April Winchell

The Miracle of Christmas

Sometimes I feel just like Jennifer Connely in A Beautiful Mind. Not because I'm married to a schizophrenic, though there is that, but because I too, "need to believe something extroardinary is possible".

So you can imagine my joy when I opened my email this morning and saw the following breaking entertainment news from People Magazine:

"Fans of "Friends" got an unexpected early Christmas present this weekend: the news that their favorite show is coming back for a 10th season.

Not that the agreement with the show's creative team and its cast came cheaply. NBC is expected to agree to pay the highest price in television history for a 30-minute show, as much as $9 million an episode, to bring the show and all six of its stars back.

Some industry estimates on Sunday calculated that NBC will pay as much as $240 million for the 10th season."

Dear sweet baby Jesus, my heart swelled with joy and I could hear a choir sing. Surely, this is the true meaning of Christmas; a network shelling out $240 million to 6 marginally talented actors who can't possiby live long enough to spend all the money they have now.

How brave they all were to come back! How exhausting it must be to have a nanny raise your children so you can go to the studio 4 days a week and smoke cigarettes in your trailer while your underpaid assistant runs to the Coffee Bean to get your Ice Blended Mocha. How debilitating it must be to sort those residual checks every week, until your thumbs ache so badly that you have to hire someone just to open the envelopes. But they came back. They came back for us. Just like Jesus! Do you see the parallel now?

And here's another way you can tell it's Christmas: Gelson's has put bows on all their meat.

It's true. I went shopping yesterday and everything in the meat department had a big mylar bow on it. I had never thought of meat in that way before, but I think that's what I'll be giving this year. Meat. With a bow on it. 'm not even going to refrigerate it. Just put it under the tree. There's chuck for Timmy, chops for sue, ham for Aunt Sadie — oh wait, she's a Jew!

I'm on to something. Or I'm just on something. I can't tell which.