Deliberately Relaxing

  I am sure if you read one of my previous posts about relaxation that you have tried to relax, but if you are like me and many others, while you are sitting still drinking tea, your mind is in a whirl with all the things you must do. As I stated previously, the Australians do much better at deliberately relaxing.

  It is often impossible for me to follow the idea of leisure which I so often post here, because of my heritage.  My husband's Grandmother in Kansas, would say to her farmer husband when he came in to sit a spell (or set a spell, as they said), "Sonny, (that was his nickname for as long as anyone could remember) while you are resting, how about fixing the roof (fence, porch, driveway)."   No wonder we think about these things when we are in a relaxed position. So, you see, we all came by it legitimately.

One thing that kept us sitting still yesterday, was a new Hallmark movie, "The Christmas Train."  I rarely buy a video unless it is extraordinary and haven't bought one since  "Love Finds You in Charm." I may buy this one when it appears in the Hallmark store. 

This one  reminds me of the old technicolor movies with the clear color, beautiful sound, the layers of scenery and the feeling of warmth. I like also that it is a clean movie with no mind-bending agenda. It was just a story.

Hallmark usually operates on a less than lavish budget, but this is a "hall of fame" production, which means they pulled out all the stops, and really decorated the train stations and the inside of the train was wonderful. It looks like a big cinema production, the kind you would go to the theatre to see. If you get a chance, watch some of the cast interviews, especially Dermot Mulroney, the central figure of the story, describe how the movie set was made into a train so realistically that the movie of scenery going past the train Windows made the performers a little dizzy when they looked at it. They felt they were on a real train. They did film quite a bit of the movie on actual trains.

Now, you might be thinking a quarter way through this movie that this is a slow story with a typical sappy romantic theme, but that is just to throw you off the mystery, to which there are clues all through the script. I had to watch it several times to see where the characters slipped up and left hints of what was really going on.

 Mr. S., who mainly likes old westerns and car-chases, stayed up late and watched this with me and it kept his attention. He wasn't secretly writing ideas and plans and schedules in his little notebook like he usually does when he's not interested in something. All attention was on board the train. Men like anything with a vehicle in it, whether a boat or a plane. I'm not so sure they are as crazy about coaches, barouches and wagons, but a train moves slightly faster.

Some of the details of the movie I enjoyed: the chess game with a surprise outcome, the song about the Christmas train, which I believe was sung by the male lead of the movie, Agnes, the lady who is a resident train passenger for some unexplained reason, the movie producer who wants to have a script about train passengers, and the sleigh scene. There is a pleasing mix of generations in this film.

The only thing missing was a scene of afternoon tea being served in tea cups, but this wasn't the Royal Scotsman.  Even "When Calls the Heart" pictures the Mountie having tea in th saloon. More tea scenes, please, Hallmark! Since so many of their movies are filmed in Canada, proper tea sets should be accessible. 

There was such an unexpected twist at the end. I never saw it coming. 

I liked that  although the story had some friction  in it from past resentments coming from the two main characters, they had the grace to be kind to one another.   

I think it has to be viewed several times before you can pick up some of the details in the script. 

You can go to Hallmark.com and  see behind the scenes and interviews with the performers.