The LuLac Edition #1871, December 24th, 2011

Nativity Scene.

CHRISTMAS EVE

Step out on your porch or deck tonight. Your surroundings will be still. It is the quiet of Christmas. Enjoy the ingredients for a perfect Christmas season .
Family.
Belief in something.
Peace.
Hope.
Merry Christmas

BELL TELEPHONE CHRISTMAS SHOW

I think of two things when I hear about the Mabel Beaton Marionettes. I think of my childhood and how one of the local TV stations (or maybe all of them) ran a Bell Telephone Christmas Show. Today the religious Nativity would never fly on commercial TV because some group would object to its blatant religiosity. (I mean if Tim Tibow gets grief, then broadcasting this thing would too!!) I remember watching the broadcast on TV and thinking “Christmas was near”. This was the bench mark. There were no multiple Christmas specials for kids on the air then. This was the starting point. The line of demarcation. If you were naughty and nice at this juncture, you were toast. (Or you might have thought you were.) A few years ago I got this DVD and made sure members of my family got to see it. One of the younger generation said, “It moves kind of slow, and look at the strings”. I told her that was part of its charm.
Another aspect of this video is my memory of the late Ray McGarry. McGarry was a United Way volunteer in the 80s when I worked there and he was quite prescient about the break up of Ma Bell. He told me that it would be the most complicated thing American business would have to deal with. And he noted, Community involvement would be curtailed. We spoke of the movie and he said, “You’ll never see that again from corporate communications”.
Well, maybe not from the multiple phone companies that break up spawned, but today we’ll show it to you courtesy of You Tube. For those of a certain age, it will bring back a memory. For those seeing it for the first time, this is the way it was back in the day. (Whatever “back in the day” means!) Anyway, enjoy the Spirit of Christmas, first with Santa and then with the Baby Jesus.
Watch full screen if you can.
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

THE BIRTH OF CHRIST



ECTV

Another old time staple of Christmas past is The Yule Log. My dad used to love to watch that thing on WPIX once we got cable in the 70s. For those of you in the Lac and on Comcast who wish to indulge, ECTV will be running a Yule Log on Christmas Day from 8am till 4pm. It's on Comcast Ch19.