I'd love to find the PBS film version, too. I've only seen a part of it once, but what I remember was lovely. I can be satisfied with the text version, though.

Very glad to hear they know what's up with Mr Peabody, Ginger.

My Christmas movies are the ones I watched growing up - Santa Claus The Movie (which I'm going to make The Girl watch this year), Muppet Christmas Carol, Scrooged. I like Love Actually and When Harry Met Sally immensely, but there's not quite the same nostalgia.

I'm in the loveliest little B&B ever (got a training course tomorrow), in Essex, next door to a pub, with wifi and a telly. If you have to drive for four hours in freezing fog, there are much worse places to end up.

A Child's Christmas in Wales is totally my OTChristmasStory. We went to see the stage production several times when I was a kid, and those words and images have been indelibly stamped on my memory. I bought a slim copy of the book last year (for those who are thinking of tracking it down, I think I found it in the poetry section at my local bookstore) and read it aloud to Mark, and it brought childhood memories flooding back.

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

Cajun Night Before Christmas

When I was little I would read this every year with accent and all.

I'll tell y'all about Jaipur in a minute.

DJ, I don't think I said, but your tales of your India trip were fantastic. I'd love to have you ramble on more about it, if there's more to share.

I echo Beverly!

I have to track down a copy of A Child's Christmas in Wales for my very own.

There is an audio version as read by Dylan Thomas himself.

It's kinda too bad The Chronicles of Narnia had to leave stuff out (like all films of books). The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe always feels Xmas-y to me. Not just because of winter but because of how Santa finally arrives as the Witch's grip loosens. In fact the great gifts given to the Pevensies are gifts from Santa.

In other news, I got wet and dirty transplanting some of the snow peas I started out to the raised beds. I'm experimenting. Not sure if they'll really grow through winter but I'm going to find out. My lettuce, carrot and radish seed starts were failures because the seed starting tray (which has a cover) was full. So I started them in saucers and when the rains came, there was nowhere for the extra water to drain. The radishes actually germinated in the water and I dumped the mess onto the raised bed to see if they will be able to stand up and root.

I join amyth & Beverly with the Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol love!

And Jessica with The Nightmare Before Christmas!

Other faves:

The Grinch

Henry Winkler's An American Christmas Carol

The musical Scrooge

OT TV special: Amahl and the Night Visitors

OT movie: The Lion in Winter

Favorite TV Christmases: Bones-season 1, Relativity-the last season, whatever it was.

Christmas movies for me: Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, the Muppets Christmas Carol, and Arsenic & Old Lace.

(A&OL is a holiday movie in my family, because the first Christmas my Mom was in the hospital undergoing chemo, Dad and I stayed up really late decorating the tree. A&OL was the late-night movie that was on.)

Jilli, btw, the pic you posted of your parents at the SeaGoth Rummage sale was absolutely adorable.