Welcome to White Christmas! December - 2012 Edition
It is 73 degrees today in Florida, the pool is warm I am considering a swim!
This feeling reminds of the little known first verse of the iconic song on which this film is based:
The sun is shining; the grass is green. The orange and palm trees sway. There’s never been such a day…in Beverly Hills, L.A. But it’s December the 24th and I am longing to be up north…
That is the picture of Florida during this season. Although I do not share Berlin’s desire to go north for the holiday, (in fact, I encourage my family to engage in the joys of a tropical Christmas with little to no success!) I can well recall the sentiment: May your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmas’ be white!
This was and still is, the film that ushers the holiday into my home.
This year my brother did not fail to remind me to listen to Sing We Now of Christmas (our favorite Classic Christmas album) and watch White Christmas as my mother and I “decorate up” for Christmas! What great memories!
However, it is not my reminiscences we are here to discuss. It is instead those of my patients/residents/ clients.
It is during this film that my patients share many of their most treasured memories – from family bonding with their sisters, to dating and courtship (who “wore” the dress” and who “stayed home -- when a certain gentlemen arrived from Rome”). One of my patients was heard to say, ”He didn’t arrive from Rome he arrived on a train from India”. Beginning a great discussion of culture change for both her and her husband.
Culture is also discussed when the women discuss their separations from husbands during military service. Many wives found themselves working and raising the family alone.
In the film we find Danny Kaye quite interested in the Haynes’ sisters views on family. He is quite impressed by each girl’s desire to raise children.
Of course, as the film progresses we also find it is a means to an end. If Danny can get Bing to date Rosemary then he can “have 45 minutes all to (him) self”.
The remainder of the film focuses on the “chase to get the girl” with Danny coaxing Bing in Rosemary’s direction at any/every turn.
This gives me a great opportunity to discuss the rules of courtship. When it goes well: As it does in Count Your Blessings. (This scene also opens a nice opportunity to discuss what fortune is and is not); and when it does not, as in the scene when Rosemary first “overhears” that the Christmas Eve show is going to be televised. She is angry and perhaps justified, but instead of asking about it, she broods, cries and leaves! In an interview, Clooney herself said, “I overplayed it a little” and was in the end “a big dummy.” My group and I discuss what happens when you don’t know the whole story. Great insights come out here.
Insights into relationships, time to sing some great classic holiday songs and share treasured memories of lives well lived all wrapped in the prefect Classic Musical present of White Christmas!
As our second year together comes to a close, I hope you have found the blogs helpful in exploring these films with your clients in individual or group sessions.
If you enjoyed the blogs and the fun on the
facebook page:
(https://www.facebook.com/pages/Movies-and-Music/196819043698265I),
but have yet to purchase your Guide, I hope you are now inspired to join the fun that is Movies and Music!
Have a Safe and Happy Holiday!
See you in January 2013 to “Swing in the New Year” with Glenn Miller and some new insights into Orchestra Wives for clients, students and families.
---Lori
