Sleigh Ride

Sleigh Ride is one of my all-time favorite Christmas songs. However, as Wikipedia points out, it isn't necessarily even a Christmas song. It's more of a winter song. I find it fascinating that Leroy Anderson started working on the music during a heat wave in 1946. Yeah. A song about a snowy day born out of a heat wave. I wonder if the winter part of it was his idea or the idea of Mitchell Parrish, who wrote the lyrics in 1950?

I can't help but smile at the catchy tune and lyrics... "Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring ting tingling too! Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you!" Sounds good to me! When can we go? As I mentioned in my post on White Christmas, I love snow, and watching it fall is thrilling (at least, for me it is). I have happy memories of playing in the snow, sledding, building snowmen and making snow angels. I don't recall if I've ever ridden a sleigh, though. I've been on hay rides. Does that count? :-) The song just makes me want to get on a sleigh right now and go for a ride, with someone beside me to keep me warm and with whom I can enjoy the day. Of course, as the song suggests, we would have to be singing at the top of our lungs. When we're not sleighing, maybe we could get out and have a snowball fight.

"There's a birthday party at the home of Farmer Gray. It'll be the perfect ending to a perfect day."

I've always thought Farmer Gray, who is hosting a birthday party (notice it doesn't say Christmas party), was a historical person. Now I'm not so sure. It may be someone Mitchell Parrish knew, or it may just be that Gray rhymes with day.

Whatever the case, the next part of the song brings back more happy winter memories for me. At this point, we are all celebrating a birthday party inside the farmhouse, sitting in front of the fireplace and getting warm. The chestnuts are popping, and we're passing around chocolate (some versions say coffee) and pumpkin pie. Yum!! Well, as I recall, I don't much care for chestnuts, but the sound of them popping would be cool. But chocolate and pumpkin pie! The mention of pumpkin pie seems to indicate that this is early winter, maybe around Thanksgiving. Hmm...my birthday is right around Thanksgiving. Coincidence? I think not! Clearly, Mitchell Parrish had amazing foresight, and he knew that someday Steven Sauke would need a song about his birthday party. Makes sense to me. Just like a picture print by Currier & Ives. For those of us who were born long after Currier & Ives closed their doors, they were a printing company who printed some incredible bits of artwork. Click on the link in this paragraph to see some of their prints.

"These wonderful things are the things we remember all through our lives!"

Very true. I haven't had very many winters with snow, but I have some great memories of playing in it when I was little, many years ago. (Actually, I haven't fully grown out of it. I made a snow angel a couple weeks ago when it snowed. I don't ever plan to grow out of it.)

In this day and age, life has gotten so complicated. We have tight schedules, and we have to get to work to get our full 40 hours (or more) a week in. When it snows, many people start to go crazy, as cars and snow don't necessarily mix well. Especially when people don't know how to drive in it. Cars aren't built for snow like sleighs are. I submit that instead of driving cars in the snow, we should all get horses and sleighs. It would make the snowy commute so much more fun to ride in vehicles that are actually built to be used in snow. Then we can go home in our sleigh, make some hot chocolate, and sit in front of the fire and write blog entries on the song "Sleigh Ride."

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

From the moment the first scene started, I was in awe. The movie drew me in like few movies have, and I was rather surprised when I realized we were already getting close to the end. I did not realize that much time had passed since it began. The mark of a truly great movie.

Back up a bit.

In the past few months, I have gone through a range of emotions anticipating The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I watched excitedly as NarniaWeb.com and other sites posted pictures from the filming, and I couldn't get enough of it. However, then the ads started coming out, prominently featuring the White Witch, Peter and Susan. They are hardly mentioned in the book, so why would they be major characters in the movie? I got further worried when I started to hear about a "green mist" and a quest to find lost swords, that is nowhere to be found in the book. It concerned me that Ramandu's daughter introduced herself in the trailer as their "guide," which is not her role in the book. When it comes to adapting books to movies, I am a bit of a purist, and it seriously bothers me when studios make major changes or cuts. (Don't get me started on the butchered adaptations of Eragon and the old animated Lord of the Rings.) I was also concerned about the precedent that Disney/Walden set with making major changes to Prince Caspian that were truly painful to watch (and were very likely the reason it didn't do as well in the box office). For a long time now, I have wanted to see all seven Chronicles of Narnia adapted for the big screen, and the last thing I want is for the franchise to end early because it is not adapted well.

I am happy to report that, though they did make changes to the plot, they made it work well, and I am OK with them. I don't want to spoil too much, but they did indeed add a green mist and a quest to find the swords of the seven lost lords. Both of these add a common thread throughout the episodic nature of the story. The order of the islands is shuffled from the book, and they combine two islands into one. The changes are very much in line with Lewis' views and the spirit of the story. As for the concerns with Peter, Susan and the White Witch, they make it work. Peter and Susan do not go to Narnia, as the marketing made it appear, and you only see them very briefly (Susan more than Peter). The White Witch appears briefly as a sort of memory, only to Edmund.

Each character must learn to fight their temptations. Whereas the battles in the first two movies were with swords, the ones in this movie were more internal battles with each person's inner demons. Lucy does battle with her feeling of inferiority to her older siblings, especially Susan. Edmund battles a similar inferiority complex, in which he tries to enlist in the British army at the beginning, and later wants to take some of Caspian's authority (but not in an annoying way like Peter in Prince Caspian). Eustace, on the other hand, must learn to battle his superiority complex. Will Poulter does an amazing job of portraying an arrogant brat, who finds out that he has a lot to learn from the most unlikely of characters: a mouse.

That is not to say there are no sword battles. There is a brief battle in the Lone Islands, and the battle with the Sea Serpent is quite spectacular, much more dramatic than in the book.

For me, the brilliance of this movie shines through in several ways...

The effects. The mist is visually amazing. The White Witch, Caspian's father and a couple other characters appear in a misty form, embodying the dreams of various characters. Dragon-Eustace and Reepicheep were amazing, and I especially enjoyed the expressions on both of them. The credits alone are worth the price of admission (especially in 3D).

The lessons. They kept the lessons C.S. Lewis put in his book. (One of the disappointments for me in Prince Caspian was how many lessons they left out.) They expanded on the theme of resisting temptation, as well as covering restoration brilliantly. They toned down Eustace's undragoning a bit, but they were very clear that only Aslan could undragon him. Aslan's charge to the children to get to know him in our world with his other name was there, verbatim from the book.

The acting. Everyone nailed their part.

There were some possible references to other movies. I especially noticed a line that seemed to be straight out of Star Wars, and an element that very much reminded me of a scene in Harry Potter (although it could also have been inspired by a scene in The Silver Chair). I enjoyed the subtle (and not-so-subtle) foreshadowing to The Silver Chair, which were added.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I'd give The Voyage of the Dawn Treader a solid 99. I had to deduct a point because of the plot changes. :-)

(Note: I'm pretty sure those are stars in the picture, not snowflakes. Stars are much more important to the story than snow, which only appears once and very briefly.)

White Christmas

White Christmas is one of those songs (and movies) that just makes me happy. Having grown up in the Philippines, where the closest thing to snow was when Mt. Pinatubo blew and covered the surrounding islands with ash (and I missed it), I have not experienced nearly as much snow as most Americans. I was born in the middle of a Montana snowstorm one November afternoon, and my first Christmas was white. Obviously, I don't remember that. Since then, I think I have had two white Christmases. I love snow (but at the same time, have a healthy respect for it, and I try to avoid driving in it).

I'm not sure if "just like the ones I used to know" applies to me, but I'm sure it applied to Irving Berlin, who wrote the song...but even though most of my Christmases have been anything but white, I do have some happy memories of playing in the snow, and even just watching in awe as it fell. I think of times we've gone into the mountains to get a Christmas tree, making snowmen and snow angels, sledding down the slopes. Seeing the "treetops glisten" is an especially amazing part of a snowy day.

I don't write very many Christmas cards (I'm more into giving presents than cards), and sadly, I don't generally write "May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white." (It's usually more along the lines of "Merry Christmas!") But that's a great greeting. Maybe I should start writing that on all my Christmas cards.

UPDATE (12/15/2010): I just realized that Irving Berlin had an interesting way of writing. He says "WITH all my Christmas cards I write..." With, not in. I write with a pen or pencil. Maybe markers, crayons or chalk. I've even written with my fingers. I can't say I've ever written with a Christmas card, though. Mr. Berlin wrote with ALL his Christmas cards, or so he says. Fascinating.

New Blog

I thought I'd start a blog. For now, I'm thinking I'll post some thoughts on songs, movies, books, etc., but that may expand in the future.