Yes, with only two more sleeps until the 'big' day... I've only gone and made you all a top ten of my favourite Christmas list.
I've always been on the fence about the whole commercialised time of year... on the one hand I hate the buying, the needless spending on gifts I'm always never too sure people will thoroughly enjoy. Being born in 1995 means the MTV generation couldn't give a toss about much in the way of religion or paying attention to anything for more than 10 seconds. So we all know a vague fraction of Christmas relates to Christianity, but we ignore this and carry on feasting on needless amounts of food...
I'll say this I don't mind getting fat, receiving presents and getting drunk early in the day though.
I like to bake at Christmas, I like to watch everything on TV... but staying in all day every day with a very ill mother and no car puts me to the edge of committing Christmas genocide.
I need my car back, but I handed the ownership over to my dad for him to use for his work, and my insurance has been cancelled because which kind of student can afford car insurance?
The rich kind,
which is not what I am.., evidently.
Things looked up a bit when I went to the pub last night and got very merry with my boyfriend.
So with me getting steadily more frantic in my search for things to do rather than drink my Christmas holidays away, I've made a list of my favourite seasonal things I'd rather waste my time on.
So here we go,
Unless you were under a rock around Christmas time as a child, The Muppet Christmas Carol was the one and only greatest adaptation of the tale... Michael Cane and sassy puppets constantly breaking the fourth wall? For me there's nothing more satisfying than the brand of humour you get with a frog and a pig falling in love time and time again.
Very Christmassy!
I have to say whilst watching it this year, Scrooge was quite right with being annoyed by his nephew in this version... literally man shut up about it all being so great, the Victorian Christmas was awful.
I wonder even if his nephew was a charitable man, I'm suspicious that he was accountable for child labour... most probably.
FRED! That was his name!
AND ANYWAY! Scrooge gave his employees Christmas day off in the end anyway... Bob was ungrateful, it was the Victorian ages afterall, you can't get life on a plate here!
And yeah, I'll own up to it... I'm on the side of The Grinch as well. The Whos were commercialised and selfish. He only wanted to give a present and maybe get a thank you for once... bullied probably because he had two mums and HE WAS JUST GREEN.
Minority little Grinch was treated unwell in school with a patronising teacher,& spoilt rich kids making fun of the colour of his skin and the fact that he was maturing faster than them.
Of course I'm on his side.
So with the ever delightful Jim Carey making a very good Grinch with his own special brand of humour, I've decided The Grinch was harshly judged. He had emotional problems from being treated like dirt all day every day in school... The Whos should really think about getting counsellors in, if their offspring are going to be such bigoted Christmas gems. So in fact they are the real enemies here.
All they did was prepare for Christmas all the god damn year, not accounting for someone they oppressed because of his skin colour and maybe because he didn't conform and was a pessimist!
Thank god for Dr Suess, in all walks of life he managed to subtly reflect his characters with the horrors of real life problems. The Grinch shows how commercialised holidays take over communities, forgetting that maybe it's a time of the year for people to care for others.
A modern life Christmas Carol, but this Grinch has a health defect which makes him surly at the best of time, it took his act of stealing such a makeshift holiday for his heart to get magically better.
Yes I realise that it's a metaphor and a fictional world to boot, but I'm mostly glad that The Whos realised what selfish pieces of Who trash they had been, and took The Grinch back into their world.
They still took over his cave at the end, messing it all up and getting in the way..
I bet they fed Max the dog fatty things as well... poisoning his only pet.
So here The Whos are the devil, I've decided
And on the next one, to note we have another mere mortal portrayed as the devil against Christmas, when really it was actually the 'good saint'!
Elf.
Yeah, there he is being all tall and bashfully ignorant of his surroundings. I digress, this is one of the funnier modern day Christmas films. Will Ferrel is a funny guy, he doesn't fully live up to my Jim Carey Grinch. But nevertheless, this film is one of the better ones. We have John Favreau directing, which is always nice. I am a fan of the film Swingers no less.
However I feel that the character of Buddy is dangerous... he comes a long way on a journey which couldn't be that authentic. His real father finally takes this blabbering imbecile into his home for Christmas, while he is under much stress at work in an industry which is under threat.
James Caan didn't really want to, because of how Buddy stalks him and just generally acts a bit weird... all the time!
So when Buddy comes into the home of James Caan and his new family, what does he do? He destroys it with never-ending attention craving, and paper not being recycled but made into streamers...
He even destroyed their TV stand to make a useless rocking horse.
And used up all their pasta!
It's all too much.
James Caan was in the right.
And for once we have Zooey Deschanel not being all 'quirky' and oh so unique all over the place.
So from what I gather from almost all late Christmas films, is that we are constantly provided the person or people who does/do not want to have much to do with Christmas. They either hate it or would rather avoid it completely for personal reasons. And I for one respect that, they manage to get up the courage to dodge the act of spending holidays with annoying family or having to get a present exactly right. They just want to use their holidays to the fullest, not bother with social conformities.
Perhaps the system failed them when they were younger, perhaps they lost their loved one, or perhaps they just would rather not give too much of a damn about other people's expectations
Tim Allen in Christmas With The Kranks only wanted a holiday at the loss of his (very selfish) daughter, who buggered off to help others and then turns out she wants her Christmas back because she 'fell head over heals' for a guy she JUST MET!
Steve Christmas from Arthur Christmas just wanted to get on with his job and finally take over the enterprise, BUT NO! We had Arthur having to ruin Christmas more and more as the night went on, just for one little girl!
We had Martin Freeman in Nativity, he only wanted to avoid the numbing rush of Christmas and for people to just leave him alone. But again no, he had to have that annoying Mr Poppy get in his way and get him in major major trouble!
Scott Calvin... Tim Allen had a lot on his plate at this time of year. He wanted a nice normal Christmas with his (again) ungrateful, and frankly brainwashed child. He tried to make out that Santa was real for a very young child... and what happens, we get his new stepdad telling him that the big man isn't real!
Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn merely wanted to get away on their annual holiday, and if it meant that they had to lie... they had to.
But the weather ruined everything and they get lumbered visiting FOUR different homes.
My friends we have a predicament on our hands.
People want to get on with their lives and not get pulled into the commercialisation. Yet we have these modern day 'saints' ruining homes, injuring people and taking the cheer out of the festive time of year with their 'loving and giving spirit'.
Enough is enough.
However it doesn't stop me from watching it all.
Every
single
god
damn
year.
Merry Christmas, I guess...
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