Friday, December 24, 2010

It's Wonderful Christmas Eve

I'm watching George Bailey walking through the snow, staring into the water, contemplating a jump to end it all. It's all very familiar... Over-warm because Andrew, my youngest, insisted on the once-a-year traditional fire which moves the temp squarely into the 80s. All of us watching a film together--a rarity. A night of Santa-Clausing ahead though, now with two teens, much scaled down as there are no big toys to assemble, no big surprises really. Left-over Chinese food in the fridge from our Christmas Eve dinner.

How many views? A dozen at least. Even I have some of the dialog mostly memorized:

"I'm shakin' the dust of this crummy little town off my feet"

"A flaming rum punch?...Look mister we serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast"

"She's an old maid. She never married." (haunting music playing)

And I start to notice details I've overlooked: a squirrel on uncle Billy's desk; a skull on Potter's desk when he offers George Bailey a job; Christmas masks George's children are wearing (btw how did anyone think it was a good idea for a child to run around in a old man Santa mask? creepy!).

And so tonight I celebrate ritual and tradition where life slows and repose is found if but a moment.

2 comments:

Lisa B. said...

somehow I have mislaid my copy of It's a Wonderful Life and so I did not get to watch it this year. Am a bit sad about it, in fact. Thanks for this lovely post.

Dr Write said...

We usually watch this, but have not yet this year. Instead we watched The Sting & Paper Moon, which are charming, but not very Christmasy.
That's my favorite line: "We serve hard drinks for men who want to get drunk fast and we don't need any ?? to give the place character." Clearly I need to watch it again.