The Holidays are a good time to cocoon a little and read something you might not otherwise have thought about. My wife and I have a practice of turning off the TV for a while each evening after dinner during Advent and reading to each other classic Christmas stories. The Christmas anthology I've mentioned in Recent Reads has stories we love, that look at Christmas from distinctly odd angles. One story is actually the account to his editor by a writer with a bad case of writer's block of why he could not write a Christmas story, a magical tale in itself. Another favorite is "The Three Wise Guys" by Damon Runyon, which tells with wonderful charm how three very dubious characters from a New York City bar, intent on recovering stashed loot from a bank robbery, instead find themselves transformed almost despite themselves into the three Magi at the stable, and become very wise indeed. But our real favorite is not a reading at all, and for it we go back to the TV and to the DVD attached. The story is Jim Henson's "Emmitt Otter's Jug Band Christmas", a tale combining the best talents of the Muppets and O Henry.
Emmitt Otter and his mother each want to give the other something they really love for Christmas, but poor as they are, each can only do so by winning the local Christmas Talent Contest. You can partly go on from there just by remembering O Henry, but not entirely. An endearing villain enters the picture in the form of the Nightmare Band, an acid rock group you wish you could have been a part of.
Who wins the competition? Let's just ask what eight-year-old could resist a really great acid rock line like, "I never brush my teeth 'cause a toothache makes me feel so mean." The story of course does not end there, nor does the fun of its telling.
We love "Emmitt Otter" because it brings out the eight year old in us, and reminds us that dreams are as essential to our spirit as is bread to our body. For a while, it gives hope that the serious people of the world can briefly give up their stern missions long enough to do something silly like working together toward real solutions to the world's problems and to share a common dream.
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