Today I officially melted and left my Scrooge attitude in the dust. I watched the Raskin & Bass classic, “Santa comes to Town”, today and I found myself singing all the songs, “Put One Foot In Front of the Other” and my favorite song when Chris Cringle sits in the town square and has the children sit on his lap before giving toys, “If You Sit On My Lap Today A Kiss a Toy is the Price You’ll Pay”. Hearing Fred Astaire’s lovely voice during the narration and Mickey Rooney as Santa brings all the best holiday feelings and memories to the forefront. I grew up with these claymation movies and they made December bearable while my sister and I counted the days on our Advent calendar for December 25the to finally arrive.
I love all of the Raskin & Bass claymation movies. I think my favorite part of “Santa comes to Town” is when the animals bring baby Claus to the Cringles after the commandant loses him in a snowstorm and they knock on the door and hurry off to hide when one of the Cringle elfs open the door and after seeing the baby says something like tickle my whiskers and wiggle my toes I think I see a baby’s nose and there is a whole baby attached, he calls his brothers, Wingle, Tingle, Zingle, Dingle and they each say what is it Lingle? It’s a baby, Wingle. A baby what, Wingle? A baby baby Tingle. We like babies and our baby is the cutest one of them all. Can you tell that I really love these movies.
I cry at each of them during the same scenes year after year. The point that brings me to tears is the wedding in the forest, Fred Astaire’s singing in the background, while you see the forest all decorated by the animals and the Cringles and Fred Astaire explains to the children that this is the first Christmas tree. They also exchange presents to each other and Fred Astaire serenades their union so poignantly, I choke up immediately, I think that my tear ducts have become programmed over the years; cue the music, Fred Astaire start singing and my tears start falling.
My babies when they were younger would say “oh Maman, it’s not sad. Why are you crying” and I would sniffle and reply “it’s so beautiful”. Both of them would roll their eyes and come over to hug and kiss me while muttering our poor Maman.
Welcome Christmas spirit!
