I like watching “The Lion in Winter”. It makes my family, even at our worst, look good by comparison.
And it’s a Christmas movie, to boot. (Set during Christmas 1183, anyway)
“Of course he has a knife! We all have knives. It’s the 11th Century and we’re barbarians!”
My bad. “It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians!”
Why I remembered that as “11th Century”, especially knowing the year it’s set in, I have no idea.
This is my Christmas movie. I watch it every year Christmas afternoon.
Mr. Punky tried to replace it one year with “Midnight Clear.” Add that to your not-uplifting-the-world-is-going-to-hell list of Christmas movies. If I ever divorce him, having forced me to watch that movie will be at the top of the list.
Mr. Punky gets out his maps and replays the Battle of the Bulge. He has alarms going off to remind him to move armies around. This takes several days, but no one can really object, because he goes into a rant about how it was THE pivital battle of WWII, what is wrong with you unpatriotic people, you probably want to be speaking German, and besides it’s educational. (Why yes, he does hate Christmas. Why do you ask?)
To prevent further hijacking of this thread, regarding movies, I opened another one in Cafe Society. Thank you for your suggestions. I will keep them in mind and use them either this year or next one.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. First they blocked my sidewalks downtown. Then I get a gig midtown, and there are more of them. Is any corner safe?
I can’t even enter/exit the subways anymore, between the Falun Gong / AM New York / Metro / store flier gangs trying to force stuff into my hands.
WTF?! Are you serious? Please, that is a trend you city folk can keep to yourselves.
I think I am safe in saying there is not a single Falun Gong left in China. Every goddam one of them is in NYC, trying to stuff a paper into my hand and chirping, “Good morning! We are being oppressed!”
Which might be bearable, if the sidewalks were not already packed to the fourth floor with Santas, homeless advocates (right next to homeless people), shoppers, tourists, Salvation Army lasses, “Going Out of Business!” leaflet-hander-outers, and just us regular Joes and Josephines trying to get to and from work.
I don’t think China is doing a very good job of oppressing these folks. Although I’ve been taking pictures of them and selling them to bondage websites.
All those damn people from Europe over here taking advantage of the weak dollar bug the hell out of me as well. They walk around with all their shopping bags grinning like children while saying “We better buy another suitcase to take all this stuff home!” Bastards!
I’m sorry this season is hard on you; but that image is hilarious. Two lines keep running through my head:
“Now I’ll have to climb another four floors to jump out the window—I’ll never be able to kill myself!”
and
“Goddammit! This sidewalk is packed tighter than a Tokyo subway!”
Jack Frost roasting on an open fire
frostbite nipping at your toes
yuletide choirs being hung by the fire
and folks dressed up like Tokyo Rose
Everybody knows
a turkey stuffed with mistletoe
helps to make a season blight
tiny tots
with their eyes all aglow
have freebased too much crack tonight
They know that Santa’s on his way
he’s loaded commercialjunk
and cheap crap on his sleigh
And every mother’s child
is going to cry
to see that reindeer only exist when they’re high…
Hmm. My birthday is also on Christmas Day, and that two-for-one thing never happened to me, although everyone assumes it must have when they learn my birthday.
Bad family! Exchange for good one. 
Preach it, DoctorJ! After enduring this shit for 20 years longer than you have, I worry that it’s beginning to impose on my usual sunny good nature. To test my endurance, my workplace has Dean Martin on an endless loop piped in straight from Hell. I know he’s all dead and everything, but couldn’t someone have told him to put down the martini, spit out the 25 cocktail olives and enunciate, fer chissake? Bah!
[boozy warble]…ahm reeming umma mite ismuzzz[/hiccup]
I swear that it took me a MINUTE to figure out what song that was, and when I did, I laughed enough to almost wake up the whole damned house. Thank you for the laugh tonight…I needed it!
I thought heroin was freebased, not crack. Then again, everything I learned about drugs I learned from Stephen King. (Drawing of the Three; the Stand)
Which is it?
And you will hear every goddam Christmas song
Till it makes you bang your head on the glass.
I’ll say it just once, only once, heed my word:
Shove this Christmas up your ass.
Not what I would expect to hear from someone called Annie-Xmas, bravo.
I, too, get the vertigo in the shopping malls at Christmas time. My husband has cleverly termed it “SantaClaustrophobia”, but the cute moniker doesn’t make it any more bearable. I get dizzy and shaky and sweaty and nauseous—hey! Those sound like good reindeer names! On, Dizzy! On, Shaky! On, Sweaty! On, Nauseous!
As for the songs, sometime ago, I read Dave Barry’s commentary on The Little Drummer Boy . Among other things, he noted that the mother of a newborn would never allow someone to just come in and start banging away on a drum once the little babe was asleep.
As the mother of an infant, I concur.