It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown 10/29/2008

I’m sitting here watching “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” with my son and am feeling very nostalgic. I try to watch it once every Halloween. I never get tired of watching all these old holiday classics. During Christmas, it is Rudolph and the Grinch. The original cartoon Grinch, which I love. I make my voice really low and sing that crazy song for at least three days ofter I watch it – “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch, you’re rotten to the core, somethin somethin somethin, I wouldn’t touch you with a 29 1/2 foot pole.” I can’t remember the words right now, but I love that song. It just isn’t Christmas without the Grinch. And it just isn’t Halloween without the Great Pumpkin.

My son doesn’t seem to have the same love for all these old shows. I guess now that they can watch these super duper computer generated cartoons at any time they want they just don’t develop the same appreciation for them. When I was growing up, cartoons generally only came on for a few hours on Saturday morning. So it was a big deal if they came on at night. We would all gather around our 19 inch tv and pop popcorn in the fireplace. We had this thing that kind of looked like a metal skillet with a top that latched down on top and had a really long handle. You put the kernels and little oil in it, close up the top, and hold it over the fire shaking it often. Of course, by the time I was in high school, we had a 27” tv and microwave popcorn but we still got together as a family to watch all the holiday specials.

One of my best memories of Christmas involves the movie “The Christmas Story.” It is the one about a little boy who really wants a Red Rider b.b. gun. His mom tells him he doesn’t need one because he’ll shoot his eye out. But he gets up Christmas morning and Santa has left one for him. So he goes to shoot for the first time and ends up hurting himself just below his eye. We watched that one year when my brother was about 9 or 10, and the next day he got a gun for Christmas. And what does he do? He goes out to shoot it, it kicks a little, and he cut himself under his
eye! It was scary, but once we saw that he was ok we all got a good laugh. I need to remember to remind my brother of that the next time I talk to him. And remember to tell his son that story when he gets older (he is only 1 right now).

I am sad that my son doesn’t love them as much as I do, but at 8 he is still young enough to want to sit in the living room and actually enjoy watching them with me on our big screen tv. I think I’ll go make us some popcorn.