Sabrina’s aunts are like ridiculously into Christmas. They’re wearing some pretty intense Christmas garb and acting even more peculiar than normal. But Sabrina’s cranky about Christmas. She gets frustrated with the lights and would rather use magic than deal with decorating by hand.
Sabrina’s aunts decide to engage her in a myriad of Christmas activities in an effort to make Sabrina more festive. But with each thing they try, she only gets less and less spirited. So finally they let her go to a party at the coolest club in the other realm on Christmas Eve. She’s such a grouch they decide to just spend Christmas Eve dinner without her.
But it turns out the other realm party is really creepy and awful. The only reason Sabrina was invited is that she is anti-Christmas spirit. The people at the party are throwing darts at a board with Santa’s face on it and watching a TV showing people celebrating Christmas.
That’s when things get really creepy. They zero in on Sabrina’s aunts eating without her and decide to make it even “more pathetic” by tricking them into thinking Sabrina came home for dinner, but then she of course doesn’t show. Like how creepy is that if witches can just watch each other? Like do they watch each other in the shower? Ick.
Sabrina is so disgusted that she rushes home to celebrate with her aunts. But when she gets there, she finds that she has erased Christmas entirely. (She turned off the TV and accidentally hit “erase” prior to leaving the other realm party.) Side note: Salem once destroyed the holiday “Bobunk” in much the same manner. What’s Bobunk? Exactly.
Sabrina tries to save Christmas by spreading Christmas cheer to everyone. And it turns out that Christmas is actually pretty creepy if you don’t know the traditions.
For example, Sabrina gets arrested when she dresses up as Santa and yes all a random child in a department store when she doesn’t sit on her lap. She also sounds like a nut because she keeps walking around singing Christmas carols but like they just sound like jibberish to everyone else…
But when she and her aunts get snowed in, Sabrina realizes “all the hoopla of Christmas isn’t as important as spending time with your family.” Whoops, the spell is reversed!
Very Special Lesson: Actually, I’m not sure what they were going for her. Sabrina didn’t like “the hoopla of Christmas” so it’s not like she was overly materialistic and needed to learn the “true” meaning of Christmas. She already spends a ton of time with her aunts and obviously never wanted them to suffer…oh wait yeah I guess she wasn’t supposed to skip Christmas Eve Dinner. So yeah. Have dinner with your loved ones and skip the crappy party instead.
Double Sabrina goes to Harvey’s party while real Sabrina goes to a Halloween party in the Other Realm. I’d have to say that Sabrina got this backwards and she should have sent the double to the other realms, but Hilda tries to send a double to the other realm and Zelda sees straight through it. So it looks like Sabrina made the right choice.
Or maybe not. Real-Sabrina is forced to sit a the kid’s table with her cousin, Amanda (played by Melissa Joan Hart’s real life sister). Amanda is a spoiled brat who puts people she doesn’t like in jars (with air holes luckily). It doesn’t take long for Sabrina to become her latest victim. Oh yeah and things aren’t going to great for clone Sabrina either. She’s agreed to streak to liven up the party. Clone Sabrina has no problem with this, but I have to assume that real Sabrina will. Harvey tries to talk Clone Sabrina out of streaking, but she can only utter like 3 sentences, so he just walks away confused and frustrated.
After they get home from the family party, Sabrina decides to skip the rest of Harvey’s party and stay-in to read letters from her grandmother instead. But Salem warns her not to “leave a double running around.” Sabrina gets to the house right at the same time that Clone Sabrina is streaking, which leaves everyone in the party thinking that Libby is the streaker (since she’s outside with Clone Sabrina). Libby is a jerk, but I kind of do feel bad for her here.
But her cousin Amanda (played by Melissa Joan Hart’s real life sister) is there and soon her Aunt Hilda arrives too. Aunt Hilda brings Sabrina’s mom disguised as a lama as a wedding present. She’s recently been liberated from the ball of wax due to some unexpected leniency from the witch’s counsel. Then Aunt Hilda presents Sabrina with a candle. Her Aunt Zelda has agreed to be wax in place of Sabrina’s mom for the duration of the wedding.
The soul stars almost fit together, but not completely. And try as she might, Sabrina can’t get them to fit. So she and Aaron have a talk, and he tells her he doesn’t really think life guarantees soul-mates but that they love each other and will try to make each other happy. This convinces Sabrina to go ahead with the wedding.
Sabrina shows up on her Aunt Hilda’s program and asks to speak to her and Mother Spellman STAT. They try to walk down the aisle as discretely as possible, but Sabrina’s stupid friends leave the alter to join the chat too. This is such a nightmare. Sabrina starts bemoaning the fact that the universe has been against this relationship from the start, and her mom and aunt tell her that she’s the only one dooming it to fail. They tell her to listen to what she really wants.
Luckily, it’s only Sabrina’s family and friends who end up standing on the church steps to see Harvey and Sabrina fit their soul stones together and ride off into the sunset (err, midday sun…) right at 12:36 exactly.
The plot of Sabrina (while much better than that of Roseanne and about on par with Family Matters) revolved around a single task, whereas Full House had tons of subplots and moving parts. That is what they do so well on vacation episodes. That is why this is the team to beat. But I do believe it’s possible. Or do you think they will become double vacation episode title holders?
The best part of this episode is that you get to watch Harvey be the safari tour guide. Aunt Hilda zaps him into that role to get him away from Libby (because apparently Harvey is totally untrustworthy?) Oh yeah, Hilda and Zelda are there as chaperones, but they spend almost no time at all with the kids. They’re the kind of chaperones who would let your kids lose their virginity in a maintenance closest behind the tree of life or walk around in the animal-only areas. Real winners. Actually, yeah the second one does happen. Poor, Martin Mull is the only one trying to keep these kids in line! And apparently there are also no Disney staff members around, which I find to be the least plausible part of all of this. Even less plausible than the witchcraft.
Full House features a bossy/bratty/still sweet Michelle winning a contest to become “Princess for a Day,” which she was only able to do because she cut in front of Stefanie in line. This grants Michelle the ability to have a series of wishes granted to her by the Disney Parks. She also gets to ride in a parade. And there are posters at every park and hotel declaring her the Disney Princess. This is ridiculous and I would like to subtract points for it, but overall the show has a better plot than that of Sabrina. There’s just no way that Disney World (who wants to make EVERY kid feel like princess/prince/pirate/magical creature/personified rodent/etc would ever publicly display everywhere in the park that they had a regular kid just like you to lord over you for a day on your expensive vacation. Speaking of vacation, the reason for this trip is that Jesse is taking a working-vacation with the family. His band, Jesse and The Rippers are playing at Cinderella’s Castle.
hey are Cinderella’s Castle level entertainment. These guys would be lucky to the get the stage near Canada at the World Showcase. The only Jesse and The Rippers performance I have ever enjoyed was the time they covered “Hot Child in the City” on Wake Up, San Francisco! But I can’t find that anywhere on the internet, so I am starting to worry I invented that memory. But this episode does win in terms of music, not for the band (or for the fact that Sabrina doesn’t really have music) but rather for the fact that Jesse sits down at the piano in the Grand Floridian lobby and beckons Becky to watch him doe-eyed from the balcony even though he’s been too busy working to spend time with her. He’s like some Greek-Romeo/Bryan Adams combo and it’s incredibly effective.
Fireworks at Magic Kingdom. Stephanie deals with loving Michelle even though she is an asshole. Michelle becomes less of an asshole. DJ/Kimmy/Stephanie lose Michelle and she’s rescued by Snow White. DJ thinks she sees Steve everywhere, which means that actor gets cameos as Indiana Jones and most princes (extra cool since he really was the voice of Aladdin). Then he shows up at the Grand Floridian to surprise her! (Remarkable for someone struggling to save for college.) Joey and Jesse do their radio show from the tank in the Coral Reef restaurant. (Still don’t see the point of having a radio show in a cool visual location.) And we barely see twins, Nicky & Alex, thank God!
d climb aboard. Then Salem solves the murder, Sherlock Holmes style. And in a surprise twist ending, Sabrina (the detective) is shocked to learn that Sabrina herself is the murderer.
Eric goes to see Mr. Feeney and asks to stay with him because Jack’s girlfriend is an evil witch. But in talking to Mr. Feeney, Eric realizes that he is upset not because satanic-DJ has moved into his apartment, but rather because he thought Jack was his best friend and he is starting to think they are just roommates. Mr. Feeney encourages him to tell Jack how he feels.
! At school the next day, Sabrina is totally out of control. She finally loses the remaining shreds of her self-control and binges on stacks of buttery carbohydrates at the pancake breakfast prom fundraiser. Then she ends up looking like Violet from Willie Wonka. Now, that is one scary overdose.
The Very Special Blog 