Holiday musings

A few notes while preparing to return to work tomorrow:

• I didn't make too much of a stink regarding any Christmas traditions or practices that might have fallen by the wayside, but back on Thanksgiving I did. This year, for the first time, my mother didn't cook a turkey and the fixings. This year it was decided, before my input, that we would get our Thanksgiving meal to go from the supermarket. I was appalled. Sure, the food was from a well-respected, high-end supermarket and my mom, who is approaching 70, is not as energetic in the kitchen as she once was, but the food was mediocre, it still had to be heated (and wasn't all hot at once, which was a complaint about cooking) and the clean-up was virtually the same. Here's the thing: Thanksgiving is all about the meal. We celebrate a meal in remembrance of a meal (though we have embellished the details), so if we give up on the meal, then what is the point? As a result, I have volunteered to host Thanksgiving next year.
• There are some who regard It's a Wonderful Life as an exercise in excessive sentimentality, but they are all Scrooges. The 1946 film, now as much a part of Christmas as the tree and stockings, does celebrate small-town values and the decency and endurance of the common man, but there is certainly nothing inherently wrong with glorifying those items. Too often a moralistic view is presented without nuance, wit or balance -- in short, without art. Frank Capra's film, however, presents those by the sleigh-load. Remember that a good portion of It's a Wonderful Life is dark to the point of outright cynicism. Old Mr. Potter's brand of cutthroat capitalism rules the land and George Bailey has given up. But individuals can and do make a difference in our world and Jimmy Stewart's Everyman does so. Who can keep a dry eye at the conclusion? In recent years I have especially noted the amazing shot toward the end of the movie, when Stewart is denied entry into his mother's boarding house and he runs out into the road. Next time the film comes around, notice that moment, with the camera right in the actor's face, frightened almost to the point of distortion.
• Sitting in my favorite cafe the other day, a few people started singing Handel's Hallelujah chorus. They were obviously part or all of some type of singing troupe -- a chorus, if you will. The outburst was only a few minutes in duration and not too loud, and -- with snow falling in big flakes at the time -- was quite nice to hear. I think that people should spontaneously break into song more often.