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I was watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special with my son Aiden last week, and I can’t help but feel that I was missing something.  I used to watch it every season as a kid, but I hadn’t seen it in the last fifteen or so years.  Now that I have kids of my own (and a copy of the movie on DVD), I thought that I would start up the tradition again.

But had something changed since I was younger?  The whole thing seemed to be about the commercialism of the holiday.  Charlie Brown complains about his dog who’s only in it for the money, and his sister who’s only in it for the gifts and the cash (despite not being old enough to write her own Christmas list), and the implication that you can’t have a good Christmas without a gaudy aluminum tree.

I wondered if the Christmas marketing blitz (and subsequent merchandising) started the day after Halloween in 1957 like it does now.  A lot of things were different back when the show first aired.  Maybe I was just too old to get it now?  Aiden liked it, however, and he helped me to remember what I had loved most about the show: Snoopy.

Snoopy, snagging Linus’s blanket on the skating pond and sending Charlie Brown into a tree.  Snoopy, decorating his house with tons of lights and stuff.  Snoopy, dancing at the play with everyone else while they all ignore Charlie Brown’s direction.  Snoopy, laughing at Charlie Brown’s ridiculous tree.  Yes, I still love Snoopy to this day.

Although I’m older now and have a firmer grasp of the anti-capitalist agenda of the show, I still find myself drawn in.  Railing against a cash-driven society is just a means to close with a reminder of the reason for the season.  And that’s a lesson that I’ll gladly pass on to my boys.  So I’ll probably watch Charlie Brown Christmas every year from now on, or at least until my youngest son goes off to college.

Imagination Movers is Aiden’s favorite show.  He always wants to watch it, and we’ll use it as a reward if he’s good.  So I see a lot of Imagination Movers, and I’ve noticed some things.  There are the many references to Stripes (1981), the amazing creativeness of the set designers, and Mover Dave’s inability to hit the group high-five at the end of every episode.

In fact, it reminds me of another guy that didn’t get his due: Chewbacca.  Stay with me here, and I’ll explain.  Chewbacca helps the Rebel Alliance just as much as Han Solo in “A New Hope,” and yet at the end of the movie, he is the only one standing there without a medal.  This is a lamented fact in Star Wars fandom.  In essence, Dave is never properly thanked for saving the galaxy.

The similarities go deeper than that.  Dave is the resident tinkerer in the Idea Warehouse.  He builds completely implausible inventions in his workshop to help his friends solve Idea Emergencies.  Chewbacca also fixes things on the Millenium Falcon.  If Dave were knee-deep in starship innards in a hangar on the ice planet Hoth, Rich would be there saying, “No, THIS one goes THERE and THAT one goes THERE!”

Dave also would be invaluable on Cloud City.  If a mechanical Smitty got himself blown up by Stormtroopers in some random bathroom, Dave would figure out a way to turn his backpack into something that could carry the limbs until he could repair him.  Or he would just dump all the parts into his +1 Red Hat Of Holding.  However, that would imply that Smitty would look completely normal encased in gold alloy.

When playing space chess with Scott, Gold Smitty would be like, “Let the wookie win.”  Not that Dave would tear off Scott’s arms if he lost a game, but who really wants to take that chance?  You never know.  To explain my logic here, Scott would make a good R2-D2 substitute because he’s got special sunglasses.  Wobble Goggles are almost as good as an astromech sensory package.

Lastly, Nina would be Princess Leia, naturally.  When Rich’s scoundrel side has sufficiently annoyed Princess Nina, she would proclaim that she would “Just as soon kiss a wookie,” and Rich would say, “That can be arranged!”  Which works out for Dave, because even if he doesn’t get a medal for helping to save the galaxy, he could totally get the girl.

We did send out a Christmas letter this year, but I wanted to post it to the web site anyway.  Who knows, maybe somebody who isn’t on our holiday mailing list would like to know what we were up to this year?  If you’re not on our Christmas card list, and would like to be, please let me know!  The “online version” is now enhanced with links back to blog posts that give more details.  Click “Continue Reading” to read the 2008 Christmas Letter.

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Get too close to the Michigan border in Indiana, and you’ll start seeing billboard advertisements for wineries.  We’ve seen them before and always wanted to try out the “Wine Trail“.  Chrissy’s birthday was coming up, and she asked if we could go to Southwest Michigan for a wine tasting tour to celebrate.  I was short on amazing birthday gift ideas, so I agreed.  We had wanted to do that for a while anyway.

We looked into our options on the internet and then I made the arrangements for the tour.  We stayed at the Harbor Grand Hotel in New Buffalo, just over the Indiana border.  This minimized our driving time, but also gave us a nice place to stay with plenty of options for food.  There are plenty of cafes and pubs in New Buffalo, despite its small size, and it’s not too busy in the off season.

The touring company, Fruitful Vine, sent over a GMC Yukon to pick us up for the day.  It was good that we didn’t have to drive ourselves!  For one, we didn’t know where to go, and two, we wouldn’t want to drive around after sampling so much wine.  Our guide, Allison, told us all about the area and the history of each winery as we visited them.  In all, we hit about seven wineries and sampled a little at each one.

One of my favorites was Round Barn Winery and Brewery, where we got to try several wines, a bit of their award-winning Divine vodka and some of their micro-brew beers like Cocoa Stout and Aged Oak IPA.  Their tasting room is in an actual Amish round barn, but they remodeled the interior into a modern wine tasting room.  The prices were very reasonable and we picked up half a case of assorted wine.

Some other nice ones were Tabor Hill and Karma Vista.  Tabor Hill Winery has an upscale restaurant onsite and also carries gourmet chocolate.  The chocolates were incredible in both taste and presentation.  I would like to try the restaurant next time we’re out that way, but we had a schedule to keep.  We did take a tour of their winery and got to see how the wines were made and bottled.

Karma Vista Winery is set up on a hill overlooking the vineyard.  They have some very sweet wines, including some of our new favorites like Starry Starry Night, and the prices are very inexpensive.  We talked with the owners for a bit too.  The views from the tasting room were amazing, even though it was snowing a little.  I would love to go back and try this again in the summer when the vines are green.

The Harbor Grand Hotel was smaller than I thought, but I like the Arts & Crafts style of their interiors.  They offer complimentary s’mores on the veranda at night.  Chrissy and I huddled around the fire pit and roasted marshmallows together in the cold.  They also sold Ben & Jerry’s ice cream at the front desk, which we enjoyed the night before going home.  The room was nice too, with a fireplace and a whirlpool tub.

Other than that, we tried to relax as much as possible.  I can’t remember relaxing that much in recent years.  Chrissy had a great time.  Once we got home, we completely stocked our wine rack, but still had a lot of wine left to store.  We bought about three cases of wine on our trip!  We should be good for wine until this summer, when we’ll have to plan another Michigan Wine Trail excursion.