Saturday, December 12, 2009

A Christmas Tradition

Pulling one from the writing prompt of the day, I'll talk about a Christmas tradition we have. It's not really an odd one, but beloved it is. Every Christmas Eve we'll gather around the TV and watch "One Magic Christmas". I can't really remember when we started watching this particular movie. It came out in 1985 and stars Mary Steenburgen, Gary Basaraba, Harry Dean Stanton and Elisabeth Harnois as Abbie. I'm not sure the movie did all that well when it was released as it was over shadowed by another holiday movie released at the same time - "Santa Claus", which starred Dudley Moore. It was a bigger budget movie and was marketed much more heavily. I originally discovered the film based on a review in the Washington Post that gave it high marks. As anyone in my family will attest, I'm a sucker for a Christmas movie. A brief summary from IMDB:

Gideon, a Christmas angel, is sent, by Santa, to help Ginny Grainger. Ginny is a cynic, and she hates Christmas. She and her family (husband, Jack and two kids, Caleb and Abbie) have fallen on hard times, making it even harder to believe in anything that can't be seen. With help from Abbie, and a trip to see Santa Claus himself, can Gideon find a way to make Ginny believe again?

What I particularly like about the film it employs the "if one things changes, then the future changes along with it". Ginny gets to change a series of catastrophic events, by the mere purchase of a camp stove. It's hard to go into much detail without getting into spoilers, but if you're looking for a movie to help you get into the spirit of Christmas, then this is a movie I highly recommend. And know come Christmas Eve, I'll be along with Gideon as he gets his assignment from Santa Claus to go help bring the spirit of Christmas to the Graingers. Merry Christmas!

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