Quote of the Day:

“Look Charlie Brown, let’s face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It’s run by a big eastern syndicate, you know.”     —Lucy

TB has been immersed in Christmas now for a couple of weeks, save one day for the pagan in me to revel in the Winter Solstice. I have participated and observed, made a list and checked it twice. Below are my awards for excellence in Christmas Achievement, 2009….the Elfies.

• The Elfie for Greatest Christmas Movie goes to “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the climax of which once again coincided with an unexplained allergic reaction of watery eyes. Plus, that Donna Reed was a real beauty.
• Best animated or claymation feature goes to the “Peanuts” gang. When Schroeder starts banging on those keys and the freestyle dancin commences you can’t help but feel good about the world. Makes me wanna dance with my hands held down at my waist, head up and eyes shut just thinkin about it. I dig that kid doin the zombie too.
• Worst Christmas Movie that they better never take off the air goes to “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Really, his Dad is ashamed, his friends ostracize him and even Santa for Pete’s sake tells Donner he better do “something” about Rudolf’s nose if he ever expects him to fly on Christmas. Only when they need him do Santa and the prima donna reindeer crowd come around. This movie should get re-done by Spike Lee and Rudolf should say……well, let’s just say he ought to bust out the “Queen Mother” of all curse words on ’em, which brings me to….
• Best Dialogue in a Christmas Movie goes to “A Christmas Story.” The “dare” sequence, “you’ll shoot your eye out”, the Chinese dinner…these and countless other scenes are eternally quotable but my favorite one of all is the poetry that is “In the heat of battle my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space above Lake Michigan.”
• Best Christmas Treat is my Mom’s coconut pie. Special lifetime achievement awards go to her divinity and every mother’s iced Christmas cookies.
• Best Christmas Song–this one was hard to narrow down, but I finally decided the simplicity and joy of “Jingle Bells” puts it at the top.
• Best New Christmas Song–There hasn’t been a new Christmas song of note in quite a while and for all I know this one is really some old Polish folk song. But I’d never heard it until I saw it on TV a week ago. Then I saw where you could download it free on Itunes, so I did, and I can’t get enough of it now. Bob Dylan’s “Must Be Santa Claus”, and by the way, this looks like one helluva party. Enjoy.
• Best way to restore TB’s faith in humanity–going shopping in the most crowded stores possible. I’m pretty down on “people” sometimes, but I’m always amazed, contrary to what I usually hear about from media sources, at the patience and consideration of people this time of year, especially in the hectic last shopping days I’m prone to.
• Best War Ever–The “War on Christmas”. I don’t know who’s fighting Christmas but I hear a war’s been raging for years. I DO know that Christmas must be beatin’ the hell out of whoever is fighting it. Happy Holidays, y’all.
• Bonus War on Christmas Video–Robert Earl Keen
• Double Bonus Peanuts Dancin video