LAMBlog-a-thon - Favorite Scene in a Holiday Film

In case the title wasn't enough of a giveaway, this post is a part of the LAMB's second monthly Blog-a-thon. For more details, click here.

The actual rules for this blog-a-thon looked like this:

"Seeing as this month is December, the official holiday month, the assignment is as follows....WRITE ABOUT YOUR FAVORITE SCENE IN A HOLIDAY FILM. That's right. We're not making it easy by letting you write about your favorite holiday film. You have to pick a certain scene. Now, of course, the rules can be bent. If you feel like naming your all time favorite scenes for example, feel free."

As it states above, the rules can be bent. Which is good, because that's what I intended to do anyway. Here goes:

If one were to ask, I would likely describe myself as, amongst other things, a cynic, a realist, and a pessmist (there may be some redundancy with those three...). In other words, not exactly a warm and fuzzy kinda guy, at least not judged by the connotations those terms tag along with them. However, there's a big part of me that's, if not sentimental, at least nostalgic: I like traditions, and I like to stick to them. Mostly when I say that, it refers to family traditions, but it could apply elsewhere as well. Mom's Christmas sugar cookies and Dad's fudge. Going to the same places to eat whenever I go to Disneyland, and in roughly the same order. Watching A Charlie Brown Christmas and (maybe) Rudolph every year.

Well, there's another that originated when I was a kid, but wasn't necessarily a tradition; that's something that I've made all by myself: watch A Christmas Carol every year. But not just any Christmas Carol - it's got to be the one starring George C. Scott. Whether or not it's truly the best or most faithful adaption to Dickens' work, I can't tell you, but it's most likely the first one I saw (it was made-for-TV in 1984, though you wouldn't know it from the production values - they're on par with a theatrical feature). Maybe it's just because of the timing, or maybe because my Dad worked for IBM and they were the lead sponsor for the film - whatever it is, I loved it. And if you haven't seen it, you should.

After all, where else are you gonna see Cheers' Robin Colcord (Roger Rees) long before he stopped into that Boston bar? Or Joanne Whalley before she added (and later deleted) Kilmer from her last name? Or, according to IMDb, "the only version of ACC in which Scrooge wears dress-slacks, a dress-shirt and a vest (with an Alistair Cooke-type smoking jacket)...instead of merely his nightgown, slippers and cap?"

Nowhere, that's where. So consider this my favorite holiday film, and just to play along, here's a great scene of Scott putting on his most miserly clothes as he rips that slacker Bob Cratchit (David Warner) a new one: