Dear Friends,
Happy third day of Christmas! Today my true love gave to me …
Well, no. We do celebrate Christmas for twelve days around here, but we don’t give and receive gifts on each day. That would be extravagant beyond our means. Maybe someday when a thousand more of your friends subscribe to The Square Inch!
On that note, I do want to thank each and every one of you for subscribing. It’s been a pleasure writing for you this year and I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have. On Friday I’ll put together the annual “Year In Review,” and I might forget to thank you. So while I’m thinking about it: Thank You!
Let’s do a little scattershot today of various happenings.
We have enjoyed the strangest December in memory and—with apologies to my friend and sparring partner Jake Meador—I am not really very worried that it might be because the climate is changing. Blue skies, sunshine, and fifty degrees for the whole month! Not a millimeter of precipitation. We’d just gotten used to the idea that we were not going to have a White Christmas when, out of nowhere, a dark storm rolled in on Friday. It got cold and scattered just enough snow to stick and officially “count” as a White Christmas. Truly lovely.
My favorite gift this year was yet another four-volume set of Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics. I know, I know. How many sets of this classic and magisterial theological work does a man need? The answer is four.
From left to right, that’s the First Edition (now extremely rare, but I got it for fifty Euros in Holland back when nobody cared!), the Second Revised Edition (just admire that midcentury modern font!), the first English Edition, and the new “Deluxe Edition” in leather. The only reason I needed another is because my other English set is literally falling apart. I look forward to giving these beauties another close read and a fresh set of underlinings and annotations, and I’m set for the rest of my life!
Usually we take the time to watch all our favorite Christmas movies this time of year. But somehow my older girls are extremely busy (they had to go and get jobs!) and all we managed with those two was Die Hard. Yes, that is a Christmas movie, and one of the best ever (and, obviously: language warning!). Bruce Willis gave a legendary performance, and it reminds me to pray for him—if you didn’t know, he’s suffering from early dementia and is completely out of the public eye.
Without the older girls we also managed to view Christmas in Connecticut, which I think I wrote about last year and continues to be one of our favorites.
Last night Mary (Age 9) insisted on using her own money to rent and share with the rest of us something she loves: this theatrical musical production of Pride & Prejudice. It cost a whole $4.99, and she let it be known that she wants her penny back. After we watched it, we lamented that we didn’t just buy the whole thing for twenty bucks. It is really delightful! It’s available on Amazon, and I highly recommend.
Mary and I also watched The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe. I think an argument could be made that it’s a Christmas movie. It has lots of snow, and Father Christmas makes an appearance. I bring it up only to say: that is a very underrated film. It’s not a perfect adaptation of Lewis’s book, but it is really well done! If you haven’t seen it in awhile, give it another shot. The two follow-ups, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader were pretty much flops and the series died out.
Until now! Rumor has it that The Silver Chair is in production and Christians everywhere groaned when they heard the news of who exactly is directing it: Greta Gerwig, most recently of Barbie fame. Now, I didn’t see Barbie. I read quite a few drastically divergent reviews that lead me to believe the film is quite a bit deeper than its surface appearance. But I understand why people assume that she is going to make C.S. Lewis “woke.” But I have a different, more hopeful reaction when hearing that Greta Gerwig is going to direct The Silver Chair:
They got a professional! A real-deal, proven Hollywood director. The last time the franchise did that was … oh: The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe. The successful one.
You see, I think she’s proven her filmmaking competence and I think she’s going to take the job very, very seriously. This has the chance of being a substantial film.
Now, who’s gonna be Puddleglum? I vote Johnny Depp. The guy literally blew a half a billion dollars. He needs the work, and the part was practically written for him.
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