It ain’t Christmas ‘til somebody busts out the jazz hands!

I’m a sucker for musicals. So tonight me and my guys are heading to the Bing for some crooning and cavorting – Crosby-style. The Advocates for the Bing Crosby Theater (ABCT) are presenting the 4th annual Bing Crosby Holiday Film Festival . This year’s event features three Bing Crosby films, concluding with the traditional showing of White Christmas .

Eric’s coming along because, well, it’s the holidays. And everyone knows the holidays are about doing things for others even if it makes you want to throw up in your mouth a little.

And Kegan’s coming for pretty much the same reason, except that I added a heap of  nostalgia-heavy guilt to his load. You see, back in the days immediately following my graduation from EWU (Go, Eagles!) we moved to Coeur d’Alene and I worked for their newspaper for a year. I couldn’t afford cable, which meant we had to find something else to do with our spare time. And so began my love affair with public libraries. We’d walk to the Cd’A library a couple times each week and check out armloads of books and movies … their classic film selection was especially impressive.

During this particular time in our lives, Kegan was 5, which means he was young enough to believe me when I told him it was perfectly natural for little boys to enjoy song-and-dance numbers … especially the ones featuring jazz hands. Thanks to Gigi and Grease , Mary Poppins and Singing in the Rain , Kegan learned that being a star used to mean more than being beautiful or lucky. It meant knowing how to hit the high notes while splashing in puddles.

By the time we moved back to Spokane and he started 1st grade, my little musical buff had pretty much figured out I was trying to warp him for life, and so moved on to better things, like Pokemon.

Tonight, as we three sit in our seats at the Bing, I’m counting on Vera-Ellen’s “Mandy” to awaken a new appreciation for the Golden Age of Entertainment in my guys. Have you seen those legs? Hubba hubba and happy holidays!

The festival actually runs all day, and it’s all FREE ! (But a donation will be most happily accepted.) YAY!

Here is the schedule (borrowed from the Met’s Event Page):

• Noon — Holiday Inn , the 1942 film in which Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire sing and dance in the romantic comedy set in an inn open only at the holidays. This is the film in which the song “White Christmas” is introduced.
• 2:30 p.m. — Road to Zanzibar , the 1941 classic “road” film pairing Bing Crosby with Bob Hope as men who flee to Africa after selling a phony diamond to a gangster.
• 5 p.m. — A talk and reading by Carolyn Schneider, daughter of Bing’s sister Mary Rose Crosby, whose new book, Bing: On the Road to Elko , has just been published.
• 7 p.m. — A talk by Howard Crosby, son of Bing’s brother Ted Crosby. Howard, a golfer, spent many days on the links with his famous uncle and will share stories of those good times.
• 7:30 p.m. — White Christmas , the 1954 film which has become a holiday classic, featuring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen.
• Carolyn Schneider, Howard Crosby and his brother Ed Crosby, will be at the theater throughout the day to visit with members of the public.