Garfield!

I just spent all day shopping with my mom and sister.  We have a huge capacity and tolerance for shopping.  My feet feel like I had a rough basketball practice in new shoes.  It is definitely Christmas!  When I got home and turned on the TV the Charlie Brown Christmas special was on!  That is such a cute Christmas special.  

My favorite part, and I'm sure many people agree with me, is the part where he tries to salvage the dignity of little sad Christmas tree.   I am the same way...when I buy plants at a greenhouse I always feel bad for the ones that look kind of wilted or that have a broken stems because I want to bring them back to health! 

Charlie Brown is not my favorite Christmas cartoon special, although my favorites have not been shown on TV in years.  The winner is the Garfield special.  I looked it up just a few minutes ago and learned that it has not been shown on TV since 2000.  I can't imagine why!  In the story, Garfield, Jon and Odie go to the farm where Jon grew up for Christmas.

As a young child, I remember watching this before we ever moved to ND and even after we did I have never really thought about how Jon's family Christmas and background is similar to my own!  In my reasearch, I learned that Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, grew up on a farm in Indiana (where he had many pet outdoor cats).

The farmhouse he depicts even looks kind of like ours, although we don't have a windmill!  Also, Jon and his brother revert to acting like silly kids on Christmas and wake each other up very early in the morning because they are so excited.  My brother still does that!  Haha. 
 

I love the scene where they light the tree and they all ooh and aaahhh with exhaggerated facial expressions! 

Awwww...although they pester each other they really love each other!

In a very touching scene Jon's grandma was sitting quietly and reflecting on Christmases past and told Garfield about how she still misses Grandpa, especially around Christmas. 

When I was thinking about Garfield I remembered the even more rare "Claymation Christmas".  It was not a specific story but instead a medly of music videos featuring clay characters such as the California Raisins. 

I had completely blanked the "Carol of the Bells" video until I was searching Google images for screen shots from the special and saw this picture! 

On another subject, I have been meaning to get a picture of Andrea and Kirk's Christmas light display for a few weeks now and finally did so tonight.  We got several inches of snow last night so they were all frosty and snow covered. 

 The pillar looks very nice!  There are some lights on the other side of the house too but I didn't want to make the neigbors wonder what was going on so I didn't get a shot of those!

I mentioned my tree in Bismarck before but I also brought this mini tree for my room here.  My mom bought me this little one when I was living my dorm room my freshmen year of college.  I used it all through college and law school until we got the bigger tree. Roommate and I used to put our presents for each other under it! I still put lights on it every year because I think it's cute.