I teased this Christmas episode of The Baby-Sitters Club back in my very first Halloween post and I’ve just been itching to re-watch and write about it. So let us now delve into this very special (you know it’s special because “special” is in the title) Christmas episode.
We begin with a perfect opening scene, set to the show’s insanely catchy theme song, featuring the members of the Baby-Sitters Club first gazing at one of those awesome Christmas store windows seen in TV shows and then shopping at said store. The store reminds of me of a now-defunct retailer from my childhood that was called simply The Store. It was a sort of all-in-one drug store we used to go to during summer vacations at Lake Tahoe. It was less than a department store but more than your average CVS or Duane Reade. It had tchotchkes galore and, like my childhood self, the babysitters are loving it. Even better, the store seen in the show is decked out in a major way for Christmas.
Not only Green Berets wear green berets
While at The Store Kristy falls in love with an expensive baseball glove, so expensive no one dares utter how much it actually costs throughout the episode. They just say things like “very expensive” when asked and at one point Kristy whispers the price into her mother’s ear. Seriously, how fucking expensive is this thing? It’s like the Voldemort of baseball gloves: The Price That Shall Not Be Named. Kristy’s mom says if she does chores to pay for some of it she might get the glove, so we see her doing chores throughout the episode. A lot of chores, because that baseball glove is very expensive.
That’s just the B-plot, though. The main story involves Stacey, who can’t stop eating holiday sweets despite her diabetes. Dawn is extremely distressed by this and is all over Stacey every time she freakin’ takes a bite of something. At one point they get into an argument and Stacey says something about “knowing her own body.” It’s intense! But Dawn is ultimately justified by staying on Stacey’s ass because Stacey has zero self control and can’t stop nibbling on cookies and fudge until she starts acting like instead of having high blood sugar she’s wasting away from some subtropical influenza. Seriously, she acts so sedated she can’t muster the strength to read a Rudolph picture book aloud to one of her babysitting charges.
Too tired for carols. So. Very. Tired.
The day before Christmas the friends gather at a diner for their Secret Santa exchange. This reminded me so much of many similar gift-swap lunches I attended during junior high and high school, at pizza joints and a local sushi restaurant. Much jewelry from Claires, scented lotions from Bath & Body Works and those candy-cane plastic tubes filled with M&Ms were exchanged over the years. Anyhoo, the red-headed babysitter, who barely speaks in this episode, is totally shafted at the gift exchange. One girl gets earrings; another bath stuff. And the redhead gets a round orange plastic figurine that we earlier saw one of the girls playing with at The Store. “It squirts water,” says someone amidst the gift-opening flurry. Someone gave her a squirt toy?! There’s always at least one dud in every Secret Santa exchange.
Anyhoo, Stacey eats fudge and dies. No, but she does end up at the hospital on Christmas Day, the same hospital her friends are conveniently at for a children’s ward party. She gives a surprisingly well-written speech about how it sucks being sick all the time and ends up attending the party in her pajamas. Kristy ends up giving her new, very expensive baseball glove to Ned, a really gloomy kid in a wheelchair whose parents we are told earlier are too poor to afford gas to drive to the hospital to see him. Everyone is happy. And oh yeah, baby Danny Tamberelli, in his pre-Adventures of Pete & Pete days, is in this episode as one of the kids the girls babysit for!
You're never too sick to smile
As if you couldn't tell, I love this episode. The weird 90s fashions make it worth the watch alone, but it’s also very Christmasy and melodramatic. There are a ton of Christmas decorations in every scene and I want to live in The Store. But I do feel bad for the redhead who doesn’t get any lines AND gets stuck with a squirt toy.
Recurring Themes: Our first instance of Giving Up the Gift, in which a character really wants a specific present, receives it, and then gives it away to someone in need. We also get a Group Sing Finale and a Children's Hospital.
Christmas Quotient: 5
See It, Skip It, Own It? If only this was available to own and treasure for all time! For now content yourself with seeing it and give thanks to Netflix for making it happen!
Somehow in my youth I never read a single
Baby-Sitters Club book, though like any late 80s to 90s kid I was well aware of
them.The Baby-Sitters Club books
were something rooted in the background of my childhood, found on library
shelves and inside friends’ backpacks, most notable for their awesome covers
and that baby block logo.Despite
the massive success of the book series the TV series was a one-season flop and
was already a failure regulated to reruns when I first discovered it.It was one of those midday Saturday
afternoon shows found on the Disney Channel, aired only for the very bored
and/or lazy.Of course I watched
it.
The best thing about the show, then and now,
is its insanely catchy theme song.Seriously, I defy you not to sing along…
To call “Dawn and the Haunted House” a
Halloween episode is something of a stretch, even for my somewhat loose
standards.It falls into a haunted
house subgenre that shows often substitute for an actual Halloween
episode.To even use the word
“haunted” in this case is pushing it.Dawn isn’t even really the central character, so basically the title
should just be “And the…House.”Still, it’s the closest thing to a Halloween episode the Baby-Sitters
Club offered so I’ll take it.
The plot is your basic “misunderstood neighbor
woman believed to be a witch but turns out to be nice.”The girls in the titular club are leery
of spooky neighbor Mrs. Slade.While in the woods near her house they discover a sick dog and a weird
pile of stones (very Blair Witch) and
at the hardware store they witness her buying a shovel and… A BROOM!Burn her!!!!Obviously, she’s a witch.I mean, she bought a broom.
Do not buy a broom in front of these two. Not even a mop.
At their spooky attic sleepover Claudia is weirdly
defensive of Mrs. Slade.So
naturally her rational, loving friends deduce that she’s under a spell.When they later see her in Mrs. Slade’s
house they hatch a scheme in which Mrs. Slade is sent running to the woods to
search for an imaginary sick dog while they rescue Claudia.Who, it turns out, is just being
tutored by Mrs. Slade, who is not a witch but a former veterinarian who just
really cares about animals.To the
girls’ credit, I myself have confused many a veterinarian for a witch in my day.They are practically indistinguishable.
The girl gang then rushes into the woods to
rectify their mistake, eventually all barking like dogs to better attract Mrs.
Slade’s attention.So yes, you do
get a scene of the various members of the Baby-Sitter’s Club all simultaneously
barking like dogs in the woods.Bonus!
There’s a nice little coda at the end in which
the girls don monster masks to scare Claudia, which is about as Halloweeny as
things get.
Heading off to dish out some more vigilante justice
Halloween Quotient: 1
See It, Skip It, Own It?
This one is a skip, but hold out for the
amazing Christmas diabetes episode (to come!).
