Yes, my one New Year's resolution is to post all of my articles on time in 2019 ... in the meantime, enjoy this week's Wordplay Wednesday, day late, and $$ short!
Grab Popcorn & Tissues for Holiday Tearjerkers
Grab Popcorn & Tissues for Holiday Tearjerkers
During the Holiday Season, between charity fundraisers and classic seasonal TV movies, the tissue companies make a LOT of dough, and
we’re not talkin’ cookies.
This season, the television cable channels
must have bought stock in the tissue companies. They appear to have launched a slew
of new tearjerkers hoping to challenge the likes of It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and A Christmas Story (1983;
never lick a frozen pole!). Will this
spawn a new awards show for … 
LACHRYMOSE (lakʹri mōs’) adj. 1) inclined to shed many tears,
tearful; 2) causing tears, sad. [WW #193]
The Hallmark Channel even has an app to track your list of watched vs. not watched lachrymose
movie titles in their Countdown to Christmas presentation of premiered movies. Of course … there’s an app
for everything.
While generally embodying the Christmas
spirit, often combined with romance and a healthy dose of sentimentality, I
haven’t yet seen a new lachrymose film that matches the
staying power of the classics.
Has anyone portrayed a more convincing Kris Kringle
than Edmund Gwenn in 1947’s A Miracle on 34th Street?
And there isn’t a classier lachrymose
Holiday classic than White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Vera-Ellen, and Rosemary
Clooney (1954). It sends us reeling through the gamut from sweet to touchingly
amusing to playful … and of course back to love found, love lost, and love
rekindled. Sniffle, sniffle.
What is it about the lachrymose Holiday movies
that we can’t seem to get enough of? Perhaps we’re so wrapped up in our own
emotional lives the rest of the year that we don’t see others’ depth of
emotional experiences. Until the Holidays. When giving, sharing, and loving are
daily buzzwords, sprinkled with a little Christmas Magic.
Grab a yummy eggnog and a fresh box of
tissues. Enjoy.
Word Challenge: LACHRYMOSE. Count the times a
movie, charity story or news event causes you to reach for a tissue, as you fit
lachrymose
into your week of sensitive writings.
Learning knows no prejudices or boundaries, and it isn’t fattening!
Expanding your mind is a no-cost, simple joy. Do you feel that way too? What’s
your inspiration? Share your creative genius and Wordplay
Wednesday comments below.
Write first for yourself … only then can you write for others. (L.Rochelle)
LinDee Rochelle is a writer and editor by
trade, and an author by way of Rock & Roll. She has published two books (of
three) in her Blast from Your Past
series about pioneering R&R Radio DJs. The true behind-the-mic tales make
GREAT Holiday Gifts available on Amazon (eBook and print): Book 1 – Rock & Roll
Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959; and Book 2 – Rock & Roll
Radio DJs: The Swinging Sixties. Coming soon … The Psychedelic Seventies!
E-N-Dzzzzzzzz
