So Simple

I was up very late last night, watching sappy Christmas movies on Lifetime. I can't get enough of them and they always make me cry but I just can't turn them off and go to bed even though most of them I've seen quite a few times. Lifetime runs a bunch of them every night until Christmas and every year I look forward to that as much as when my local radio station starts playing nothing but Christmas music. Both fill me with so much happiness, no matter what's going on in my life or even when I'm having a bad day, they calm me, they really physically change me. So simple.

My most favorite holiday film is "It's a Wonderful Life" and second to that is "White Christmas", classics and part of my life for as long as I can remember. I know there have to be tons of people that love "The Christmas Story", though it's not one of my favorites at all. And my sister Linda and I were just talking about the fact that they run that movie 24 hours on Christmas day and we just don't get it? With all the movies made over the years, the classics, the greats, the "B" movies, the sappy, silly, mystical, magical movies of Christmas, and they run this movie all day? Linda said she remembers on Christmas Eve watching "Scrooge" all night, but even then, so long ago, they were all different versions of the movie made over the years and we enjoyed every one. Simply wonderful!

If you're from my generation, you will remember growing up watching "The Waltons", a television show which was one of my favorites and maybe you know too about the movie that came out before the show, "The Homecoming: A Christmas Story". Patricia Neal was the mom in the movie but John Boy was Richard Thomas as he was in the TV series. The movie is so beautiful and it's hardly ever on, another great holiday film. Stop playing "The Christmas Story all day, there's so many great movies to watch, share with your family. All rated "G". Is it simply easier to just run that movie all day? I don't get it?

Another great one, which was a "made for TV movie" is "The House Without a Christmas Tree" starring Jason Robards. It's about a little girl who just wants a Christmas Tree and her father (Jason Robards) is a widow and he doesn't want to celebrate Christmas because he doesn't want think about his wife, he's bitter and sad but of course the movie has a happy ending, I cry and feel all mushy inside.

My sister Linda got "The Christmas That Almost Wasn't" last year during our family Christmas Party. We loved that movie growing up and we saw it in the theater not on TV. It was so magical and so simple at the same time. I remember looking forward to it coming out every year and we'd go to the movies and watch it a few times in a row. The kids didn't dig it, were not interested at all, Linda and I were crushed! Not really, but we were hoping they would love the movie as much as we did. But they don't want simple. I hope simple doesn't go away, I need simple in my life sometimes, even though I enjoy lots of the more fancy and elaborate things and ways of life I still need simple. Do you know what I mean?

The opposite of simple is difficult. Doesn't simple sound so much better than that!?

I love simple. Lots of different definitions for simple. You could call me a simple woman and I'd take that as a compliment, where others may be offended. To me simple is innocent, modest, not limited, easy to understand. Just simple right?

These holiday movies I'm drawn to into the wee hours of the morn and the music on the radio are simple pleasures in my life that I know I'll never lose, maybe that gives me a secured feeling, I don't know, again they physically alter me. So simple.