I love old movies. I started watching Holiday Inn in November because technically it's about all the holidays and Thanksgiving is in November. James didn't buy my reasoning and refused to participate until the Christmas season officially began. Not surprisingly, I've been wanting to watch White Christmas ever since.
So, we checked a copy out from our amazing public library. Unfortunately, during the week that we had it, we only had time to watch the other Danny Kaye movie we'd gotten. We made it through the first ten minutes of White Christmas and then James' family called. We never made it back before the movie was due. Wouldn't you know it, I couldn't renew White Christmas because other people wanted its help getting into the Christmas spirit as well? Back to the library it went.
Fortunately, we babysat for some friends this last week, and it turns out they have White Christmas! We were so excited we ignored the rest of their movies, some of which we actually haven't seen. Sadly, because it's exam time, it was pretty late when we turned on the movie and we only made it about halfway through the first night. No matter, the babysitting job went for two fun-filled nights (and three exciting days, but that's another story). The next night, we started it up again. Sadly, two days of parenting two children had taken their toll. Before long, I fell asleep and we didn't finish the movie. We returned to our own meager movie collection about three dance numbers short of the end, not knowing whether Bob and Betty are ever going to work things out. Okay, we knew. But we still wanted to see the last half hour. So, I put us back on the waiting list at the library. We were Number 26, not very encouraging.
Saturday we were talking about going to a movie, but we couldn't find anything compelling enough to spend that kind of money. So, we decided it would be cheaper to just go buy White Christmas and watch the end. And thus our shopping adventure began....
Stop 1: Target. White Christmas is on sale, but it is also sold out.
Stop 2: Barnes and Noble. White Christmas is only available in a two-pack with It's a Wonderful Life, and it costs $30. We don't need to see it that bad. At this point, we had found some Christmas gifts and bought another movie that was really cheap. We couldn't think of anywhere else in the area to look, so we decided to give up and go home. Then James mentioned that Best Buy would probably have it. I remembered seeing one nearby, so we turned around and headed there.
Stop 3: Best Buy. They don't even carry it. What's wrong with these people? Have they no sense of history? Have they no holiday spirit? At least we didn't have to wait in the ridiculous line that looked like it was going to take at least 45 minutes. No, I'm not exaggerating. Fortunately, we saw a Borders on our way to the Best Buy.
Stop 4: Borders. We find the Christmas movie section (they know about capitalizing on the Holiday Spirit). They have it! It's $20. We're just not willing to part with that much money. And there's a Shopko next door.
Stop 5: Shopko. Searching, searching, searching. They have very cleverly hidden their Christmas movies nowhere near any of the other movies in the store. After a while, we find a clerk who tells us this information and shows us where White Christmas would be, if it weren't sold out. It would be cheap too. Oh well.
At this point it's late, it's raining, and we give up. Once we get home, I remember seeing that you can stream White Christmas online from Amazon.com for a nominal sum. Why didn't I think of this two hours ago? We excitedly pay our $9.99 and start watching. Every five seconds it pauses to buffer. We see every dance move twice. We hear most lines one and a half times. It's not exactly flowing like White Christmas should. So much for that "super-fast" internet I'm spending so much on every month. Next time I watch a movie off the internet, I'll take the hour to download it, then watch.
Sunday night, we were relating our woes to some friends, who announced that they own White Christmas! What's more, they had watched it that very day and were happy to loan it to us! I will be watching White Christmas again, uninterrupted, while I do my Christmas baking. No pauses. No breaks. No buffering. Just the entire, sappy, Christmas experience. Ballerinas and all.
