… of a white Christmas!

Ah, Bing.

This past weekend, my sister came to visit! There was a show of the musical at our local theater, The Fox. “White Christmas” is the favorite Christmas movie of my family the entire time we were growing up, and since our family is also a big fan of theater, I thought it fitting that Amy and I should go.

We had a wonderful weekend together. I really enjoy spending time with my sister. I love now that we’re older we’re friends, even though we are almost complete opposites. We bond over M*A*S*H and Bing Crosby.

While she was here, we went to Ikea, put up some shelves in our apartment, hung out, watched movies, and went to Piedmont Park with Zoey. We also took the train downtown to go to the play.

I won’t talk much about it, because frankly it was disappointing. So, if White Christmas is coming to a theater near you, don’t go to it expecting the beloved movie that has warmed out hearts since 1954. A lot of the plot was changed, and almost all the music was different! They had a few of the expected favorites – “Sisters, Sisters”, “Count Your Blessings”, “Love You Didn’t Do Right By Me”, and of course “White Christmas”, but none of the other music was the same. Apparently they took other music Irving Berlin wrote and used it instead. According to one interview with the play author I read, he defended that by saying that the other music worked better for theater. I have my doubts, but I’m not a playwrite so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. :-)

Another thing I didn’t like about the musical version was the changes in the plotlines. I understand that some of the things needed to be simplified (i.e. the back story of Phil saving Bob’s life), but I didn’t like that they made Phil’s character such a player, that they hooked him and Judy up, and that they changed around completely the story of why Betty got angry at Bob and left to New York. As one review that I read said, they took out a lot of the things that charmed us about the movie and didn’t put anything else in its place. I also didn’t think the performance was that great or convincing in and of itself.

So, that was rather disappointing, but I’m still glad my sister came down. We celebrated Saturday evening by watching first Holiday Inn and then White Christmas (the movie). And we played Christmas music all evening. Good times, good times. It’s hard to believe Christmas is coming so soon! Paul is mad at me for thinking about Christmas before Thanksgiving, but it’s really hard to watch two classic Christmas films and NOT think about Christmas! :-)