I saw your post this morning and laughed out loud:
The first year they had a writing section on the SAT the question was about materialism and immediately it made me think of "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents ..." which I wrote and quoted as the first line of my essay. When that was over and I opened the sealed test booklet for Language Section Q&A I was horrified to find question 5 or 6 contained the same line. I was terrified they would think I had cheated and I'd get a 0 on my SAT ...
Thankfully, this did not happen. Probably because the graders of the Writing vs Language section are totally different. But that first line of Little Women will forever hold a special place in my heart.
Another favorite quote is, of course, Scrooge in A Christmas Carol after he discovers he hasn't yet been transported to Christmas Future ...
“I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”
Oh there are SO many! With relatives on my dad’s side of the family it’s always A Muppet Christmas Carol (“and Tiny Tim.....who did NOT die” or “light the lamp, not the rat!” or “even the vegetables don’t like him”). On my mom’s side it’s the 1970 musical SCROOGE, which is both comical (“what the devil am I doing in a pile of snow in the middle of the night?!?”) and about as tear-inducing for me as Harry Bailey’s toast. Here’s Scrooge’s ending speech (please picture a hunched Albert Finney in a Santa costume, approaching his scary-looking door knocker with a look of joy on his face): “Hello! I don’t know whether you can hear me, old Jacob Marley, and I don’t know whether or not I imagined the things I saw.....but between the pair of us, we finally made a merry Christmas, didn’t we? I must leave you now - must go and get ready. I’m going to have Christmas dinner with my family.” (music swells, everyone cries)
LAURA have we never talked this over?! "Scrooge" the musical was my in-laws' chosen film version of Dickens, so David adores it. We watch it every year, and your representation of Albert Finney here is perfection.
My favorite book quotes come from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - so many quotable lines from this one, but a couple of my favorites:
“ As far as I’m concerned, Mary is always going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman – sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby. And the Wise Men are always going to be Leroy and his brothers, bearing ham.”
“I happened to look at Imogene and I almost dropped my hymn book on a baby angel.
Everyone had been waiting all this time for the Herdmans to do something absolutely unexpected. And sure enough, that was what happened.
Imogene Herdman was crying.
In the candlelight her face was all shiny with tears and she didn't even bother to wipe them away. She just sat there-awful old Imogene-in her crookedy veil, crying and crying and crying.
Well. It was the best Christmas pageant we ever had.”
I listen to the audiobook version of this book every year around Christmas, and appreciate the down-to-earth and humorous correction from inappropriately glamorizing the first Christmas. I love the unfiltered child-like perspective of the narrator, for whom Christmas becomes real all thanks to the Herdman’s very unconventional (but ironically more accurate) rendition of the Christmas Story.
I saw your post this morning and laughed out loud:
The first year they had a writing section on the SAT the question was about materialism and immediately it made me think of "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents ..." which I wrote and quoted as the first line of my essay. When that was over and I opened the sealed test booklet for Language Section Q&A I was horrified to find question 5 or 6 contained the same line. I was terrified they would think I had cheated and I'd get a 0 on my SAT ...
Thankfully, this did not happen. Probably because the graders of the Writing vs Language section are totally different. But that first line of Little Women will forever hold a special place in my heart.
Another favorite quote is, of course, Scrooge in A Christmas Carol after he discovers he hasn't yet been transported to Christmas Future ...
“I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”
Hahaha of course you did that on the SAT. I am so glad that turned out OK for you, and I'm sure it was a brilliant essay. :)
I love that part of A Christmas Carol too! He is absolutely changed!
Oh there are SO many! With relatives on my dad’s side of the family it’s always A Muppet Christmas Carol (“and Tiny Tim.....who did NOT die” or “light the lamp, not the rat!” or “even the vegetables don’t like him”). On my mom’s side it’s the 1970 musical SCROOGE, which is both comical (“what the devil am I doing in a pile of snow in the middle of the night?!?”) and about as tear-inducing for me as Harry Bailey’s toast. Here’s Scrooge’s ending speech (please picture a hunched Albert Finney in a Santa costume, approaching his scary-looking door knocker with a look of joy on his face): “Hello! I don’t know whether you can hear me, old Jacob Marley, and I don’t know whether or not I imagined the things I saw.....but between the pair of us, we finally made a merry Christmas, didn’t we? I must leave you now - must go and get ready. I’m going to have Christmas dinner with my family.” (music swells, everyone cries)
LAURA have we never talked this over?! "Scrooge" the musical was my in-laws' chosen film version of Dickens, so David adores it. We watch it every year, and your representation of Albert Finney here is perfection.
My favorite book quotes come from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - so many quotable lines from this one, but a couple of my favorites:
“ As far as I’m concerned, Mary is always going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman – sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby. And the Wise Men are always going to be Leroy and his brothers, bearing ham.”
“I happened to look at Imogene and I almost dropped my hymn book on a baby angel.
Everyone had been waiting all this time for the Herdmans to do something absolutely unexpected. And sure enough, that was what happened.
Imogene Herdman was crying.
In the candlelight her face was all shiny with tears and she didn't even bother to wipe them away. She just sat there-awful old Imogene-in her crookedy veil, crying and crying and crying.
Well. It was the best Christmas pageant we ever had.”
I listen to the audiobook version of this book every year around Christmas, and appreciate the down-to-earth and humorous correction from inappropriately glamorizing the first Christmas. I love the unfiltered child-like perspective of the narrator, for whom Christmas becomes real all thanks to the Herdman’s very unconventional (but ironically more accurate) rendition of the Christmas Story.
YES YES YES, this book is brilliant and I love it so much for all these reasons. I used to read it aloud to my class every year in school!