' TIS THE SEASON

This morning, we awoke to our first snowfall. Not much...just enough to make the roads slick and be a pain-in-the-butt. Traffic was 'slow goin' on the way to work and school, as everyone had to get used to driving for that first time with the streets a little slick.

The snow made it official...winter is coming...and so is Christmas.

To get us in the Christmas mood, (besides all of Cindy's decorations), we watched some of the old Christmas standards over the weekend.

Friday night, we began the weekend by watching 'White Christmas' with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. Like you, (probably), we've seen it more times than we can count, but it's one of the old movies we 'have' to watch at Christmas time.

We continued our weekend movie fest by watching 'The Christmas Story' on Saturday. You know, the one where the little boy wants the Red Ryder BB gun as a gift, and all he hears from his mother, teacher and even the department store Santa is "you'll shoot your eye out". Again, one of the 'must watch' movies at Christmas time.

Sunday, we watched 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles'. More of a Thanksgiving movie than a Christmas one, it still maintains the theme of cold weather and getting home for the holidays.

I remember when Cindy and I watched P T & A for the first time. We laughed and laughed at the antics of Steve Martin and John Candy as they try to get home for the holiday. We were headed to Vincennes that weekend so we took the movie along and watched it again with her mom and dad. All of us laughed 'til we couldn't laugh anymore. And you know, that's a fun time when you can get your parents to laugh at a movie with you. Later that night, we went to Cindy's brothers' house and all of us watched it again. We laughed, (partly at the movie and partly at watching them laugh as they watched it), until it hurt. We got our money's worth out of that rental!

As crazy as it seems, when we watched P T & A again last night for the 'umpteenth' time, we still laughed at all the funny parts, even though we knew what was going to happen before it happened. And, we still shed a tear at the end, even though we knew it was coming.

I have no doubt, before Christmas is here, we'll watch James Stewart in 'It's a Wonderful Life' for the 1 millionth time.

Sometimes, those good old movies can't be beat. I'll bet you have some too that you've seen over and over, but still enjoy putting in one more time.

With all the negativity in the news this year, we all deserve a little happiness this holiday season.

I hope the Christmas 'spirit' finds you and jumps all over you.


Dan