Jingle your bells over to the bijou, because it is now the holiday season that is the season when we have Christmas and the other holidays that so many families enjoy while spending time together in reverence and watching movies on the Silver Screen.
And because it is the holidays, I thought I would take a moment to reflect on some of the great holiday movies of days past and talk about the bad holiday movies of today, which are not very good. Merry Christmas!
I went to see a movie called The Jingle Way Man that is about a man who must go shopping for a toy because he wishes to spread some holiday cheer to his young son. (I do not have any children of my own, but I have spent many a year buying a present for my nephew Kenneth, who is now 27 and never comes over, even when I call him and tell him the gutter is full of garbage.) And in this movie the man was of foreign heritage. He spoke with a heavy accent and carried himself in a most amusing manner because he kept falling over into the fountain, and once he even dropped a bunch of packages onto a broad’s head and broke her hat.
There was also a mailman in the film who was chasing the man, and they both made jackasses of themselves. Although maybe that was a different movie. In conclusion, there are better movies to see than Jingling To The Mall this holiday season.
When I was a young man of 24 (that was many years ago!) I used to go shopping in the downtown area of our city, and there were tiny elves in store windows, and the lights, oh, how they sparkled in the night and people would ring bells that made the air sound like it was full of ringing bells!
Then there was the Christmas season when I first started courting the ladies. Ah, I remember it as if it were only a few years ago. For example, there was the one woman named Clandice whose brother was a roustabout at the local carnival. But the carnival was closed during the holidays, and that was just fine with me and Clandice because it was too cold to take a spin on the ferris wheel, anyhow. So Clandice and I would walk down to the lake where men of character could be seen ice fishing, and then once I caught her under the mistletoe and gave her a smooch right in her bathroom!
Those were the days! And we would go to holiday movies that would make you happy to be watching, such as The Nuns And The Bells, which was about some women who ran a school and they were dressed as nuns, I think because they were nuns. And these women taught the boys to box and to always remember their school.
Why do no children today have the school spirit? I was proud to attend Beaver Dam High School, though I did not go to college because I was anxious to join the service and see the sights. Then in the movie it was Christmas Eve, and one little girl didn’t have any parents except for a mother. And her mother was a common harlot, so the girl did bad on a test, and they kicked her out of school. I do not remember how The Bells And The Nuns ended, except I hope it had a happy ending because thinking of that girl now is bringing a frown to my face, and I do not want to be sad during the holidays.
Another movie that is good to watch while you have your family gathered around the hearth (although it is not good to watch movies on the television. I much prefer seeing them in a movie theater where you are allowed to smoke a cigar during the picture, because my wife Toots does not let me smoke cigars in the house. I used to frequent a particular theater which was at that time called The Orpheus, and they would have candied delights for one and all. But you had to pay for them. Some things never change!)
What was I saying before? Oh, yes. Another good holiday movie is called The Wonderful Life Of Mr. Smith, and it is about a man who wants to jump off a bridge, but he instead decides to go to Washington (our nation’s capital city) to become a senator, and then an angel comes down and steals some money, and there is also a scene where a druggist slaps the ear of a young boy. And a cop fires a gun, which is rather violent! Anyway, at the end of the movie everyone is happy because it is snowing and everyone is drunk. They do not make movies like that anymore. We used to call them “moving film” in those days, because they were moving pictures.
I hope that my nephew Kenneth will come to visit me this Christmas, although I don’t think he will because last year I told his mother that her hair looked like a dirty old rat. Toots will not let me drink nog of egg this year for that reason. But I do not blame her. I hung a wreath on the door and it looks rather festive.
Happy holidays from the Silver Screen! And ho, ho, ho! And watch some holiday movies that I have mentioned if they come to your town. Toots cannot find our Christmas decorations, and I think it is because she accidentally gave them to a vagrant who said he was from the Salvation Army. Where does the time go?
Mr. Danielson’s column is reprinted from The Butternut Gazette in Butternut, OH. It has been edited for the sake of clarity.
