Day One - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia S06E13 A Very Sunny Christmas
If you're like me and have avoided watching this show, stop it, you're only hurting yourself. It's Always Sunny has consistently been one of the funniest shows I've ever watched. Maybe if you can't stand dark comedy it might be too much for you, but man, I really don't think we could get along. In this episode the gang discovers Christmas isn't all it's chalked up to be. Whether it's discovering you spent your childhood robbing the neighbor's of their Christmas gifts, or finding out your mum let a bunch of men dressed as Santa run a train on her, or that even when you do show someone the true meaning of Christmas you can still lose everything, everyone will be learning something this Christmas. But that's why we throw rocks at trains I guess.
Day Two - The Ref
I'd never heard of this movie, but holy crap was it great. Dennis Leary is a petty thief who can't catch a break. After a robbery goes bad he hijacks the car of Kevin Spacey and his wife, Judy Davis, hoping to sneak away into the night. Unfortunately they just so happen to have the most dysfunctional marriage of them all, and news spreads fast of this criminal in hiding. Strangely enough an on edge crook might just be what it takes to save this dead end marriage from the brink. It brings to light how important communication can be, a very valuable lesson to keep in mind. Oh, not to mention the best drunk Santa I've seen in a long while.
Day Three - A Charlie Brown Christmas/How the Grinch Stole Christmas/Rugrats S02E14 Christmas
It's a three for one! It's Christmas Charlie Brown really let me down. It's honestly really boring, and while Linus explaining Christmas was pretty neat the rest was mostly just pointless. Charlie Brown's haggard tree and Snoopy being a bit of a shit is always great at least. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a classic, and everyone should have seen it by now. The tale of how one Grinch with a heart two sizes too small found his heart growing three sizes that day Fahoo Fores Dahoo Dores, welcome Christmas come this way! And finally, the Rugrats was always a favorite of mine growing up, and it's especially neat how they managed to covered three of the major "holiday season holiday's". The first being Christmas (later renamed The Santa Experience for whatever reason). As usual it shows things from the view point of the babies, why Santa seems scary, and how parents will go out of their way to bring magic back into their kid's life if possible. Plus Angelica gets a bit of character development when her plan to wreck Phil and Lil's Christmas causes her a great deal of guilt, but as always Santa knows when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!
Day Four - Home Alone/The Office S06E13 Secret Santa
Not sure how we wound up watching these together but regardless. Rewatching Home Alone was a treat, I forgot how not only funny, but just plain brutal of a movie it was. Seeing him panic over his nice old neighbor, rigging up Saw-like torture devices, tormenting the pizza boy with that clip of that old movie, him realizing how much he misses his family even when they can be shitty, it's just a classic feel good comedy that holds up even now. On the other side of things, this is the episode of the Office where Phyllis wants to be Santa, but of course Michael throws a classic tantrum and ruins everything for everyone. I absolutely adore the Office, all of it's characters are great, and getting to see Michael ruin everything is always a treat, not to mention pre-psychopath Andy being, well, a psychopath.
Day Five - Die Hard
Hey screw you buddy! This is a Christmas movie! Sometimes there's Christmas music, and they reference it a couple times, and sometimes you can even see a bit of Christmas decorations in the background! Yeah, this barely counts, but I don't care. Die Hard is a fantastic action movie. It's over the top, Bruce Willis goes through hell and back, the walkie-talkie dynamic works surprisingly well and Alan Rickman is great as Hans Gruber. It may not be the most Christmas-y of movies, but it sure as hell is a good time. Yippie-kay-yay mother fuckers.
Day Six - Love Actually
Oh man. This movie. Not for me. It's a generic rom-com, but with like eight different rom-com's going on at once. It fulfills it's purpose, it got me to laugh a couple times, and the secretary who ends up with Hugh Grant was pretty sexy. Not the worst I've ever seen, but certainly not for me. Sorry mum. Hell of a cast though! Seriously, it felt like everybody was in this.
Day Seven - That 70's Show S01E12 That '70s Christmas
While short, this was much better than the last day of Christmas! Something about That '70s Show just works (well until the cast started dropping like flies). The cast is great, the jokes work, and it is one of the rare shows with a laugh track that I totally don't mind at all. In the first Christmas episode Red gives Eric forty bucks to buy a Christmas tree, of course he keeps the money and steals a tree from the highway instead. Underaged drinking and Eric vs Hyde in gift giving for Donna ensues. Drunk Jackie is hilarious and a furious Red is how most episodes end isn't it? While nothing fantastic, it's a standard episode of the show, and that's just fine by me.
Day Eight - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
I went into this expecting to not really enjoy it, and I was pleasantly surprised. Weirdly, I remembered pretty much every single scene as it happened even though I completely forgot I'd seen this as a child. Memory is weird. The Griswold's have a family Christmas get together at their home, and hijinks ensue in every way imaginable. Too big of a tree, Christmas lights not working, terrorizing the neighbors in a variety of ways, families bickering, ruined Christmas dinners, the Christmas outburst of outrage, the annoying relative showing up and ruining everything, but everything ends well when that annoying relative kidnaps Chevy Chase's boss and they all learn the real meaning of Christmas. Don't fucking skimp on the bonus checks you cheap bitch. Most of the gags still worked well, and I found myself laughing more often than not.
Day Nine - Gremlins
Two things right off the bat, the theme song is great, and wow there was a lot more death in this movie than I recall. The gremlins, even at their most deadly tend towards the goofier side of villains, the scenes with just the gremlins is usually straight up comedy. It was really weird, the cheerful theme and giggling gremlins crushing people to death was just a strange duality. I enjoyed it though. I really like the world presented in the movie, and how bad ass the main character's mum is, bitch is fierce. It doesn't really feel like a Christmas movie to me because of how many goofy deaths happened, but it takes place during Christmas, so... whatever. Also, the practical effects in this movie are fantastic. Also also, Howie Mandel voiced Gizmo!
Day Ten - Krampus
Every Christmas Eve some friends and my mum and I get together, first for movies and then for dinner. This year we kind of split up, mainly because I was determined to see Krampus, and thankfully it almost met my expectations. Basically, Krampus is the "shadow" of St. Nick and comes around to punish those who falter in their belief in the holiday, and good cheer in general. It was a bit more cartoony than I was hoping for, but I still enjoyed the vast majority of the scenes. They almost ruined it with the ending, but they pull a last minute switcheroo (which is kind of obvious) which fixes it. I was seriously almost shouting at the movie in the theater "WHAT? A FUCKING DREAM SEQUENCE!", yeah, they almost do that. But luckily it's just to fuck with our expectations. I really enjoyed how most of the monsters looked, especially Krampus himself, even if they altered the Krampus mythology a bit.
Day Eleven - The Nightmare Before Christmas
"I'm Jack! The Pumpkin King!" This movie is a classic for a reason. My mum described it best when she said the movie is "visually stunning". It really is. Plus the characters are all fantastic, the music is great and the story is fine. Have you ever thought about Jack's plan? He just usurps another holiday by kidnapping it's "ruler", I also get a kick out of the fact that Jack, on his first attempt to celebrate Christmas, forces the military to get involved. Since the dawn of these holidays Santa didn't bring that kind of heat on himself once. My only real complaint is that the love story between Jack and Sally seems a bit one sided to me. Also, can't not mention how delightful Oogie Boogie is. "Cause Mr. Oogie Boogie is the meanest guy around!"
Day Twelve - A Christmas Story
You'll shoot your eye out! The quintessential Christmas movie. I adore everything about this one. The amazing narration, the running eye gag, dressing up for school, ovaltine commercials, amazing gifts from fragile, the Bumpuses dogs, the theme, the tongue, the bully, the outburst, the visit to Santa, the rejection, the constant battle with the furnace, "fudge", the entire soap scene, the delusions of grandeur of a child, the good dad moment with the last gift, the bunny suit, "I can't get up!", oh my god. I could list almost every single scene in this movie honestly it is just... perfect. My only gripe is the "my little piggie scene" but it's still pretty funny seeing the father's disgusted look of shame as his youngest boy degrades himself for his entire family to see. I love this movie. You love this movie, if you don't, you haven't seen it. I triple dog dare you to dislike this movie!
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