And new pony

I actually rewatched this one - on YouTube, apparently Hasbro or Discovery Family or whoever mostly turns a blind eye on these episodes going up, maybe after the broadcast?

I liked it. I think it addresses an issue a lot of kids would face - the whole "blended family" thing and "but their traditions are different."

And uh-oh, this is my boring pony-fan lecturer voice:

This was another Hearth's Warming Eve episode. This is kind of the Equestrian equivalent of Christmas (partly because, philosophically speaking, Equestria is another dimension so Christianity would not take the form there that it would here, if it even existed there, but perhaps more practically, avoiding religious overtones in a show broadcast worldwide).

It also perhaps has some elements of Thanksgiving to it, and maybe something like a Founder's Day or (in the US) Fourth of July - it's essentially the origin story of Equestria and how the three pony tribes actually learned to work together and love each other.

In this episode, the Apples are traveling to visit the Pies (because of the whole "maybe they are, maybe they aren't, distant cousins - again, a nice little callback to an earlier season's episode). Pinkie is, as usual, SUPER enthusiastic and SUPER excited (some fans, upon seeing the rest of the Pies, are assuming she must be adopted - but then every family also has its black, or rather, in this case, pink, sheep)

The Apples seem to have a pretty "traditional" Heart's Warming celebration - dolls representing the family on the mantel, a big delicious feast (though I'm not sure I want to know what a twice-baked pot pie is), exchanging gifts, the youngest member getting to raise the Equestrian flag...

The Pies....the Pies are *different*. They are rock-farmers (though really, it looks more like they have a mine), so everything is rock themed.

They have rock soup for the Hearth's Warming Eve dinner. JUST rock soup. (And oh, I was really hoping this was going to somehow spin into a Ponified version of the old Stone Soup fable, where it turned out the Apples brought all these delicious vegetables, and "maybe, just maybe, we could put a few in with the rocks?")

And the presents are hidden. And the flag is a rock?

And we see the rest of Pinkie's family. Maud meets them at the station - and I had to grin because she referenced Moh's scale of hardness, which is a really real geology thing. It's the little things, which kids might not get but at least a few adults will. (And I like to imagine that some 15 years from now, a child who was a big Pony fan will be sitting in Geology 201, and will gasp at the first mention of Moh's Scale, and maybe will grin a little when they do the lab testing it out)

(There was also a funny comic, in The New Yorker or somewhere, about Moe's Scale of Hardness. As in, Moe of the Three Stooges, and so it included things like eye-pokes)

And "extrusive andesite," which yes, is a really real rock type. There are soils called Andisols formed from volcanic material...

Pinkie's parents - can't tell if they're supposed to be Amish (the dress, the seriousness) or Quaker (the Thees and Thous). But apparently the idea is they are Super SRS ponies. And that they live slightly apart from other ponies.

(Also: Igneous Pie references "Providence." I always assumed that to have a religious context. So, belief in the existence of God confirmed for Equestria?)

Limestone Pie - same voice actress as for Gilda? Sounds like it. She's the family member who apparently runs things but also has anger issues. (The "you Apples....get out" gesture towards the end speaks VOLUMES)

Marble Pie - OHMYGOSH PINKIE IS A TWIN?!?!?!!?! Has this come up before? Marble is "just a few minutes younger" and is the baby of the family...

(So I guess the age-order is Maud (off at university), Limestone (middle child who has decided it's on her to run everything), Pinkie, and Marble-the-shy. I wonder if part of Limestone's anger is that the oldest child is a dreamy rocktologist who gets to be at university, and the "babies" of the family have one off being hyper in Ponyville, and the other barely speaking)

And yeah, I guess some fans have suddenly decided Marble must replace Fluttershy as their favorite shy pony. Eh, meh, I'd have to see a lot more of who Marble really is first....and also I admit I don't like the attempt (on Pinkie's part) to "ship" Marble and Big Mac. (Fluttermac, in my mind, is the One True Pairing for Big Mac)

(Also, in my book, Fluttershy still wins because she is a Pegasus. Pegasus ponies are my favorites and I don't care that that's prejudicial.)

All that aside, I liked the theme of the episode: different people do things differently, and you have to sometimes accept that some people's traditions are not your own. And on the other hand - sharing your traditions doesn't necessarily mean you want to replace the other person's. I like that both the Apples and the Pies were slightly wrong and slightly right in this. And that there was kind of a resolution at the end. And that Granny Smith was the one who figured out the importance of that big boulder thing....she's not just a goofy old lady.

Not being married myself, nor being part of a blended family, I've never had the experience of totally having to adjust my expectations for some holiday and feeling disappointed - but I can see that being a thing. I know I'd be discombobulated (but, I hope, too gracious to act out) if I went to someone's house for Thanksgiving and they had fish instead of turkey, or if I were doing Christmas with a distant relative and found out that stockings were only for the children. (In my family, everyone - even my 80 year old dad - gets a stocking, and in recent years it's become a little new tradition for different family members to find small inexpensive gifts to slip into the stocking, so even the Designated Filler (usually my mom) gets a few surprises)

Also, "You're just a frown factory because you got a weird rock!" almost has a slightly Mabel Pines intonation to it. (I can almost see Mabel and Pinkie as being roughly equivalent figures in their own worlds)

I still think that after Pinkie, Maud is my favorite Pie, though. Marble is kind of cute but seems a little one-dimensional, and Limestone would get abrasive (heh, see what I did there?) after a while.

But I really enjoyed the bits of world-building in this episode, and also I thought the "moral" was treated well. I expect we'll see this one repeated more heavily the closer we get to "human Christmas."