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For me, Christmas time in the late 1970's meant seeing my favorite Christmas Special - Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey. It used to be shown at least once per season, and it was always a favorite at our house. I can still hear Roger Miller singing "Nestor was a donkey... and his ears dragged the ground. They whispered as they mocked him.. but he heard every sound..."
Then, in the 1980's, Nestor disappeared from the broadcast schedule entirely. A new generation of children were reared without knowing about the Long-Eared Donkey who carried Mary and Joseph. Nestor faded well into obsucrity....
During a work Christmas party in 1994, we were asked to describe our favorite Christmas story. I described Nestor, the long-eared donkey who all of the other barnyard animals made fun of because his ears dragged the ground. He was treated horribly by everyone else, and after his mother dies protecting him from freezing during a snow storm, Nestor sets out on his own and eventually he winds up carrying a very pregnant Mary and Joseph across a desert during a sandstorm, though he is able to protect them by wrapping them up with his ears.
After relating these facts my boss reached over and took my drink from me, saying "That's enough for you". I was the only one who had ever heard of Nestor, and the more I described the particulars of the story ("It was narrated by Roger Miller as Santa's Christmas Donkey", "His ears were so long in fact that he could use them to ski down montains", "He finds a falling star but it actually turns out to be a cherub named Tilly voiced by Brenda Vacarro", etc.) the worse it sounded to those who had never heard of it. Thank goodness for Suncoast Video, who had it so that I could screen it at work (I worked for Barnes and Noble at the time) and prove that I wasn't on crack and not have to take a drug test.
So if you have never heard of Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, I urge you to tune in (or TiVo) next Wednesday on ABC Family:
ABC Family: Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, the Movie
Sure, it's a combination of elements of Rudolph with a Gene Autry song, but sentimental childhood favorites are often hard to understand years later.
Then, in the 1980's, Nestor disappeared from the broadcast schedule entirely. A new generation of children were reared without knowing about the Long-Eared Donkey who carried Mary and Joseph. Nestor faded well into obsucrity....
During a work Christmas party in 1994, we were asked to describe our favorite Christmas story. I described Nestor, the long-eared donkey who all of the other barnyard animals made fun of because his ears dragged the ground. He was treated horribly by everyone else, and after his mother dies protecting him from freezing during a snow storm, Nestor sets out on his own and eventually he winds up carrying a very pregnant Mary and Joseph across a desert during a sandstorm, though he is able to protect them by wrapping them up with his ears.
After relating these facts my boss reached over and took my drink from me, saying "That's enough for you". I was the only one who had ever heard of Nestor, and the more I described the particulars of the story ("It was narrated by Roger Miller as Santa's Christmas Donkey", "His ears were so long in fact that he could use them to ski down montains", "He finds a falling star but it actually turns out to be a cherub named Tilly voiced by Brenda Vacarro", etc.) the worse it sounded to those who had never heard of it. Thank goodness for Suncoast Video, who had it so that I could screen it at work (I worked for Barnes and Noble at the time) and prove that I wasn't on crack and not have to take a drug test.
So if you have never heard of Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, I urge you to tune in (or TiVo) next Wednesday on ABC Family:
ABC Family: Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, the Movie
Sure, it's a combination of elements of Rudolph with a Gene Autry song, but sentimental childhood favorites are often hard to understand years later.
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