The Little Rocket That Couldn't

This Year's Favorite Christmas Special

I love how I can be a hero to my daughter by simply taping her favorite episode of a show.

I love the Little Einsteins. I love that each episode features a classical piece of music and art. While countless adults (myself included) automatically think of Bugs and Elmer Fudd when they hear "The Barber of Seville," so too my daughter thinks of Little Einsteins when she hears certain pieces of classical music. I love that the show uses the real musical terms when controlling Rocket. My daughter now asks me why I'm going "slow allegro" when I'm not going fast enough in the car (yes, I know it's not exactly correct, but the song is "don't be slow, don't be slow, just go allegro," and she simply omits the rest of the lyrics). And the show celebrates the imagination of children, reminding us how similar it is to a drug trip.

Take "The Christmas Wish." They integrate the painting "Starry Night" by Van Gogh by having Leo wish for a bright light for his baton so Rocket can see up Mount Everest in order to get his sister Annie's missing Christmas Wish Box (yeah, I know). Now, they have already faced toy soldiers and a forest of candy canes, so they can't let a little thing like darkness hold them back! As Leo waves his baton to the melody of "Für Elise" by Beethoven, the light swirls into the sky, lighting their way. Lucy may have been in the sky with diamonds, but these kids light up the sky with swirly light coming from a kid's baton set to the tune of a piano bagatelle.

It's really the music that made my daughter stop in her tracks and pay attention. She stops everything when she hears the opening bars of the song, and then sways along to the tune. She has always loved piano music, and this one in particular seems to have spoken to her in a way the best music does. It grabs you and forces you to take notice. "I wish, I wish, I wish a Christmas wish. I wish, I wish, a Christmas wish," are the lyrics they sing to the tune. The Christmas Wish Box is a box that grants you your one wish for Christmas. But you have to sing the song.

Annie's Christmas Wish Box got lost, dropped accidentally from Santa's sleigh. The kids now have a mission: get her Wish Box back! Rocket uses his wish for a Wish Box gadget, a meter that can read how close they are to the wish box (it doesn't seem to get confused by the three wish boxes that the other kids have brought aboard). Quincy wishes for a drum so they can get past the toy soldiers blocking their path (which is odd, because it has been previously established that Rocket has any and all instruments they could even need or want on board already). June wishes for ballet boots to overcome the candy cane forest (now my daughters asks me whenever she catches me singing the Christmas Wish song if I'm wishing for pink ballet boots for her; she loves to dance). And big brother Leo gets the aforementioned light for his baton.

If I have one problem with the show in general, illustrated by this episode, it is how Rocket can do everything...and nothing. One minute, he's flying to the Himalayas, the next, he needs to get his treads on and climb Mount Everest. He can't fly over the toy soldiers, or the forrest of candy canes. To make matters worse, the end of this particular episode sees Rocket sitting on the sidelines while Annie (who is FOUR) climbs the final 50 feet or so in order to rescue her Christmas Wish Box. The final 50 feet to get to the top of Mount Everest. At the age of four. I understand that this is fantasy, but still. He's a freaking ROCKET. I guess adventures are less fun when you can do whatever you want without adversity (wait, that sounds like a suspiciously "conservative" message...).

At the end of the day, it's a wonderful little episode about the spirit of Christmas, that giving is better than receiving. Annie's wish, once she gets her Wish Box, is that they are all together for Christmas, which they are. In one of the most inhospitable climates on earth, but whatever. Merry Christmas! The wonderful thing about the show is that it is set up as a play that the kids are setting up, with an opening curtain at the beginning and a curtain call at the end. All of this may only be going on in the kids' heads, but it's so wonderful, we all get to go along for the ride. I can only hope my children's eventual shows for us will be half as imaginative. And that my kids find friends as loyal as these four are to each other.