(courtesy IMP Awards)
Yes, my friends, I put up a Christmas in July tree.
Well, to be fair, it’s a plain white tree that sits on a table in our loungeroom all year round and which is bedecked in Christmas ornaments in July and December (and yes, just into February because who really wants to say goodbye to the festive season? Not this Christmas junkie) because why the hell not?
While Christmas in July has become sort of a thing worldwide, it’s even more of a thing here in Australia because July is the heart of winter, and while Aussies are well used to hot Christmases on the beach and in the back yard because December is summer for us, there’s a real novelty to doing all the festive stuff when it’s as cold as it is for Christmas proper.
So, welcome to my Christmas in July tree which is bedecked this year by long unrepaired ornaments that should’ve been glue together years ago and by some new ones that I’ve bought since last December because, thanks; to eBay I keep buying them all year round.
It’s fun, it’s bright and it vibrantly expresses my pop culture-loving soul and brings me tons of joy which, right now, seems to be even more necessary than usual.
While I have cooled on Garfield as an adult, I loved him as a kid and teenager, amused by the rambunctiously in-your-face way he approached life. At the time my extrovert, take-no-prisoners personality was hemmed in by schoolyard bullying and onerous expectations levied on me by the member of the church where dad was a minister, and I could only gaze in wonder and laugh in envy at the idea that you could challenge people like Garfield did and does. So, while I appreciate more cleverly-written comics like Peanuts, Mutts and Wallace the Brave these days – to be fair, Peanuts was my favourite even in my youth – I still have a huge soft spot for this sassy creation of Jim Davis, who first made an appearance on 19 June, 1978 and who’s been making us laugh at the audacious way he tackles everything in life ever since.
Hilariously, way in the day when I loved watching Popeye cartoons, I hated spinach. I adore it now and will happily have it on or in everything from frittatas to soups and big breakfasts at cafes, but when I watching the cartoon series in the 1970s, which I am guessing was The All New Popeye Hour, which premiered on 9 September, 1978, I remember being incredulous that anyone would happily eat spinach at all, let along an entire can of it. But then, it gave him heaps of strength and the ability to tackle bad guys like Brutus/Bluto so I overlooked the superpower enhancing ingredient of choice and sat back to watch the slapstick-rich comedy of E. C. Segar’s muscular, quipping creation who first made an appearance as a character in the daily King features comic strip, Thimble Theatre, on 17 January, 1929. Again, the bombastically amusing humour aside, I think what I loved most about him was his willingness to stand up for himself, something I desperately long to do as a much out-upon bullied kid.
Like a great many people, Big Bird is one of my favourite residents of that wondrously rich and inclusive place of learning, Sesame Street. He’s been there since the first episode of the show which broadcast on 10 November 1969, living in a nest behind the brownstone at 123 Sesame Street with Oscar the Grouch as his neighbour. He’s such a talented bird – he can roller skate, dance, swim and sing, and he’s got a huge heart, staying solid friends with Mr. Snuffleupagus even when no one else thought he existed (rather wonderfully they made it so the adults could see him eventually because no one wanted to paint Big Bird as a liar nor suggest you shouldn’t take what kids are saying seriously) and calling Mr Hooper, the shop owner, Mr Looper. He is just lovely and a joy to watch, and I love the fact that his ornament has him as a Nutcracker which is about as Christmas as you can get.
We all have that one set of characters, or in my case a legion of different characters, who made us feel warm, cosy and safe as kids, and who strongly evoke that same feeling in adulthood. The Berenstain Bears, created by Stan and Jan Berenstain (their son, Mike Berenstain, has continued the series) and who made their first appearance in 1962’s The Big Honey Hunt, are one of the leaders of the pack in that regard for me, a close-knit clan who just loved being with each other, whose world was all about experience and learning and who did it in a way that was a delight on pretty much every page. They just make me feel good, and this beautiful old-fashioned bauble evokes exactly how I think, and feel, Christmas with this wonderful family would go.
I have said it before, and I will say it again but Grover is hands down my favourite Muppet full-stop (period for any visiting Americans). He’s been around since 1967, first as a character called Gleep on The Ed Sullivan Show on, rather fittingly, Christmas Eve, which was followed a few years later by his first appearance on Sesame Street on 1 May 1970, and while I can’t claim to have seen his first steps into the big, wide world, when I did finally see him as a kid under 10, I just loved. He’s self-described as lovable, cute and furry, he has a secret (or not-so-secret) superhero persona and his enthusiasm for everything, and the clumsy full-on way he embraces things is just a DELIGHT in every respect. I originally told myself I just have one representative ornament of each character I love so I didn’t end up with a ridiculously lovely pile of ornaments (which, ahem, I now have) but I haven’t been able to stop collecting Grover ornament so I present the latest aerial addition to my happily burgeoning collection.
WINNIE THE POOH
A. A. Milne’s beloved creation, Winnie the Pooh, is another character who has well and truly blown the one-character only prohibition right off the Christmas tree. Making his first published appearance in 1924 in When We Were Very Young – actually first made an appearance in a commissioned story in the Evening News in 1925 and had his own book in 1926 – Winnie the Pooh, and the rest of the Hundred Acre Woods gang, have been making our hearts swell with love for decades now. He’s a little slow on the uptake true but my goodness he has a huge heart, he’s a loyal friend and he LOVES honey in about the same proportion as we love him. Finding this Grolier ornament of him where he is angelically partaking of his favourite snack is a joy and makes me feel all kinds of joy … and yes, like eating a smackerel of the sweet stuff myself.
Interestingly, due to my age, my first awareness that Lucille Ball was very, VERY funny was not in the series she’s most well-known for, and to which this ornament plays colourfully mischievous homage to, I Love Lucy, but in Here’s Lucy, which ran from 1968 to 1974, and which I devoured with alacrity anytime we were visiting my grandparents down in Sydney who had three, count e’m, THREE, TV channels and thus heaps more viewing choices. I was gloriously unaware for YEARS that I Love Lucy even existed, and while Here’s Lucy will always have my heart because it’s my Lucille Ball show, I can well see why people love the show that shot her into the televisual stratosphere. The number of scenes and lines of dialogue that have entered popular consciousness is massive and it is comedy at its absolute best, shiningly good not just in its robustly sharp and funny dialogue but in its love of slapstick which it does so very well.
Back in the day – when I had hair (though my niece is adamant I was always as bald as I am now) and dinosaurs quite likely roamed the Earth – Disney movies weren’t on streaming or DVD or even VHS. They’d just pop up on The Wonderful World of Disney every so often, or as a Sunday night movie feature where my family I, chips/crisps in hand, would watch with absolute abandon. One of my favourites, and I loved it so much I spent precious pocket money on the books, was 101 Dalmatians aka One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which came out in 1961, based on the book of the same (latter) name by Dodie Smith (published 1956) and which beguiled and terrified me in equal measure. I adored Pongo and Missis, and their owners, Mr and Mrs Dearly, and how happy they were with their family of puppies, but I was so afraid of Cruella de Vil who was as evil as evil could be, and who threatened all that cosy happiness the Dearly had created in their lovely home. Of course, it all ends happily and the Dearlys end up with more Dalmatians than they know what to do with, but oh the ride you went on to get there!
Boy, they loved their singing bands shows back in the 1960s and ’70s, and The Partridge Family, which ran from 1970-74, well and truly ride that musical wave. From the bouncy, happiness-inducing opening credits and sing to the bright bus, the show was a technicolour joy, and while there were ISSUES to be resolved, they were always resolved in a way that made you feel as if maybe life isn’t so intractably difficult to fix after all. It’s the bus, of course, that this ornament is based on and the moment I saw on one of my regular deep dives into eBay – Yes, I buy ornaments all year round; why do you ask, haha? – I had to have it. Honestly, just looking at this ornament makes me smile.
Daffy Duck is absolutely hilarious. Constantly bested by Bugs Bunny and really just about everyone with whom he comes in contact, Daffy is the archetypal foil for Bugs, Speedy Gonzales and Porky Pig and watching him explode with rage as his over-confident plans are bested yet again is the stuff perfect screwball comedy is made of. Created by animators Tex Avery and Bob Clampett, Daffy premiered in Porky’s Duck Hunt on 17 April 1937, quickly becoming a mainstay of the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoon series with 130 appearances, third only to Bugs (167) and Porky Pig (153). Sure, he’s cranky and irascible but he’s also a screwball joy and one of the reasons so many of the cartoons pop, and I love having him in yet another iteration on my tree (and yes, he’s also broken the just-one-ornament rule).