Hi everyone,

I hope everyone's ready for Christmas by now. I have just bought my final gifts today. We got up really early and headed to a huge shopping mall and bought everything we needed so just about everything has been bought now, except some of the food things that I can't get until the last minute. Now I've just got to wrap everything. The house is looking much more Christmassy than it was last week so we're well on the way now. I'll be needing to do lots of cooking towards the end of the week so I hope that it's not too hot. That would be one very good thing about Christmas in a colder climate. When you cook Christmas dinner the whole house doesn't melt too!

Just a quick reminder that the Little House movie with Richard Thomas is airing on Dec 26th. "The CBS special "Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder" is scheduled to air Sunday, December 26, at 8:00 pm (Eastern and Pacific time zones)." I hope many of you will be able to see it and enjoy it. Please let us know what you think.

Also remember the TNN's Waltons Marathon. I can't remember when it was on, or what was being shown, but enjoy it anyway.

Some good news for British Waltons fans too, with the news from one of our members, that The Homecoming will be shown over there shortly...New Year's Day to be exact. It's on very early so either don't celebrate to much on New Year's Eve, or set you tape for the next day BEFORE you go out to celebrate.:-) It's a nice start to the New Year anyway. Here in Australia we have A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion showing tomorrow at lunchtime too. Amazing.

Now for a bit of a discussion. Which John Boy did you prefer and why? Richard Thomas or Robert Wightman? You don't necessarily have to choose one over the other. Perhaps each one has qualities you liked in their portrayal as John Boy. Please send me you thoughts. By the way, does anyone know what Robert Wightman has done since? I've had a query about him this week and really haven't seen him in much.

Enjoy this very busy week everyone.

Goodnight, Karen.

<< Hello! I have so many questions about the Waltons and here they all are: Who did Mary Ellen divorce? I don't recall that at all. how is rose related to the Waltons? What happened to Ben and Cindy's second child (can't recall his name)? He just disappeared. Mary Ellen was told that she could have no more kids, but in The Walton Thanksgiving Reunion, she had two more kids, on John Curtis was not there. >>

Jessica, I'll try to answer your questions!

Mary Ellen divorced Curt. Originally they said he was killed at Pearl Harbor, but later it was discovered he was only badly injured, and hadn't wanted to come home to Mary Ellen and John Curtis because he was crippled and didn't want Mary Ellen to have a cripple for a husband. (I thought that episode was very silly!) So she divorced him and married Jonesy, her second husband, played by Richard Gilliland.

We'd all love to know what happened to Ben and Cindy's second child, Charlie. The writers apparently forgot he existed or something! Shame on them for not remembering about him; did they think the fans would forget?

No explanation was given for Mary Ellen not being able to have children, and yet having two little ones in the reunion movies. Again, I think this is a case of the writers forgetting what happened in the earlier reunion movies, or hoping the fans would forget or something. John Curtis is never mentioned in the later reunion movies (I'm referring to the ones done in the 90's, not in the early to mid 80's), which bothers all us Waltons fans! It's as if he never existed, too! I've always felt the least they could have done was say something like that he was away at college or in medical school studying to become a doctor or something, but they never mentioned him.

Hope that helps!

Geri Ann

KAREN'S COMMENT: Hope that all answers your questions Jessica.

Hiya Karen

As a British fan of the Waltons I thought all your British fans would like to know that on New Year's Day at 9:00am, Channel 4 will be showing THE HOMECOMING.

I just got my Xmas TV magazine and it surprised me by going up to New Year's Day, so I thought I would take a look and see if they had any specials on, and low and behold there it was, so all you Brits, get those videos set! I know I will.

Also, I thought the Brits would like to know that if they go to http://www.amazon.co.uk and do a search in the book section for Earl Hamner, the following books are available to buy: The Homecoming (£11.01) (audio cassette, read by Richard Thomas), Spencer's Mountain (£16.56), You Can't Get There from Here (£16.56), The Homecoming : A Novel About Spencer's Mountain (£14.35). I hope this helps the fans, because I know how difficult it is to get anything to do with the Waltons here and they would make good Christmas presents.

And thank you Karen for a brilliant digest, it keeps us Brits pretty well informed as to what is going on around the world for us fans. Keep up the great work.

Merry Christmas all!

Caroline

KAREN'S COMMENT: The UK Amazon site was a great suggestion Caroline. I've bought from both the USA and the UK site and they're both excellent.

Hi to Karen and all:

Karen: congratulations on your son's terrific score. What is he interested in doing, I forget if you mentioned it or not before. I'd put in a vote for Social Work, it's been a rewarding field for me.

The episode "A Children's Carol" (I think that was the title) showed on TNN yesterday. The one with the English children. I noticed a blooper in it while I was watching. Well, maybe it wasn't really a blooper, but I have a tendency to notice small things. Obviously it was winter in Virginia, as everyone was running around wearing coats, hats, scarves, and gloves. At one point, it was night time and the scene was simply showing the outside of the house - the blooper was that the background noise was crickets chirping!

It just struck me as funny. Did anybody else notice this mistake?

I also spotted the actor who played Erin's husband in an old episode of Quincy the other day.

Well, the happiest of holidays to all, may God bless you and keep you and your loved ones safe in his hands.

Regards,

Maggy

KAREN'S COMMENT: I hadn't heard the crickets before but will definitely listen when I have another look at that video. Tim is hoping to get into a computer course and studying multimedia.

<<KAREN'S COMMENT: Thanks for your answer Beth. Yes Corabeth simply wasn't happy to see Aimee marry beneath her but was Ike instrumental in getting them back together do you think? It wasn't made clear. Nice to see Rachel reappearing.>>

Exactly! He read a letter that Aimee had written (which Corabeth had refused to look at), and it seemed as though he either called her or wrote to her. When Corabeth went into the store on Thanksgiving and saw Ike with all of the food to make a dinner (instead of going out like they had originally planned), Ike says that he thought it wouldn't be Thanksgiving at a restaurant.

-Beth

KAREN'S COMMENT: I hadn't remembered that, but I'll be watching out for it tomorrow when the special airs again here.

Hi Karen,

I'm not a frequent contributor, but I do so much look forward to the digests each week. I wanted to respond to some queries about the Waltons Christmas CD: it is available on both the Amazon.com site as well as the TNN site (through Country.com) for $12.99 US, not including shipping. I keep checking at the TNN webpage to see whether they have announced a Walton's Marathon over the Christmas holiday, but I have not heard or read anything about that yet. Keep those VCR's standing by!

Lorraine

KAREN'S COMMENT: I have a feeling it was this weekend Lorraine.