Holiday movies you may have forgotten about

These are some less obvious holiday films that I will be watching between now and New Year's Eve. 

The Apartment (1960) with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. This sardonic, sometimes dark but ultimately heart-warming film takes place over Christmas and New Year's. Wintery Manhattan in wide-screen black & white at the dawn of the 1960's.

Bachelor Mother (1939) also takes place over the Christmas Holidays, beginning in the toy department of a department store on Christmas Eve --- just before Ginger Rogers receives her pink slip and finds herself mistaken for the mother of an abandoned baby. Again, plenty of snowy New York scenes. Funny and full of charm.

If you like starry-eyed nuns who believe they can get cynical rich guys to donate expensive land to charitable causes while speeding around in jeeps and competing in tennis matches (and lots of snowy scenes of Connecticut hillside locales) then Come to the Stable (1949) might be right up your alley.

Winter New Yorker covers

New Yorker cover Ilonka Karasz Main Street Christmas lights 12/9 1950

 

New Yorker cover Ilonka Karasz logging in winter 1/6 1945

 

New Yorker cover Karasz snowdraped branches 1/29 1966

New Yorker cover Charles Addams snow family trackside 1/14 1980

 

New Yorker cover Charles Addams snowman inside looks out at a storm 1/21 1985

Ready for the holidays

I can't say all of the gift shopping is done, but the tree is up and the holiday music is playing. Here's hoping everyone is enjoying the holidays!

The absolute best way to get through the long dark nights of December is a glowy Christmas Tree.  

Decorated with vintage ornaments.

An outing with my pal to a vegan Vietnamese restaurant for some steamy soup...

Followed by my killer Margaritas...

While watching a great holiday classic like "It's a Wonderful life"

Mickey Mouse books from the 1930s

I found these while frittering away my morning browsing through internet auctions (and drinking too much coffee). This was during the golden age of Mickey Mouse & Walt Disney, and a lot of collectibles from this era are quite pricey.

[Walt Disney Studios]. Mickey Mouse and His Horse Tanglefoot. Philadelphia: David McKay Company, 1936. First edition. Octavo. 60 pages. With numerous color illustrations in text illustrated by the staff of Walt Disney Studios. Original publisher's pictorial boards and rare dust jacket. A very good copy in the seldom seen original dust jacket. Sold for: $1,125.00

Walt Disney. The Story of Mickey Mouse and the Smugglers. Racine: Whitman Publishing, 1935. The Big Big Book. 316 pages. 

[Walt Disney Studios]. The Adventures of Mickey Mouse. Philadelphia: David McKay, [1931]. First edition of the first Mickey Mouse book. This one sold for over a thousand dollars.

[Walt Disney]. Mickey Mouse Story Book. McKay, 1931. First edition, first printing. Hinges reinforced. Title page illustration with faint amateur coloring and erasing. Toning and minor soiling. Names erased. Custom slipcase.