My archive book list was running low, so I decided to spend some time poking around the archive catalogs again to see what else I might find. And to my shock, I discovered a book I somehow completely missed on my first go round: a hitherto unsuspected book by Edward Eager!

“Edward Eager wrote more books?” I gasped, for I’d always thought the famous seven were the only seven.

Yes, quoth Wikipedia, Edward Eager wrote three books beyond the famous seven. The other two I’ll get to in good time, but the one in the archive was Mouse Manor, which just so happens to be set at Christmas (although not a Christmas Book), so of course I had to read it right away.

Mouse Manor is a slim children’s novel about Miss Myrtilla Mouse, the sole inhabitant of Mouse Manor, who on Christmas Day decides impetuously to go up to London. (Mrs. Felina Thompson mentioned that she was on her way to London to look at the queen, you see, and Miss Myrtilla found herself saying she was on her way to London too.)

And so away she went! She hid in a hamper on the train, hitched a ride in Charles Dickens’ coat pocket, and met a dashing mouse in a checked suit who took her into the palace kitchens to try to nab a bit of sauce for the plum pudding that Miss Myrtilla had fortuitously brought… only the cooks caught sight of the two mice, and the dashing mouse distracted the cooks so Miss Myrtilla could flee, only to find herself in the throne room where the cats were taking their yearly Look at the Queen!

Just charming. I loved the illustrations by Beryl Bailey-Jones, too, especially Miss Myrtilla’s delicious candy-cane striped Christmas skirt, which swirls about her as she bustles about planning her trip to London. A cute quick read for any Edward Eager fan.

Continuing my Christmas quest with a rewatch of White Christmas! This is one of my all-time favorite movies. I wrote Yuletide fic for it (Bob/Phil ofc), I’ve seen it on the big screen with the whole theater singing along at the end, seen it in general more times than I can count. (Despite this, I still have to check Wikipedia for the character names. I know who the characters are and how they pair off! I just can’t remember which name goes with which!)

So yesterday when I was taking a sick day, I figured another rewatch could only be good for my health, and of course I was right. Just such a fun movie. I love the song and dance numbers, and pine for the day when Hollywood would just straight-up stop a movie for a musical interlude. Why must everything “advance the plot” or “further character arcs”? Is it not enough sometimes just to watch Vera-Ellen taptaptaptaptap her toe real fast?

Also pour one out for Mary Wickes, who steals the show as General Waverly’s housekeeper Emma. I think my favorite single bit in the movie is the part where Emma overhears (because of course she’s listening in on the extension) that Bob and Phil are bringing their show to the empty ski lodge to rehearse (thus bringing in some much-needed income). She tells Phil and Bob that that’s just the nicest thing she ever heard and then kisses them both, and Bob is like “wowza” and is just about to go in for more when Phil drags him off.

I still love Bob and Phil’s chemistry, and I do kind of ship it but in a way where it also doesn’t bother me that the movie’s whole plot revolves around getting them together with girls. Phil and Judy have fantastic chemistry too, although possibly more shenanigans chemistry than romantic chemistry. (They might be able to work as a marriage, though.)

I don’t love Bob and Betty as a couple, mostly because their big misunderstanding is so movie-contrived. This really is a case where Betty could just say what’s bothering her and Bob could explain and they could sort it all out without Betty running off in a huff to the Carousel Club in New York! Since this is a big part of the story you’d think it would sink the movie, but everything else works so well for me that when we get to this bit I always sigh “ho hum” and wait patiently for the big “White Christmas” finale. Simply a perfect ending tableau.

Naturally I’ve decided that this is the year to rewatch some best-beloved Christmas movies, so I kicked off the season with The Man Who Invented Christmas, starring Dan Stevens as a charming but moody Charles Dickens as he scrambles to write A Christmas Carol in time for the Christmas rush in order to save his tottering finances.

This is such a fun movie. I always love a period piece, and I love Dan Stevens, and I love movies about creating art of any kind (if it’s well done, which it isn’t always…), and this one has such a good balance of seriousness and humor.

On the serious side, we have the demons of Dickens’ childhood coming back to haunt him, especially in his difficult relationship with his father, to whom he is far too similar for comfort. He inherited his father’s charm, his taste for the high life, his gift for performance - and he’s afraid he’ll follow his father’s example by running his family into debtor’s prison with his extravagant spending. A new house! All remodeled! A crystal chandelier and a mantelpiece of Carrera marble!

Unlike his perpetually sunny father, Dickens also has darker moods, where the charm gives way to abrupt outbursts of rage. He stalks around his study in the middle of the night making a racket when composition isn’t going well, apparently unaware that he’s keeping the whole house up. He snaps at his wife, sends away a long-time friend, fires a servant girl - then in the morning demands to know why the servant girl is gone. “You have no idea,” Mrs. Dickens tells him, on the verge of tears but displaying all the self-control Charles lacks, “how hard it is to live with you.”

(I’m happy to report the servant girl shows up again, and is of course rehired. I sort of suspect that the housekeeper keeps these impetuously fired servants in an out of the way corner for a day or two just in case Dickens didn’t really mean it.)

But this is not a grim study of a historical figure’s dark side. There are so many wonderful funny bits, too. In his good moods, Dickens is incredibly charming and funny - you can see why all these people put up with his darker side, just because the lighter side is such a delight.

I love Trollope as the guy in the club who always comes over to commiserate (gloat) when someone receives a bad review. Those cruel reviewers, claiming that Martin Chuzzlewit was “dull, vapid, and vulgar” (which Trollope quotes from memory). “I didn’t think it was vulgar,” Trollope assures Dickens, who is looking for an exit, but fortunately Trollope sees someone else who just got a bad review and scuttles off to crow. I mean sympathize.

And I loved how the Christmas Carol characters start appearing to Dickens. As he gets deeper into composition of the book, they start following him around. There’s an especially funny bit where Dickens looks out a window - he’s trying to avoid the book because he’s struggling with the ending - and the characters are all standing in the street below. Mrs. Fezziwig waves a handkerchief at him.

Also, I covet Dickens’ book-lined study, with a little half-staircase up to a mezzanine level with more books. Why is the study built like that? Who can say? Possibly on purpose to be charming, and charming it absolutely is.

A couple of recent-ish theater reviews! We went to the Civic Theater production of Young Frankenstein, which surprised me by being a musical, although it probably shouldn’t have as the Mel Brooks movie => musical pipeline is well-established… anyway, this was tons of fun. Catchy songs, great singers, all the actors seemed to be having an amazing time. I think Elizabeth (Frankenstein’s girlfriend who ends up with the Creature) stole the show, but really everyone was fantastic.

Also, we went to see The Snow, which I approached with trepidation, as it was part of the same theatrical season that included Horse Girls.

But I really liked it! In The Snow, a village has been buried in snow, and young Theodore gets a bright idea: why not use a catapult to fly to the other side of the snow to try to find out what’s going on? “But snow doesn’t work that way,” you object. Listen. Snow just works that way for the duration of this show. Don’t worry about it.

This show is very funny, sometimes quite darkly so, as when a doughty band of heroes join Theodore to be catapulted over the snow, only to discover that catapults do still work more or less as expected and if you catapult across the snow without having planned for a soft landing, well… the heroes break Theodore’s fall, is what I’m saying.

There’s also a wonderful bit where one of the three narrators goes rogue. Theodore (who was by the way played by a very short girl) and his one remaining companion (the tallest guy in the play) have gotten trapped in a cellar, and the narrator intones, “The situation was hopeless.”

“What?” objects Theodore. (Theodore’s companion does not speak, but looks aghast.)

“The little one died first.”

“Hold on!” cries one of the other narrators, as the other reassures the audience, gesturing at the rogue narrator, “He’s still in training… only ever narrated tragedies before…”

Then Theodore and companion escape by baking a giant loaf of bread that forces the cellar doors open.

But it’s also a play with a lot of heart, and a completely unsubtle message about how We Can Solve Problems If We Work Together. You might expect the dark humor and the earnestness to work against each other, but somehow the balance is just right so that they work together instead, demonstrating perhaps that we CAN Work Together Despite Differences: the dark humor ensures the earnestness never feels treacly, and the earnestness ensures the dark humor doesn’t feel cynical.