White Christmas.

Earl and I have needed a little kick in the holiday spirit this evening. With trying to keep up with the rat race, we’ve found little time to just sit down, relax and enjoy a little Christmas joy for ourselves. So tonight we decided to snuggle up to the holiday classic, “White Christmas”.

All proper showings of classic movies deserve a little short to set the mood, so we first watched “A Vision of Sugar Plums”, the Christmas episode from the very first season of Bewitched.

In “Visions…”, Billy Mumy plays Michael, a bully of a boy that lives at the local orphanage that has come home with Darrin and Samantha for Christmas. He doesn’t have a very warm, fuzzy feeling for the holidays, believing its all a bunch of bunk. Samantha decides to convince him otherwise, and whisks him off to the North Pole, along with Darrin riding shotgun on her broom, so he can meet Santa Claus. After meeting Santa Claus, Michael starts feeling the holiday spirit, calms down a little bit and seems to move on to a well-adjusted life with the parents that want to adopt him (the father being Bill Daily, Major Healey from “I Dream of Jeannie”).

After Bewitched it was on to the main feature, “White Christmas”.

This movie is one of our all-time favorites. The cinematography is breathtaking (in Vistavision!). The musical numbers are most enjoyable and words cannot describe the amount of talent found in this movie. Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen are all incredible performers. They certainly don’t make movies like “White Christmas” anymore and Hollywood doesn’t seem to have the talent found back in the day. Watching “White Christmas” has inspired me to watch more classic movies this winter and I’m looking forward to snuggling up on cold winter nights to catch on some old chestnuts.

Tonight was just what we needed to fully get into the holiday spirit. Now I’m looking forward to catching “Bell, Book and Candle” sometime next week, another classic (and an inspiration for Bewitched) that takes place at Christmas.

Tomorrow we are off to Pennsylvania to kick off the annual Christmas tour. It’s going to be a grand weekend.