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Health & Fitness

Nancy's Reads & Reels: What's Great About Christmas

Books, movies and television shows for Christmas.

I love the Christmas books I get out every year for my granddaughter and for myself. 

So far, A Charlie Brown Christmas is my favorite for Celia but for myself it’s got to be A Christmas Memory. I first discovered the story by Truman Capote in a magazine and read it aloud to my children. I choked up at the end.

That’s what a good Christmas story has to do: somehow remind you that once a year we need to let nostalgia take over and not feel guilty at how corny it all seems in the light of day.

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As for movies, they are too numerous to mention but Miracle on 34th Street is my all time favorite. Despite the fact that Edmund Gwenn is put on trial to see if he is insane for believing he is Santa Claus, in the end everything turns out for the best.

It’s a Wonderful Life is one that seems will live on forever and a few times a year comes up in conversation — maybe even more so this year (the banker is the bad guy — sound familiar).

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Can’t forget Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which has been done and redone but remains a favorite. Check out Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas by Alonso Duralde.

Television has done a good job in dragging out the old favorites year after year — A  Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, etc.. When It’s a Wonderful Life came out it wasn’t thought of as a Christmas movie and it wasn't that well received until television started running it.

That’s what’s so great about Christmas—the same old carols, the same old stories, the same old movies and the same old television shows. Everyone has their same old traditions and their same old food -- and it’s good.

In a world of computers and cell phones we need tradition. Sure you want those high-tech gadgets for gifts but then you want to sit back and enjoy those same old Christmas ornaments and the lights on your tree with some Christmas candy to top it all off.

And if you do get to do all that, you are very fortunate indeed.

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