Is it so wrong that this is all I want to do this holiday? I just love these shows! Takes me back 30-odd years (ouch). I've thought a time or two about just buying them so we can watch them at our leisure, but that would take away the thrill of trying to catch them on TV and that awful letdown when you realize you've missed one. And just because you know they'll air it again next week, really doesn't abate the disappointment, somehow. There is something so sweet and nostalgic about these old shows. Many of them were made before man walked on the moon! I love to see the creases in the backgrounds and their jerky motions and think about the unbelievably painstaking process of creating these claymations or puppetry or whatever the heck you call this art.

Do you remember when you were little and you meticulously planned your week around what shows you wanted to watch? The week they showed Wizard of Oz, or Willy Wonka, or Mary Poppins, nothin' was gonna get in the way of those 3 hours! That was way before

these

or these or these (or these, for that matter).

My mom used to let us pop popcorn and lay out our blankets and pillows and settle in for the night. Sigh. Those were the days. There's just a little something lost in the instant gratification of our world today. All right, I'll step off the soap box because I'm not one to complain about 24 hour grocery stores, cell phones, or internet at my fingertips (seriously, what did we do before we had it?). I love to tell my kids how when I was their age (back on the box), and had a research paper to write, I had to get dropped off at the public library. I had to make sure I had enough coins to make all the copies I needed out of the books I found from the card catalog (what's a card catalog? they ask). And when I finished three hours later, I had to find a payphone to call my mom (and hope she was home!) to tell her I was done and then wait another hour or so while she finished whatever she was doing with the other 6 kids and could find the time to come pick me up. I didn't get to sit down in my dad's comfy office chair and whip open a couple of websites, cut and paste and call it done. (No, they don't do that. That wouldn't be right.)

All right, I have no idea how I got from claymation to walking up hill both ways, but sometimes I wish my kids had to suffer just a little more.

Like I said, is that so wrong?