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A reason to watch in an otherwise very hectic season

 

As the holiday season progresses, the soaps will likely produce at least one holiday-themed episode.  I thoroughly enjoy the holiday episodes regardless if it is a national holiday or a Hallmark holiday.

The holiday episodes tend to be the one time of the year that the majority of the cast is featured and integrated into one common storyline.  The sets are dressed up, but even if they aren’t, you get to see the majority of the cast! It’s a great time to highlight the couples, partnerships and the lonely at heart. The holiday episodes can be the catalyst to change a character, test out the possibility of new couples, wrap up storylines and springboard to new story arcs.  The episodes are usually happy, humorous and heartfelt. Sometimes they are used to show us the error of our ways and how to become a better person. I actually think the holiday episodes have much more potential than the February and November sweeps period.

It seems that in recent years, we don’t get as many of the family/town incorporating holiday events.  Storylines and characters are much more compartmentalized and lack what should be normal interaction with the other characters.

Christmas in Springfield usually meant the residents would be visited by a guy named “Nick.” He would try to smooth the ruffled feathers of battling couples and give the lonely hearted the hope of love. And who isn’t touched by the annual Christmas party for the children at General Hospital and the reading of “The Night Before Christmas,” or the first Christmas or something; or, sharing some of Alice’s doughnuts at the Horton Family Christmas in Salem on Days of our Lives? Of course, it’s all the other shenanigans that are going on in town that keep us on the edge of our seat.

What about some of the other major holidays?  In previous years, Genoa City would have a big 4th of July party at the Newman ponderosa.  Women would give each other those catty looks with claws showing, while donning their little swimsuits and bikini’s. And you always wondered who might get pushed into the pool.

I applaud GL for continuing with the annual Bauer BBQ. Although the Bauer’s are no longer one of the prominent families in Springfield, and one year the Coopers hosted the Bauer BBQ, it is still a wonderful tradition.  For the long time soap viewers, it is tradition, the history and the growth of the characters that keeps us coming back. 

This year in one of my favorite soap bergs, Valentines Day was a bust! There was no love and no romance. Cupid’s arrow didn’t hit anyone! All we got were split screens of bickering couples that were in a cold war standing somewhere with a look of longing and loneliness. 

Thanksgiving in Oakdale only featured the Snyder’s having a family dinner. The dinner scene was very brief because it was interrupted with a fight between two brothers, Jack and Brad. We didn’t see any of the other families in town and no one seemed thankful for anything. It was all so sad.  

I’m hoping that this year’s Christmas episodes are filled with happiness. There has been so much doom and gloom, I would like to see the year come to a close on a hopeful note. I so look forward to seeing the entire cast and not just the newbie’s or the characters with the front burner storyline.  I want to see sworn enemies bury the hatchet and not in each others back for at least 24 hours.  Seriously, with all the fighting, backstabbing that Jack Abbott and Victor Newman have done this year on Y&R, I want to see the two great men call a truce for the holidays.  Is there anyone on your favorite soap that you want to see happy for the holidays?

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