Christmas Eve 2019 - Kalle Anke

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Settled in for Kalle Anke at around 2:15 which is a little earlier than usual. 

I put in a DVD called Disney's Merry Christmas Songs which is a sing-a-long. I used to show it to the kids at a school a worked at a number of years ago. Great fun and lots of memories.

Didn't finish the DVD before heading to the Christmas Eve service but we watched some more of it afterward and before heading over to Mom's for fondue. 

There's been some concern in recent years that the tradition in Sweden may eventually go away as younger folks are used to on-demand watching due to DVDs and now streaming. It's my understanding that viewership, once at a height of around 50 percent of the population, has dipped to "only" a third of the population. However, home video has been around since the early 1980s and the tradition is still strong. I read that as recently as 2016 cell phone use dropped 28 percent and calls to emergency services fell 16 percent during the broadcast of the show. 

I find that my own version of Kalle Anke on the 24th provides a nice transition from the more secular aspects of the season to the more religious. 

Click on the link below for an article from Slate magazine on Kalle Anke.

https://slate.com/culture/2009/12/sweden-s-bizarre-tradition-of-watching-donald-duck-kalle-anka-cartoons-on-christmas-eve.html

Holiday Season 2016 - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Watched Rudolph tonight on DVD. A couple years ago was the 50 anniversary of the first broadcast of the show. I've been watching it on and off over most of that time. Dale says he saw it the first time it was on. 

Christmas 2011 - Frosty the Snowman

The 1969 animated special Frosty the Snowman, which I haven't seen in years, was on network t.v. tonight. As a kid I remember looking forward to this being on and I loved the sappy but cute story. Back in the day, before home video, one had to watch something whenever it was on and if you missed it, you missed it because the recording of television didn't exist either. This was also my first introduction to the great Jimmy Durante.

Christmas 2011 - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Part 2

From Wikipedia:

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a Christmas television special produced in stop motion animation by Rankin/Bass. It first aired Sunday, December 6,1964, on the NBC television network in the USA, and was sponsored by General Electric under the the umbrella title of The General Electric Fantasy Hour."

"The special was based on the Johnny Marks song by the same name; the song taken from the 1939 poem of the same title written by Marks' brother-in-law, Robert L. May. Since 1972, the special has aired on CBS affilliate television stations with the network unveiling a high-definition, digitally remastered version of the program in 2005. As with A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph no longer airs just once annually, but several times during the Christmas and holiday season. It has been telecast every year since 1964, making it the longest running Christmas TV special, and one of only four 1960s Christmas specials still being telecast - the others being A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman."

Christmas 2011 - Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town was on television tonight and Dale and I caught a good chunk of it. Sam, Pete and I watched this almost yearly while growing up. I loved the song as a kid and particularly liked Fred Astaire's version of it. The following is from Wikipedia:

"Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town is a 1970 stop motion television special, made by Rankin-Bass with models carved from wood (as with most Rankin-Bass specials). The film stars actor Fred Astaire as S.D. Kluger, the narrator, and Mickey Rooney as Kris Kringle/Santa Claus (a role which he would frequently play later on). The film tells the story of how Santa Claus and several Claus-related Christmas traditions came to be. It is based on the hit Christmas song of the same name, which was introduced on radio by Eddie Cantor in 1934."

I didn't see this special too often during my high school and college years but rediscovered it again in my mid-20's when it was released on home video; something that didn't exist when I was a kid. I catch it now every few years and it does bring back some wonderful childhood Christmas memories.

Christmas 1968 - Color Wheel

The following is from Wikipedia:

"An aluminum Christmas tree is a type of artificial Christmas tree that was popular in the United States from 1958 until about the mid-1960s. As its name suggests, the tree is made of aluminum, featuring foil needles and illumination from below via a rotating color wheel."

"Aluminum Christmas trees were first manufactured sometime around 1955, remained popular into the 1960s, and were manufactured into the 1970s."

"During the 1960s, the aluminum Christmas tree enjoyed its most popular period of usage. As the mid-1960s passed, the aluminum Christmas tree began to fall out of favor, with many thrown away or relegated to basements and attics. The airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965 has been credited with ending the era of the aluminum tree, and by 1967 their time had almost completely passed."

"The aluminum Christmas tree was used as a symbol of the over-commercialization of Christmas in the 1965 Peanuts holiday special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. The program is considered a classic amongst Christmas specials, and its mention of the aluminum tree solidified the tree's legendary status while satirizing it as well. Peanuts character 'Lucy' implored Charlie Brown to get a 'big, shiny aluminum tree...maybe painted pink.' Charlie lamented the commercialization of the true meaning of Christmas, ignored his friends' request, and purchased a small, scrawny natural tree instead."

In the bottom photo I'm standing in front and my cousins Debby, Diane and Danny are standing behind me. Behind all of us is an aluminum tree. The color wheel is at the bottom right.

A Charlie Brown Christmas - Television Special

A Charlie Brown Christmas is, along with The Grinch, my most favorite Christmas television special. Shown every December, I've watched it for a number of years. In fact, it was first broadcast in 1965 which was the year before I was born. My brothers, Sam, Pete, and I, watched it just about every holiday season. I think our favorite line is when Linus asks Lucy to "name five good reasons" for something or other and Lucy counts back from five on her fingers and is left with just a fist in Linus's face. He responds by saying "Those are good reasons!"

I probably fell out of watching it in the middle to late 80's but picked up the video cassette in the early 90's. I now have it on DVD and Dale and I have watched it every year since then. Great fun and wonderful memories.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas - Television Special

The television version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) is one of my all time favorite holiday specials. It was usually shown on CBS-TV every December and for Sam, Pete, and me, it was a big event. I love the Boris Karloff narration. Up until a few years ago I thought Boris Karloff sang You're a Mean On Mr. Grinch, as well. It turns out that the guy who voiced Tony the Tiger for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes sang the song. Again, as with the book, I appreciate the message that Christmas means a lot more than the material things that go with it. The