Keep Christmas With You.

It's amazing the power that Christmas specials can have on a person (or perhaps just on this person). This morning I watched Christmas Eve On Sesame Street for the millionth time and thought once again of how ingrained it's become in my psyche. My mom says she can remember the very first time we watched it together, when I was probably two or three, when Sesame Street (we mostly called it just "Ses" in our house, because we were cool like that) was pretty much the only television show that warranted turning on the set. Every few years we watch it as a family on Christmas Eve, even though my baby brother and I are now well beyond the age where this sort of thing is appropriate. It's timeless, and sweet, and both intentionally and unintentionally hilarious.

Proof of Value:

1. I knew the Bert and Ernie version of the Gift of the Magi long before I read the real thing, and the actual, realistic, ambivalent ending of the original has always bummed me out intensely. I much prefer Mr. Hooper Ex Machina, returning their prized possessions to them on Christmas Eve.



(Cut to about the 6 minute mark.)

1a. Does anyone else have vivid memories of watching Sesame Street after Mr. Hooper died, in real life as well as on the show? Talk about a crash-lesson in emotional reaction for kids. I don't think I've fully recovered yet.

2. At one point, while Big Bird is on the roof waiting for Santa to arrive, he worries that he might be lost in a blizzard somewhere, or "stacked over Kennedy." I had no idea what this meant till I was about twenty.

3. THESE KIDS! It's enough to make even the most career-oriented feminist uterus start hurtin'.



4. And while were on the subject of the kids, there's a girl in this scene who totally picks her nose and I always wonder where she is now, thirty years on.



4a. It is also thanks to this scene that I know how to sign Keep Christmas With You. I used to include that skill on my resume.

5. While everyone down on the street is looking around for Big Bird, Susan tells someone that she is on her way to Grover's place to look for him. I love the idea that Grover is able to maintain an apartment in New York City.

6. Oh man, Cookie Monster trying to write to Santa? CLASSIC! JUST CLASSIC.



There's just something so generally innocent and kind about it all. Last weekend, my brother and I were bemoaning the complete lack of sincerity in the world these days; everything has to be soaked in irony and self-referential post-pomo ridiculousness. Fuck that, I say. This Christmas, I'm all about True Blue Miracles.