CHRISTMAS EVE'S EDITION: A PHOTO OF JOY; SOME MEMORIES; A CAT WHO LOVED MARTINI'S

EDITION OF TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2019 [PetPowellPress] Here we are with our 2019 Christmas Eve edition. If we had an Elf on the Shelf, a cat would slap it off.  OK, we’re going to do random notes since we have no reindeer to guide us — they’re all busy this time of year with seasonal work.
A PHOTOGRAPH THAT CAPTURES ‘JOY’
Look at that great photo of a merry moment of life! The report comes from our Eastern Seaboard Bureau Chief Andy Fisher courtesy of the Executive Director of the Bureau, the Missus, Annie. Andy wrote that Annie’s friend Patty “recently got a Lab puppy. Named it ‘Wick.’ Here’s Wick’s first encounter with Patty’s granddaughter, Sydney. At a time when we’re supposed to be focusing on joy, this is just about as joyful a picture as I could send you!”
So, ladies and gents who love critters, there must have been one of those happy moments for all of us when we first met a dog or a cat or a horse.…Maybe when we were as young as Sydney, or maybe when we were considerably older. Either way, joy to us all. And thanks to the Eastern Seaboard Bureau on Indian Lake in Denville, N.J., for reminding us of the joy of the season.
A STATE FAIR OF TEXAS COOKIE
AND A CHRISTMAS CONDITION!
As a longtime dieter, I had the good fortune to marry a woman who can bake cookies. We have been also blessed with being judges in the State Fair of Texas Creative Arts Cookie Baking Contests. 
And that brings us to the batch of cookies Martha made for her office this year and, of course, for her household. They are called “Orange Zest Clementine Cut-out Cookies.” The recipe is in the 2009 State Fair Creative Arts Cookbook. These delights (that’s a photo of my bakespouse Martha’s version this week) are about as big as a silver dollar and their wonderfulness is as powerful as a Saturn Rocket. Mind you, the recipe is labor-intensive.
These cookies — for my taste the best ever baked in the entire world —won first place for veteran cookie creator Peggy Garmon in the Icebox Cookies Division at the Fair in 2009. Peggy worked hard to win that division. Here’s the irony. Her citrus-themed cookies didn’t win Best of Show that year — they were beaten out by an entry in the Bar Cookies Division. What cookie-baker beat Peggy’s Orange Zest Clementine Cut-out Cookies? Peggy Garmon beat Peggy Garmon. Her Apricot Bar cookie won Best of Show. 
What does this have to do with Christmas? I’ve eaten so many of the orange/Clementine cookies — look at the tempting little devils! — that Santa needs to bring me bigger pants. I’m simultaneously feeling holly jolly and immense guilt. But I’m also feeling pretty darned Cookie Merry this Christmas.
HERE’S A LIST OF MOVIES…
IN CASE YOU DECIDED TO SKIP CATS

I haven’t see The Man In The Santa Claus Suit (1979) with Fred Astaire in some time — not on TV and I’m not sure there’s a cable station that broadcasts it. But the TV film can be seen ON LINE HERE.
… Speaking of Fred Astaire, if you watched that stage version of Holiday Inn (The Musical) broadcast on KERA-TV over the weekend, wipe it out of your memory and watch the original film with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire from 1942. It’s worth the time. Also it’s the Crosby debut of the song White Christmas which, as you know, was the inspiration for the title and the story of the 1951 film with Bing but not Fred. He did that one with Danny Kaye, Vera-Ellen and George Clooney’s Aunt Rosemary. … There are two film versions of Miracle on 34th Street (and a TV version, too), two versions of The Bishop’s Wife (first with Cary Grant, then with my other acting hero, Denzel Washington, in The Preacher’s Wife).
There are 400 versions (I”m guessing and may be short!) of A Christmas Carol, counting the TV variations and the greatest film variation of all, Scrooged, with Bill Murray. And don’t forget National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Only one version of The Ref with Dennis Leary and Christine Baranski who gets to issue with the proper disgust over a cheap gift, the immortal line, “Slipper socks!” There’s one magnificent version of Ernest Saves Christmas with Jim Varney. I’m leaving out a lot of stuff — It Happened on Fifth Avenue, I just remembered — oh, and Santa Claus Vs. the Martians starring Pia Zadora. 
Wait —let’s not forget those Tim Allen The Santa Clause movies or Vince Vaughn as Santa’s brother in Fred Claus. 

FYI: No movie has yet been made from my old school newspaper novel, The Christmas Sentinel, available on-line and — oh, that is shameless, Larry! I don’t care if it’s made into a movie but I don’t want it to be animated or loaded with Cats-like CGI characters. I have my standards — I got of box of ‘em for Christmas one year. They came with a video of It’s a Wonderful Life. Thanks, Clarence. Ding. (Simulated bell for all you angels who work to help animals and people.) Ding. Wow, another angel gets his wings! Her wings, probably.
A BOOK NOTE
This is my first Christmas without my Mom — we lost her earlier this year — Wait! We didn’t lose her; we know exactly where she is. Yes, she’d have laughed at that line. So would my dad and my brothers. So, yeah, for the first time since about 1952, when Pop would give me money to buy Mom a gift, that I’m not buying a box of Chocolate Covered Cherries at Christmas. I can’t eat ‘em, anyway — I filled up on Martha’s Peggy Garmon Orange Zest Clementine Cut-out Cookies. So, oh, yeah, why is this Christmas-related? Has to do with Charlotte’s Web, in case you’re looking for a book -- it's not a Christmas book but it could be for Christmas.
 Mom had never read the great book by E.B. White — it was published after she left school and while her kids read it, she was, like Pop, busy working and trying to raise three kids. So, she didn’t know about Charlotte the Spider or Wilbur the Pig or Templeton the Rat. But I gave her a copy of the book for Christmas. Once she read it, she couldn’t quit talking about it. Not just to me, but to anyone who walked into her room. The message is, then, that if you’re looking for a special gift for an elementary age kid or a Depression Era child, Charlotte’s Web might do the trick. Here’s a quote from Charlotte: “With the right words, you can change the world.”
A REGULAR VISITOR AT MARTINI’S
I mentioned It’s A Wonderful Life a few paragraphs ago. You see on the right a photograph of this year’s display of our It’s A Wonderful Life collection of landmarks from George Bailey’s hometown of Bedford Falls. We got it years and years and years ago at a shop in Hillsboro. We got the cat, Spike, years and years and years ago, too. He was our first kitten together. Around 1992 or ‘93, maybe. He’s been gone for decades — lived a long life giving great joy to me and my funspouse Martha. 
We were living in Dallas when we got Spike — he’d suffered a broken leg when kids threw rocks at him. He wasn’t quite as big as a handful of kitten when Dr. Catherine Marr handed him over to me — but he was wearing a cast from his chest to the end of that damaged leg. He thumped when he walked and he healed wonderfully and became a championship jumper.
 When we got the town of Bedford Falls. Martha set up it up atop our giant 20th century big-screen TV — it looked like a rolling cabinet. When she walked back into the room, there was Spike, curled up next to Martini’s Bar. Martha moved the display around through the years and wherever she put Bedford Falls, Spike would spend the holidays curled up with Martini’s.
 She created this year’s Bedford Falls display Monday and put it on a new table in the living room. I walked past it and, no, I didn’t think I saw Spike snoozing there, but I’ll tell you this straight from the heart: I felt him there. And when I walked past Martini’s, I could almost swear I heard the familiar ring of a cat-sized angel’s bell.

—- Merry Christmas to you all and, please, leave a yuletide message by clicking on ‘comment’ below or by emailing [email protected]. —-