12 Days of Christmas by January 4rth. Of the next year.

It's January 4rth. Wasn't I doing a 12 Days of Christmas Movies? Yes. I was.

Then it was Christmas Eve and Russ and I hung out with Carl The Mailman and watched our wedding video that Carl The Mailman shot. There were some "DOH!" and many "Ha!"s, during the dancing portion of the video. A discovery: my entire family dances exactly the same. Some are a little looser and some a bit stiffer, but the same nonetheless. I do The Molly Ringwald version of the family dance.

Then it was Christmas and we hung out with Andrea The Librarian and Aaron The Executive Chef and ate Scottish Canadian food which did not involve haggis or poutine. Thank you, Aaron.

Then I got a job.

Then it was New Year's and we hung out with awesome neighbors and tried to remember the words to Auld Lang Syne for the midnight-middle-of-the-suburban-street singing which involved no one but us six and a lost driver looking for a party.

(Russ and I have watched It's A Wonderful Life about 300 times individually and confess that this movie is the only reason we know the lyrics to that antiquated and mystifying song.)

Then I had to sleep for an eternity to recover from a 3:30AM bedtime on New Year's Eve.

But I did watch a crapload of Christmas movies during card writing, tree trimming, eating of Christmas cookies, viewing of Facebook and all variations of Juice Newton's "Playing With The Queen Of Hearts" on YouTube, etc.

The last movie I wrote about was The Santa Clause. I wanted to follow it up with The Santa Clause 2 and The Santa Clause 3, but much to my (not Russ') disappointment, our cable company did not offer these sequels with our OnDemand service. Which I see as a disservice really. Comcast are teases, torturing us Tim Allen fans with just one Toolman film. Did he do that hound dog grunt in the next two movies?! I'll never know.

Comcast held back and, in doing so, they totally threw off my partially thought out plan of watching a freak load of Christmas movies before Christmas.

So as an alternative, Russ and I watched the films we already knew and loved:

• Elf (2003): Will Ferrell on the escalator.
• When Harry Met Sally (1989): The museum scene.
• While You Were Sleeping (1995): Russ didn't watch this. The score alone with make him gag. 
• White Christmas (1954): "With out so much as a, 'Kiss my foot!' or 'Have an apple!'". I wish I could have watched it in 1954. I think that quote would have made sense. 
• A Christmas Story (1983): "It's a Major Award!"
• It's A Wonderful Life (1946): Everything in this movie I could quote, but I would like to give a shout out to, "I want a big one!"

We didn't actually watch, It's A Wonderful Life this year. We own three copies of the movie and we could not find one version in our cluttered TV stand, although our collection of Chevy Chase movies is fantastic. There are three copies of effing It's Wonderful Life in the basement, I know it,  but it's all cold and stuff down there and we get so lazy sometimes, so...you know.

But we did watch other pieces of crap. And I will now give you the notes on those pieces of crap:

National Lampoon’s Vacation (1989)

• Chevy Chase singing is AWESOME.
• Juliette Lewis is best Audrey.
• Consecutive actors playing Rusty were never as great as Anthony Michael Hall's Rusty. And they all get progressively shorter and chubbier.
• Brian Doyle Murray.
• Cousin Eddy in a white v-neck sweater with a black Dickie underneath.

Actually, I don't know why this is on the crap list. This movie is freaking awesome.

Christmas In Connecticut (1945)

• A soldier who loves reading about a housewife’s cooking in a women's magazine during WW II? 
• Wicker wheel chairs. So very Mr. Potter. 
• “The things a girl will do for a mink coat”. Totally. I get it. We ladies love mink. And coats. The combo=heaven.
• “You can’t blame it on your career because you don’t have one”. Can't remember why I wrote this. It offended me. I remember that.
• Young, male soldier is insistent about watching someone bathe a baby. Creep. Ee.

This movie was so bad, I went to bed and Russ got a Scotch and fought on the movie front lines for me and finished this 2 hour hell off.

The conclusion: Awful.

I was always uncomfortable with Barbara Stanwyck anyway. Her neck was bizarrely erect.

So this half baked idea of watching 12 Christmas movies in 12 days didn't work out as expected but...

What am I saying. This is totally how I expected it to end.

Valentine's is coming up and God knows I love a romantic comedy. I think I'll try this again in a month. February nights will be filled with visions of Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock. And romantical whimsy. I can predict that much. Russ is going to hate February.

P.S.

12 Days of Christmas (really, in only about 3 days)

            

Notes from The Santa Clause (1994) starring Tim "The Tool Man Taylor" Allen:

• Credits included Mary Gross. From '94? Should be okay. Pre-Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

• On no. Divorced Dad who works too much. Another 1990s tale of an absentee father. Why were the 90's full of absentee, overworked fathers? Why not absentee, overworked mothers? Must read about cultural and social trends in 1990s.

• Still watching credits. Steve Rudnick wrote this? I tell Russ. I just read Steve Rudnick's book I Shudder which I've decided is one of my favorite books of this year. He couldn't have written this. Actually, I retract that. He wrote one of the versions of the original Sister Act.

• Of course the little rascal (son of Tim Allen's character) has bowl cut and of course his name is Charlie.

• Judge Reinhold in Cosby sweaters? I could get into this.

• Tim Allen insults ex-wife’s husband in front of 8-year old little rascal, bowl cut son. Not healthy in the development of a strong father-son bond.

• “Why do parent’s have to fight”. A quote from the Bowl Cut. Oh no. It's one of THOSE movies.

• Dad had Bowl Cut over for Christmas Eve and burns the turkey because, as we learned from Mr. Mom, fathers do not know how to cook or use any domestic appliance in the house.

• Father and Bowl Cut end up at Denny’s for dinner. It's filled with divorced fathers and Japanese businessmen. To on-the-nose.

• Slowest reveal to Santa’s Reindeer on roof. Did not build anticipation. Built impatience.

• Overact much, Tim Allen? (Said three times during the first 45 minutes of film. By me.)

• Why aren’t the elves dwarves? Why are they little children? Little People actors can act. For the most part, little children can not act. Unfortunate casting choice.

• Russ asked, “If all the elves are actually children, how do they reproduce? Do children have sex with other children?”

• Why is Tim Allen more angry than confused by the fact that he is now Santa Clause? Too much anger, Tim. Too much.

• Why is that elf so angry?

• Did Tim just hit on an 8-year old elf? See, if they used dwarves instead of little children, I would not find this so uncomfortable to watch.

• The North Pole is SOOO 1990s.

• "Ate a bowl of sugar, drank some brown liqueur, field dressed a cat.” Laughed out loud at this quote. And it worries me.

• Ann to Russ: "Jeopardy theme song? How did they get the rights to the Jeopardy theme song?" And having to show off my smarts, "Merv Griffin wrote that you know."

• Russ to Ann: "Everyone knows that Merv Griffin wrote the theme song. And it's a Disney film. And Jeopardy is an ABC show. Disney and ABC are one in the same. Solid."

•  During “Give Me All Your Loving” montage, Russ did a pantomime of ZZ top guitarist flipping his guitar around. May have been the best part of the watching the movie.

• Charlie AKA Bowl Cut did not age in 12 months. I've seen my nephew twice this year and within 5 months he sprouted at least two inches. I don't believe in The Santa Clause.

• Tim Allen is supposed to be 38 in this movie. Just looked up real age at the time he made this film: 41. This means in real life (outside of Hollywood) he was actually 45.

• Wife in film is Canadian, Wendy Crewson.

• Wendy was in a Canadian show called,  The Littlest Hobo. I love the title and don't want to know anything about the show. Afraid it will ruin the title for me.

•  Couldn't help myself and looked up description: "London is an extremely intelligent, wandering German shepherd who walks into a different place in each episode of this long-running television series, and comes upon people down on their luck or in trouble. London always befriends and helps the struggling person or persons. Then, when his job is done at episode's end, London declines to be the pet of the people he has helped and departs to continue his cross-country driftingWritten by Kevin McCorry {mmccorry@nb.sympatico.ca}"

• Wish I could watch The Littlest Hobo right now.

Conclusion: Laughed out loud three times and was stunned by this. May have to watch The Santa Clause 2 (2002) tonight and see if this trend continues.

12 Days of Christmas (in, like, 5 days)

It turns out that watching good Christmas movies leaves me nothing to write about.

To flush out the bad taste of Jingle All The Way the other night, we immediately put in Scrooged.

Scrooged is great Holiday movie. How am I supposed to write about it?

"Scrooged (1988) is awesome. I recommend it. The End."

I suppose I could write that I went to Scrooged on a first date with Jim from Produce. I was working in the pharmacy in Safeway at the time. He was handsome and about 4 years older than me. Everyone knew that the produce department employees were the coolest. Great hours, great wages and little interaction with the managers. Produce were the rebels. It's as if they wore invisible leather jackets and smoked invisible cigarettes. grimacing in a cool, menacing way as they stacked apples in those little pyramids.

Jim took me to Scrooged and because it is a very funny movie, he laughed a lot. I didn't mind the laughing. It showed that we shared the same taste when it came to humor.

What I minded that each time he laughed he would throw his body forward in a very aggressive, almost violent way. After 100 minutes of this, I decided I couldn't date Jim from Produce anymore.

And then we made out later and I changed my mind.

And then we made out again and I changed my mind back.

What I'm saying is, Scrooged is a great Christmas classic that is not to be missed.

                  

[Photo of Jim and I about 2 years after that fateful date at the Safeway Christmas Party. Couldn't bring myself to crop out the crates of LPs and the massive amount of hair to the right there.]

12 Days of Christmas (in fewer days than originally thought)

My 12 Days of Christmas Movies in 8 Days will now be reduced from 8 days to 6 days. I'm being optimistic with that number because my gut tells me that it won't be accurate 5 minutes from now. But as of this very minute, I can guarantee, it is totally accurate.

(Forthenextfiveminutesonly.)

The holiday season has a way of messing with my well thought out plans. If 10 minutes for planning an 8 day project can be considered well thought out, which in my world it can be.

Not to say I didn't watch a movie a day since I started this God forsaken project. I sure as hell have.

Friday, AKA Day 7, Russ came home to find me finishing up our Christmas cards with "Love Actually" (2003) playing in the background. I think he would have preferred if there was the Yule Log crackling on our television, but he settled in and watched (Twittered, Facebooked, Farked, Googled, Patton Oswald on YouTubed, CuteOverloaded) the last 30 minutes with me.

I should be embarrassed to admit that I bought this movie, but if you know me then you know that my DVD collection is pretty much shit. Thankfully, I married Russ and diluted the crap with some great, solid films. I like good movies, but crap movies are better to watch at home when I'm cleaning, Christmas carding, photo-ing, sitting, laying, napping. It's comforting to me to hear bits of "Mean Girls", "Clueless" or "While You Were Sleeping" (coming soon to a 12 Days Of Christmas Movies blog near you) floating through the house.

When I bought the DVD of "Love Actually", I actually (Yes, two "actually"s nearly side-by-side is disturbing. I realize that.) liked the movie. It was a nice bit of Christmas fluff. But over the years, and over the Decembers of watching it, I'm finding many of the story lines more disturbing with each viewing. And some of them have me refusing to suspend disbelief anymore. I just can't. I'm all grows up now, you see.

The movie intertwines the stories of 8 different people/couples at Christmas time in London, including:

• A new widow trying to connect with his stepson (Liam Neeson being cutesy with his cutsey stepson. I'm uncomfortable with this storyline. Too cutesy.)

• A businessman who is draw to the flirtations of his very obnoxiously obvious secretary, which in turn breaks the heart of his lovely wife (Also uncomfortable with this one as the secretary is a creature that I'm convinced does not exist in real life. Way too whore-ish. Or maybe I just hang around non-whore-ish people and stereotypes like her character do exist in real life in some whore-ish alternative universe I've never visited.)

• A pathetic American woman who has a crush on her officemate, a hot freaking model who the movie makers cleverly turned into a businessman by putting glasses on him. A classic hot+nerd tactic used in low rent movies. (Uncomfortable with this storyline because I refuse to believe that Laura Linney could not pursue a relationship with Hot Nerd just because she has a schizophrenic brother in a hospital. Or "in hospital" as they say.)

The first time I saw this movie I was on a plane back on the way to, or coming back from somewhere. It wasn't really a significant moment for me. Not unlike the first time I ate Cheerios--bland and uneventful. Until I put a cup of sugar on them.  I do remember being happy that my crush, Tim from the English "Office", was in the movie. I gathered from the first scene featuring Tim that he was working as a stand in for an adult movie with a shy, virginal woman as his stand in partner. A virginal woman making money in order for her to afford her Highlights subscription by being a stand in for a porn movie? Oh, you movie making people and your use of paradox!

As the other stories intertwined and connected with each other, I waited patiently for a scene with my Tim in it. It wasn't happening. But I thought, "These crazy movie makers know what they're doing" and waited for him to appear again, braving the scenes with Cutesy Liam. And waited. Finally, in a scene almost at the end of the movie, Tim appears at the virgin's doorstep (I'm not sure how they went from meeting each other in that other scene to this point, but I was expecting HUGE plot twist) where the woman tells Tim that all she wants for Christmas, "is you!" ala the Mariah Carey song. Seriously? She doesn't even long for a tube of Toblerone? A pair of socks?

No HUGE plot twist?

I bought the DVD regardless of this first introduction, and found that there was an actual story line with this porn couple that had many scenes and was edited out of the airplane version because it turns out fake porn scenes are way too graphic for your average passenger on a Transatlantic flight.

Watching the complete version of this particular story line didn't really make a difference. I didn't feel anymore satisfied when seeing that final Mariah Carey scene. The thought that people are actually paid to be stand ins for an adult movie seems like overkill and feels un-realistic. But maybe they take their adult film making a bit more seriously and by-the-book in England than your average director/video store clerk in Sun Valley, California.

Other story lines in "Love Actually" are neutral enough not to make me squirm (outside of the aforementioned), but there is one that just straight creeps me out. It starts pretty close to the top of the movie. Kiera Knightly is getting married to some fun loving, awesome, much older man. His best friend, although uncomfortable around Kiera, does everything he can to make it a day they will remember. In the scenes that follow, we find out this guy--I'll call him Mike--is in love with Kiera's character. But it's not just a simple love crush, it turns out he is, if you take it out of romantic movie context and into real world, obsessed with Kiera. She watches the video Mike shot of her wedding and all the shots are close ups of her face: smiling, laughing, looking perfect. Creepy. I would be running out of that apartment and calling Russ immediately and demanding we de-friend Mike on Facebook. And maybe Twitter.

Instead, young Kiera's character does nothing. THEN "Mike" shows up at her door on Christmas eve to tell her he loves her ala Bob Dylan in his "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video with cue cards and a boom box. Again, how does she not go inside and tell her husband, "Dude, your boy Mike is totally effed."

I think as a 16-year old, moved by romantic-if nonsensical-gestures, I would have given my favorite Esprit sweatshirt (it was pink with white lettering) for that sort of romance. Now, I would get a restraining order.

Overall, the experience of watching "Love Actually" for the umpteenth Christmas in a row has me rethinking this as a Christmas movie and more of a study of stunted relationships.

I would sit through "Jingle All The Way"--all 24 minutes of it--than watch this again.

[I'd like to reserve the right to change my mind 11 months from now when I'm all nostalgic and Christmasy again.]

The 12 Days of Christmas (in 8 Days)

It's time for me to watch Christmas movies. I have no choice. It's December. And while I know the holidays bring about obsessive baking, goodwill towards your fellow man, and seasonal depression in some, for me it sends me into a happy panic knowing that this is the only month I can reasonably watch any and all the heartwarming holiday movies I can stomach.

You may say, "But those movies can be enjoyed all year round!" and you would be wrong. I can't. I feels unnatural. Like I'm cheating on the seasons. And I'm no cheater.

I love watching soft focus, slow motion spinning hugs with Santa laughing joyfully in the background (in slow motion) as he is filled with pride that he brought some dysfunctional family back together; my tree blinking in my periphery, the stockings flaccid above the fireplace, and a scattering of holiday cards on the mantle.

[As I write, I've got an On Demand fireplace crinkling on my 21 inch flat screen. It says the duration of this piece is 20 minutes and it seems to be looping a midi-type version of "Oh Holy Night".

Hold on.

Okay, I just changed it to "Friendly Snowman" over a jazzy, finger snapping rendition of "Joy To The World".]

Being that I'm a procrastinator, I didn't start watching my movies until, oh, yesterday. Which sort of spoiled my plans of watching 12 Days of Christmas Movies and writing about them. But, in a procrastinator's life one must be flexible. I will now watch 12 Days of Christmas Movies in the 8 days I have before the celebration of Jeebus, so I suppose I'll have to double up on some of them. It would be great if I could pair like films together. 

But that's not going to happen. My decision making will be, "Can I handle precocious today with 'A Christmas Story'? Or just flat out whimsy with 'While You Were Sleeping'?"

I told Russ and he seems to be on board. He doesn't know that he will indeed have to watch Sandra Bullock with me. I don't want to tell him until I put a hot toddy in his hand and maybe porn on his computer.

But tonight. Tonight we got the sofa ready with comfy pillows, a fluffy blanket and strong beer and went to our cable menu to see what film would start this project off on the right note.

"Jingle All The Way" (1996) starring Arnold Schwartzenegger was chosen as we hadn't seen it before and it had Arnold in it. That charming, cigar chomping, Austrian Governor of California whose broad grin could charm a...hmmm. I've got nothing. I find his smile creepy and untrustworthy. Too many teeth spaced too far apart. Is that my American snobbery towards teeth that are not well proportioned and perfectly spaced? 

Within the first five minutes we knew that he, Harold, dyed his hair and un-natural cherry wood color, and was an overworked dad who was constantly disappointing is way-too-young son (Okay, I just looked up Arnold and Rita Wilson's ages and they just looked too old to be the father of a 6 year old. My bad.) by putting work first and family second. Will Harold make it to young Timmy's karate graduation class or will he disappoint his cherub cutie once again?!

Timmy was just a guess. I'm sure it's Timmy or Billy or Bobby. Tommy.

Johnny.

Well, it turns out that, darn it, Harold DID miss Tommy's karate graduation. (He graduated to a purple belt.) Billy's face fell as his eyes searched the auditorium for his father's proud smile and peppy thumbs up. His head drooped and his little fingers clenched that stiff, purple strip of cotton, his heart heavy with dashed dreams.

Then there was something about Harold trying to win his son's love back by buying an action figure, forgetting to buy it until Christmas Eve, fighting with Sinbad and yelling "PUT THAT COOKIE DOWN!" at 24 minutes in. Exactly the same time that we scrambled for the remote and pressed "Stop".

I couldn't handle anymore tight shots of Arnold's open screaming mouth, crazy eyes and arms gesturing in broad, never-seen-in-real-life limb movements.

And here I was thinking I would fire up, "The Santa Clause" (1994) right after "JATW". The thought of Tim "The Toolman Taylor" Allen hurt my Christmas soul. And a visit to IMDB to read the summary of the film helped solidify that I will never-ever-see it.

There is the FAQ section and two of the questions that the FAQ section answers are:

1. Why didn't the elves seem to care that the old Santa was dead?

2. Why are there elves in people places?

I'm done for the evening. I'm already behind by four movies and I'm done.

Tomorrow is a new day and I refuse to let either Conan The Barbarian (or Destroyer. You're pick.) or Luther Krank dampen my Christmas movie watching spirit.

And neither will the constant repetition in my head of "PUD DAT KOOKY DOWEN!" as I lie in bed, waiting to fall asleep.