We'll Follow the Old Man Wherever He Wants to Go...

After that awaking blast of cold air in my face first thing this morning, it began to snow. Would could be more perfect on a day like today but to sit in front of a nice warm fire in the fireplace? Nothing, so that's exactly what I did. Thank God my nephew Eric came by yesterday with the log splitter to cut my logs into sizes that fit into my wood burning stove. His timing couldn't have been more perfect.

With the snow outside and the fire in the fireplace - wrapping Christmas presents while watching White Christmas was the thing to do. White Christmas - I can't watch it without crying. You'd think after watching that movie at least once every year of my life since I was about 10 years old I wouldn't get so emotional. I can recite just about every line of that movie... doesn't matter who's part I have it memorized. The army scene when the soldiers sing "We'll follow the old man..." and then again in the end when they sing it at the Inn, I sobbed uncontrollably. You listen and see if you don't get emotional.

 We'll Follow The Old Man

I remember as a kid my parent's owned a Precast Concrete Company and at Christmas time they always had a party for their employees and spouses. These parties began at our home on Guenther Street in our basement. It was my job on the night of these parties to greet people at the front door and take their coats and put them away. If I was lucky, White Christmas was the movie playing on Saturday Night at the Movies on television that night. It was perfect timing to watch this movie upstairs as the party was going on downstairs. And to make that night even more perfect and if I was really, really lucky it would begin to snow that night. Now you have to remember this was before 3-D, Blueray, DVD, VHS and even BETA recorders and players. That was in the days when you had to watch whatever was showing on TV at the time on one of the three local channels. There was no pausing, no fast forwarding and no rewinding. We were one of the fortunate families who owned a colored television and White Christmas was one of the few movies that was filmed in color. I fell in love with that movie back then and it has been a tradition in my immediate family every year since. My boys all know this is my favorite and last year they bought me my own DVD version. Only a few years have gone by in the past four decades when I wasn't able to watch White Christmas and that was because there was some kind of legal rights issue going on for a few years and the company that owned the movie wouldn't allow the movie to be rented or shown on television.

So I guess if any of you watched a movie over and over again every year for decades you'd be able to recite every word and sing along to every song. I wonder how many gallons of tears I have shed over this movie.

How many of you are White Christmas lovers?