Christmas Special (TV#5)

What happens:

The girls are planning a holiday party for some kids in the local hospital. They also decide to do a Secret Santa for themselves. While Christmas shopping, Kristy sees the perfect baseball glove, and asks her mom if she can request it for Christmas. Her mom agrees, if Kristy does some extra chores, as some gifts are already bought. Seeing as I tend to have my Christmas presents wrapped by Halloween, my kids will have to put their requests in pretty far in advance, or I'll have to be more patient with getting/making presents.

Back to the party. While the girls are setting up, Stacey mentions not feeling well. Dawn surmises that this might have something to do with the fact that Stacey's been indulging her sweet tooth. Even though for once Dawn has a very good reason to butt in on someone's eating habits and Dawn's actually trying to be gentle about it (for Dawn, anyway), Stacey tells her to back off. A distraction arrives in the form of Ned, a boy in the hospital with a broken leg. He's not excited for Christmas, in large part because he's expecting to be alone in the hospital over the holiday. His family isn't very well-off, and it's hard for his parents to visit, between their fulltime jobs and lack of a car (weirdly, Kristy doesn't understand the idea of a family having to struggle to make ends meet, even after her family's difficulties after her father abandoned them). But a few days later, Stacey indulges again at their Secret Santa party on Christmas Eve.  No one but Dawn seems to notice, and the girls head back to their homes, where Kristy gets her glove, Mary Anne and Dawn listen to carolers, Jessi reads Becca The Night Before Christmas, Mallory puts up Christmas stockings, Claudia eats the cookies set out for Santa...and Stacey starts to feel increasingly worse.

Christmas Day the girls meet up at the hospital for the kids' party. Stacey is mysteriously absent. Her whereabouts are soon unveiled when Dr. Johanssen ignores patient privacy (although in her defense, HIPAA didn't exist until 1996) to tell them that Stacey's a patient at the hospital and give details abotu her condition. At first, the other girls are a little judgmental about Stacey's indulgences, but quickly become reassuring, so we'll blame that on their being so young and so worried. She's able to join the Christmas party partway through. Ned is also there, without his parents (guess Ebenezer Scrooge couldn't give the Cratchits a half-day). Kristy feels bad for him, and knowing that he loves baseball, gives him the fancy glove.


Things I noticed:

The producer was Kristin Martin. Kristy Thomas, Ann M. Martin. Funny coincidence.

Stacey finds the perfect gift for her mom: a nightie. I've never bought my mom pajamas. I've gotten her a shirt on...two occasions. The only people I can imagine buying pajamas for are my kids.

Stacey's mom has clothes left over from her "hippie days."

Claudia has a painting of Mimi in her room.

Kristy tries on a right-handed baseball glove again. In baseball and softball, the glove goes on your non-dominant hand so that you can throw more easily with your dominant hand. She even has the right-handed glove put on hold for her. Maybe her having a right-handed glove instead of a left-handed glove is why she gave it away. I hope Ned is right-handed.

Aww. Kristy's mom got a special Christmas ornament for her first Christmas. I've gotten and made a few ornaments for my kids, too. In fact, the package with their special "Sisters" ornament from Bronner's arrived yesterday.

Kristy's mom has her wedding dress still. It's implied to be the one she wed Watson in.

Secret Santas: Claudia gives Jessi some sort of eye mask...maybe for relaxing or sleeping; Mary Anne gives Mallory a bath toy, Dawn gets hair accessories, Claudia gets Christmas-themed earrings, and Mary Anne gets a snowglobe. It wasn't a huge part of the plot, so I couldn't really tell much else beyond that.

Claudia wears her Christmas earrings to the party.

Good continuity with the books: Shea Rodowsky plays piano, although not as good as the books indicate. In the books, he's playing classical music. Here, he looses his place in "Jingle Bells" which is a pretty simple song.


Special guest stars: Gregory Cook as Ned, Michael Dolan as Archie Rodowsky, Ann Dowd as Mrs. Brewer, Nilyne Fields as Becca, Gina Gallagher as Charlotte Johannsen, Marie Masters as Dr. Johannsen, Aaron Payne as Shea, Danny Tamberelli as Jackie