"Christmas is the season where we give tokens of love. In that house we received not tokens but love itself. I became the writer I promise my father I would be, and my destiny led me far from Walton's Mountain. My mother lives there still, Alone now, for we lost my father in 1969. My brothers and sisters, grown with children of their own, live not far away. We are still a close family and see each other when we can. And like Miss Mamie Baldwin's fourth cousins, we're apt to sample the recipe and then gather around the piano and hug each other while we sing the old songs. For no matter the time or the distance, we are united in the memory of that Christmas Eve. More than 30 years and 3,000 miles away, I can still hear those sweet voices."
~John-Boy Walton
(Richard Thomas)
The Homecoming: A Christmas Story
By Earl Hamner
Here is another favorite from my childhood, The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, which aired on December 19th, 1971. I was nine years old, and I remember watching it that night because my mother had made a roll of Pillsbury Sugar Cookies. YUMMY cookies, while watching a movie! My family was the exact opposite of the Waltons, so the series kept me captivated when I was a child, and now, even as an old lady of 63, I still watch this movie, and wonder what it would have been like to have a family like theirs, close in love. I wonder if era's make a difference? The Waltons was set during the Depression, in the 1930's. Folks took care of one another and looked out for family. The 1960's and 70's was quite different. Oh well, anyway, the point it that There aren't a lot of tv movies from my childhood, that still live in my heart, but this one does. It's all about family!
