Christmas Traditions: part three

As a movie fan, I prepare our Christmas viewing list. This involves me taking unsolicited suggestions from the D&B and turning them down while I try to select something, anything, worthwhile. I include a number of Christmas related television shows such as “The Blue Carbuncle” from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes featuring the incomparable Jeremy Brett. The D&B always turns this down in spite of the fact that I select the material. We always agree that we always watch “A Christmas Story” and “Scrooged” so we always agree to turn them down… however, if any part of those films appears on television we sit hooked for at least two scenes even though we have them ready to watch at a moment’s notice in splendid wide screen format.

A couple of years back I made special arrangements to watch a version of “Scrooge” highly recommended to me by a dear friend… the version with Alastair Sim. It is quite good, and as my friend insists it is rare in so far that you can believe the transformation Scrooge undergoes through the visits with the ghosts. I had to watch it without the wife since she wasn’t sold on watching yet another version of “A Christmas Carol”. Over the last few years we’ve been greatly surprised to discover that Patrick Stewart’s version (with Richard E. Grant!) isn’t very good although George C. Scott’s version (with David Warner!!!) is worth viewing again.

At least one television show gets watched on Christmas morning… “Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean”. If we’re lucky we also watch “The Season of Goodwill” from Bless Me Father. Maybe “Blackadder’s Christmas Carol”. As soon as the episode is available (typically in the evening) we also watch the new Doctor Who Christmas special. (This year, “Voyage of the Damned” appears to be a sci-fi disaster movie with a luxury spaceship designed to look like a titanic S.S. Titanic, golden robots in the form of angels, and an imminent crash into Windsor Palace.)