There are a lot of great literary themes in this world, but one of my very favorites is from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

It is possible to go to bed as one person, and awake the next morning as a brand new person.

What’s not to love about that? I mean, sure, the guy has some horrible and frightening encounters with the spirit world, but he wakes up a changed man! One day everyone thinks he’s a lost cause, and the next he’s out righting his wrongs! Perhaps he only starts doing good things to save his soul from eternal fire and brimstone, but I like to think he truly saw what he was missing – the many happinesses this world has to offer that are not derived specifically from money.

Jon and I were able to see an advance screening of the new Disney version of A Christmas Carol tonight. It’s a decent enough adaptation I suppose, but I can be a tough one to please. After seeing the Muppet version and falling head-over-heels in love with it, every other version can only attempt to reach the high bar it set.

The new Disney movie was presented in 3D, and it was very well done. I’d give that aspect of the film 4.5-out-of-5 stars. The rest, well… the animation style didn’t do it for me, and the voices bothered me quite a bit. Both went back and forth between very realistic and rather cartoonish, and the inconsistency didn’t allow me to maintain my suspension of disbelief. The Ghost of Christmas Past was fascinating, until it spoke, and after a couple of minutes its face really annoyed me. I did enjoy their take on the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come though. Very cool! I give the overall movie experience 3.25-out-of-5 stars. If you dig 3D, and aren’t as picky about animation and voice acting as I am, you’ll probably really enjoy it!

My fifth wedding anniversary is coming up soon! Man, where does the time go? We’ve almost known each other for nine whole years. Amazing.

I knew pretty early on that he was the kind of guy, or rather THE guy, I’d marry if I let myself. Our first New Years Eve, after we’d only been together for a month and a half or so, Jon’s friend asked me if I thought I’d marry him. I’m sure I turned bright red, but I managed to say something un-scary like “I dunno” rather than “Yeah, probably!” I mean, you can’t tell a guy after just a month and a half that you’d probablly marry them, right? *smirk*

The photo is from our trip to Wisconsin Dells in 2003. Weren’t we cute back then? Awww…

If I don’t have to work on our anniversary, we’re thinking about going to Kozy’s for lunch. Our brother-in-law is a chef there and if he’s working I think I’ll just have him suggest a menu item for me. How fun is that, right? Get the chef to personally recommend something? Love it. *grin*

I miss my Grandma’s house.

She had the most fantastic raspberry bush behind her barn. It was crazy – the berries on that bush grew twice as big as any on her regular rows of bushes. Black raspberries on one side of the yard, red on the other. She taught me to put them in milk with sugar, and then squish the heck out of them til the milk was bright red or purple.

She had a great front porch, too. It faced a good sized road and I remember using it as my own personal stage. The passing drivers were my audience. I’d plug my boombox in and dance up a storm. The trees in the front yard were enormous too, so it was always nice and shady on that porch.

She also had the best game closet upstairs. There was an old board game version of Family Feud up there. I remember having a really hard time figuring out the answers to some of the questions since the game was older than any of us kids. There was also a great marble game called Avalanche. I don’t think we ever played by the rules – it was way too entertaining just letting the marbles go through the board.

The first job I had while living on my own was as a Customer Service Representative at Super America. It was alright, for an entry level type position. In the beginning, I spent most of my time cashiering, and occasionally stocking shelves or the cooler. Later I became an Assistant Manager Trainee and I did daily sales reconciling, prepared the deposits, audited parts of the store, checked in vendors, etc. But you know what else I did there? I gained a greater appreciation for the movie Clerks.

There were a lot of regular customers.  We didn’t have a milk maid, but we did have a guy who went through all of the Sunday newspapers before deciding which one to buy. We also had a few people who’d attempt to stock up on coffee creamers and ketchup packets, even if they weren’t buying anything. *smirk* If only there had been a Jay and Silent Bob style duo hanging out in front of the store.

OH! On another Kevin Smith note… My husband got yelled at by Shannen Doherty while Mallrats was being filmed. He was working the drive-thru at a fast food place, so when the guys inside messed up her order, she chewed him out. *chuckle* I wish I had been a fly on that wall!