The Bishop's Wife

A few days ago I watched "The Bishop's Wife" with Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven (available on YouTube here, not that I haven't had the DVD for a long time).
It's my all time favorite Christmas movie and has been since I was small. I think movies that I have loved for so many years always give me an extra fuzzy feeling, and to be honest, I don't think I would even have to watch them because they are so familiar that I can just play them in my head. The real thing is still better, though ;-)

Public domain via Wikipedia

Actually, there was quite an unpleasant incident in my life this year that got me down so badly that the only way to comfort me at the time was to watch "The Bishop's Wife" - in August.

Of course I have my favorite scenes, the trimming of the tree - which I used for my quote of the week exactly twelve years ago, by the way - and the skating, the sermon, but I'm always looking forward most to the boys choir, they sing so beautifully and I love the song, too. I also like the way how they come in one by one, summoned by a wave of Dudley's hand, looking at him like they wonder what's happening here.

Wait, I just noticed I totally took for granted that you know the movie, sorry.
This is the story.
Bishop Henry Brougham is struggling to raise funds to build a big cathedral. He prays for divine guidance and is sent an angel. Dudley is not quite helping him the way he would want him to, though. Officially posing as the bishop's assistant, he begins to change the lives of the people around the bishop, his wife Julia and daughter Debbie who have to suffer from his obsession with the cathedral, his staff, an old friend, the wealthy parishioner who is trying to push Henry into making the cathedral a monument to her late husband, even the taxi driver giving them a ride to the choir rehearsal.
Henry begins to feel how everything seems to be slipping away from him and senses that Dudley is falling in love with Julia. He finally realizes what is really important. This is when Dudley's task is done and he is called back even if he regrets it.
The next day everyone has forgotten he ever was there and you see him standing in the street looking at the people going into the church where Henry delivers the sermon Dudley wrote.

If you know the movie, however, do you also know the book it is based on?
It's a novella by Robert Nathan from 1928 and it's not quite like the movie.
In fact, you will find a lot of people who prefer the movie to the book, me included. Usually it's the other way round, but I think it also depends on what you first fall in love with. I knew the movie since I was a child, but got the book many years later and got a big surprise.

If the book stood by itself, it might have been an interesting read, about a marriage in which the wife has come to terms to live without any passion and much intimacy, whose only comfort is to have a daughter she can care for, while her husband, the bishop, is only thinking about raising funds for a big cathedral and about the purity a lack of which he thinks can be seen in the country. He's looking for a new archdeacon and asks for an angel to help him.
Enter Michael, the angel, who preferred spending time with poets instead of clergymen, who is shocked about the moral decay of modern times, who likes to philosophize, who is more than willing to help the bishop in his plans for the cathedral ... and who falls in love with the bishop's wife in a very non-spiritual way and awakens feelings in her that she thought she had locked away.
When they kiss, however, it is Julia who pulls away.
In the end, she resigns to a life with a man who won't be able to give her the love she's craving and decides she wants to have another child to find happiness.

My problem is that I don't really like any of the characters, not even the daughter. I miss the charm and humor and, yeah, the warm fuzzy feeling in the book.
That's not the book's fault, it obviously wasn't written to be a charming Christmas story, but I'm pretty amazed how someone could have read the story and said: "Hey, let's turn this into a heartwarming Christmas movie!" I for sure didn't find it in there. There was no happy ending for anyone and the thought of the Broughams just going on like that in their "pure" life would be sad if I could make myself to care more about them.
After thumbing through it again - I couldn't get myself to read it completely a second time - I  wondered why I even kept it and decided it will go to the public book cabinet. Maybe someone will pick it up and appreciate it more than I do.

I know this is hardly a review as I left out so much, but if you are interested in finding out more, you can find a readthrough here.

Little Angel Sunshine

Oh Sweets, you are just a little too late to be in the Nativity play, but that's okay, there's always next year.
No, actually this is NOT another advent calendar door although you could think that.
Which reminds me, thank you if you have been following this year's advent calendar. I hope you had some fun with it.

Now where does this little angel come from?
This is Sweets from Mattel's Sunshine Fun Family. I was a little confused at first because I knew the Sunshine Family which had a father, a mother, and baby Sweets (and later there were also grandparents and an African American family). I had not been aware that later there was also the Sunshine Fun Family in which Sweets was older and there was a new baby.

If you have been following me for a while, here, on Facebook, on Instagram, you may have noticed that there are a few themes that keep turning up. Cats, tentacles, and wings. Be prepared for this not to change anytime soon (or ever).
After I had finished the Christ Child, I remembered that my sister had a small collection of vintage Mattel children, Tutti, Todd, Chris, and Carla, Barbie's siblings and their friends, and I thought they would make nice little angels with smaller wings, so I asked her if she would give me one of them.
That's how Sweets Sunshine made her way to me. My sister thought with that face she would make a pretty angel and I had to agree.

I beaded a white gown with short puffy sleeves for her and gave her bead embroidered wings.
Someone gave Sweets a haircut on top, but as her long hair had originally been in ponytails and was hard to tame anyway, I made a golden star embellished headband.

For a spontaneous idea, she turned out pretty well, don't you think?

Beaded Angel - The tenth door

Last year I found a YouTube tutorial for the cutest little angels. I had already picked all the topics, so I didn't include the angels in the advent calendar, but only shared them on social media.
You can find Krístina's video here. She speaks Czech, but shows everything so clearly that you won't necessarily need the commentary if you want to try making the angels. I didn't need it. I also improvised a little by using the supplies my sister and I had on hand which, for example, meant replacing SuperDuos with Twin Beads from my stash.
I made a few for my sister and myself to give away, and they were so well received that my sister then made a bunch more.

This year, however, I wanted to try something else.
Do you remember the puffy stars from the last calendar and that most of them were made from five components?
Well, the components (that can also be used as bails) reminded me of wings (not just me, I'm sure), and I wondered if I could design something around one of them. My first attempt didn't work out, but I put the wings aside in the hope for an epiphany sometime later.
That epiphany came a few weeks later after stumbling upon the pearls that I had also used for the mistletoe as they were about the same size of the pearls my sister had given me for the angels.
I also used the wing idea in other pieces then like Count Catula.

I wanted my new angel to be rather classic and therefore decided against a bronze Twin Bead robe - the only color I still had left.
Also I had been working from a box with my latest seed bead order which I still hadn't put away, and a few colors I had added to the box (because that's how my muse works), and eventually it had become a bit of a personal challenge for a while to make something only with beads in that box. In the end, the obvious choice was the same pearly white as in the wings, in a flowing Herringbone robe. Have I mentioned before that I love Herringbone? ;-)
There was also a tube with only a few golden beads left and they were just enough for a halo and two - uhm, buttons?

I didn't mind the Twin Bead angels having no arms, but with this one's wings being in the back, I definitely wanted some sleeves here and I am pretty happy with my solution for them.
I can't help thinking, though, that somehow this little angel looks as if waiting for instructions!

Christmas carols or The fifth door

Back then - like in the late 16th century - when I still was a kid and started taking violin lessons, one of the first complete melodies I learned to play was a Christmas carol. I forgot which one, but I remember being very proud.
A big part of my life saw me singing in different choirs, school choirs, a gospel choir, in church, and again I have always been a sucker for Christmas carols.
Almost exactly two years ago I wrote a blog post about one of my favorites "God rest ye merry, gentlemen". Today I found a version I hadn't known yet, but that really rocks.



Maybe I should have given these little angels (promised you a picture of my latest earrings, didn't I?) flutes instead of making them sing?