Anita and I enjoy watching those old movies with a happy ending. The other night we watched You Can’t Take it With You, a 1938 comedy directed by Frank Capra, who also directed Its a Wonderful Life nine years later. Both films starred Jimmy Stewart and Lionel Barrymore.

Jimmy Stewart and Lionel Barrymore looked quite a bit younger than we remembered them in this 1938 film. And, in an interesting twist, Lionel Barrymore, who played villain Henry Potter in the famous Christmas film, played the kindly hero Grandpa Martin Vanderhof in You Can’t Take it With You.

Every December we watched the gruff conniving Potter role and so I kept expecting some trickery out of Grandpa in this older film, which never did materialize. I suppose its human nature for us to judge people based upon one incident and then trust or not trust them based upon what we’ve seen.

But Christmas is about God becoming man to change our character. Thank God I’m not judged the way I used to be. Merry Christmas.

Tags: character, judging