

You silly gooses! Doesn't anyone else here come out of a white trash household? Flocking is that fake snow they spray on Christmas trees. And it comes in pink! (It comes in blue & green, too, but that would just be tasteless...)

Trix

[Guest lookin4lust]

RE: Pink Flocking

 

When I get nostalgic, I think of my grandmothers aluminum tree, and the color wheel that used to turn it yellow, red , and blue. I have a special place for the unforgettable memory of Christmas Eve mass, with the catholic priest droning on, and on, and on, in latin. And one musn't forget the Norelco Santa sledding through the snow on an electric razor.

[foxy]

RE: Pink Flocking

 

Bubble lights shaped like candles on the tree. They were my favorite. Do they still make them?

[elikimball]

RE: Pink Flocking

 

Restoration Hardware stocks them and they work! I bought a few strings last year. Next to my 8' tall inflatable snowman, it's my favorite tacky Christmas thing.

[foxy]

RE: Pink Flocking

 

Thanks! I'm gonna get some right away. This may be a Merry Christmas after all.

[BuckyXTC]

RE: Pink Flocking

 

>You silly gooses! Doesn't anyone else here come out of a

>white trash household? Flocking is that fake snow they spray

>on Christmas trees. And it comes in pink! (It comes in blue

>& green, too, but that would just be tasteless...)

> Trix

 

Trixie:

 

What a great thread! Looks like you've pushed the nostalgia button for many of us here.

 

Yes, I remember the flocking. My mom didn't use the colored kind, but I think she mixed up some concoction of her own.......it was hideous......it resembled something between dried Crisco shortening and divinity candy. Somehow I remember her applying it with a canister style Hoover vacuum cleaner and some weird attachment.

I don't think of my own childhood much anymore......thanks for opening that door and inviting me in.

[taylorky]

RE: Winter dares

 

YES it does, and YES it hurts!!!!!

[Trixie]

RE: Pink Flocking

 

The Norelco Santa!!! Bless you!!

Trix

[btmstudnyc]

Vintage Christmas

 

I was going to do a post about Christmas. I absolutely love Christmas. Most of you would be sickened by the amount of Christmas stuff that I have and put out. I collect antique, vintage and new Christmas. Just a few things that maybe some of you know of:

 

Vintage aluminum 6foot tree with original plastic ornaments and 3 color wheels

 

Nabco Santas, Angels and Girls (wish they had made some boys)

 

Howard Holt You name it I got it

 

Snow Village Complete collection

 

Every Vintage Lawn ornament I could get my hands on.

 

Anna Lee She passed away recently and the ornaments are made in Hong Kong now...what a shame...and no they arent quite the same.

 

I take a lot of time arranging things so that they tell a story and make sense...I don't just plop things out like my mom did. I'm anal with the lighting to...I'm sure Ill get a comment about that.

 

I want to say Merry Christmas to everyone right now... and will continue to do so until then....I hope all of you have a great holiday season and really get out and enjoy your life as cold as it might get outside. Or for some of you..as warm as it may get.

 

Merry Christmas

JIM

[btmstudnyc]

RE: Vintage Christmas

 

OH by the way...I have all the Charlie Brown specials on dvd amongst other Christmas movies...I watched that and grinch last night...I have to fit in White Christmas, Grinch(w/jim carrey), Jingle all the way, Wonderful Life, Rudolph, Mrs. Santa Clause with Angela Lansbury, and all the takeoffs and Muppet movies...Yes I am a total kid.

JIM

If it dont fit, force it

btmstudnyc@aol.com

[duke37]

RE: Vintage Christmas

 

>I have and put out. I'm anal

>

 

We know you are baby, and how. :9

 

My tree has the complete collections of Hallmark Star Trek and Star Wars ornaments. Its a real geekapalooza.

 

>I take a lot of time arranging things so that they tell a

>story and make sense...I don't just plop things out like my

>mom did.

>

Funny, my Mom was just the opposite. She used a Polaroid so all the Christmas decorations would be EXACTLY the same, year after year. She's gone this year but my sister and I will go and decorate her house the same way. Christmas is like that.

 

>I want to say Merry Christmas to everyone right now... and

>will continue to do so until then....I hope all of you have a

>great holiday season and really get out and enjoy your life as

>cold as it might get outside. Or for some of you..as warm as

>it may get.

 

You too.

>

>Merry Christmas

Jeff

>

[btmstudnyc]

RE: Vintage Christmas

 

>My tree has the complete collections of Hallmark Star Trek and

>Star Wars ornaments. Its a real geekapalooza.

 

I have lots of Hallmark....including StarTrek and Wars...not the complete collection though....not enough trees to get that crazed. 101 and 102 dalmations from McDonalds..that was a lot of happy meal...BLECK

 

>Funny, my Mom was just the opposite. She used a Polaroid so

>all the Christmas decorations would be EXACTLY the same, year

>after year. She's gone this year but my sister and I will go

>and decorate her house the same way. Christmas is like that.

>

I Love Tradition...somehow I wouldn't stop crying if I did that at my mom's but I totally understand...Bless you Jeff

>>Merry Christmas

 

JIM

[+ Oliver]

RE: A Christmas Story

 

This one is like reliving my childhood!! We lived on Cleveland Street and went to Higbee's in Cleveland to see Santa. The house with not enough outlets, extension cords all over, and blowing fuses with too many lights. The school looked like mine and I'm sure I had a teacher who looked like that.

 

Not only that, but I wore corduroy knickers that went "swish" "swish" when I walked (a portent of things to come?). Snowsuits so you couldn't move and wrapped up to the eyes for the "at least 5 miles through the snow" to school. Only thing, I never heard my dad swear and my mother was totally prim.

 

My earliest memory that I can still see is our tree (never put up until Christmas Eve) with my first tricycle beside it with my teddy bear on the seat. Still have Teddy although he's a little bald - sorta like me.

 

I watch it every year!