How the hell is it already December 21st?????!?!?!
Happy Solstice, Dakkadakka!
Hope the season finds all of you well, especially this year, and that if you can't be with your loved ones - as many of us can't - that at least they are safe and happy wherever they might be, too.
As someone often charged with explaining my culture around the world, this time of year can often be a bit of a self-reflective one for me. As a Brit (sorry Scottish grandpa, I just don't get new years), Christmas is the dominant festival for me and mine, though I'm having a more Japanese affair this year with a couple of mates and the GF.
With this in mind, I was wondering about other people's choices for obligatory festive veiwing/listening/doing is, maybe with a mind to steal some of your much better, cooler ideas, and also spread a bit of festive cheer among all of us, timmies and grognards,
WAACs, CAACs and
TFGs.
Initially, I thought about making the rules for this a bit more strict, but feth it, It's Christmas. Sod the rules, get sozzled on bailey's with your nan and nearly come to blows over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie with your religious aunt!
Thought I'd start the ball rolling with some stuff I consider mid-winter must-haves!
Please add your own to this thread! Working closely with so many Americans this year has really illustrated how different we can be in the anglophone world, let alone everything else, so if you have something to add, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's curious to hear it!
Music:
Music around this time can be hellish, but
tbh I've always had a soft spot for the kitsch, camp nonsense. In no particular order...
1. Happy Xmas (War is Over) - John Lennon - probably one of my fave xmas songs, something about the guitar part at the start really tickles me. It feels kind of older and almost English folk-y, but the lyrical content and production feel very grounded in the 70s. A kind of bitter optimism grips this song
2. December 23rd - The Angry Snowmans - The Angry Snowmans, for those who weren't into kind of shitpost-y punk in 2011, cover classic punk/hardcore songs, but change the lyrics to make them Christmassy. While "Hannukah" and "Richard Hung His Sock" are firm favorites with me, I always find myself humming "December 23rd/ Tomorrow's Christmas Eve!" to myself around this time. Kinda irreverant, very silly, also kind of unironically classic, if only for it's earworminess (at least for me)
3. Merry Christmas, Everyone - Shakin' Stevens - listen, I hate this song, and I think Shakin' Stevens is about as lame as you'd expect from a Welsh Elvis impersonator who got big purely based on the lack of taste my parent's generation had, but my mum always played it in the house as a kid, so it doesn't really feel like xmas without it.
4. This one will piss off everyone who's ever worked retail in the
UK, but ever since I was a little kid I've loved
Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade. It's bad. I know. Sorry.
5. This one will just piss off everyone ever, but
All I want for Christmas is You is great, from the piano, to pre-insane Maria Carey being cute in the music video.
6.
F*ck This, I'm Out - Off With Their Heads. Not a festive song in the slightest, and not even the one song they kinda made christmass-y with the music video (called Seek Advice Elsewhere, check it out, it's very funny), but when I was University arc PoserMcBogus, this song was on my phone when I got on the train laden with all my worldly belongings, leaving Hull (a city I won't apologize for hating, even now), and heading back to my hometown. As the train pulled out of the station, and the morning sun hit the glass of the almost-highrise buildings of the town center, that song came on and I've never felt so free on a train in England. Has always gotten a ceremonial play during the holidays since.
7.
9 Lessons and Carols. My old man isn't much of a godly type, but he always put this on on Christmas eve. This year, I've blasted two whole services of it, despite having only been to church once since 2006, and that was because of a very beautiful Korean girl.
8.
I Believe in Father Christmas - Greg Lake. Not much of a progg fan, but the guitar work here is sumptuous, and the lyrics nicely weave a bit of tension and anxiety into Christmas, something I appreciate much more as an adult, building to a wonderful crescendo that kind of feels a bit like being a kid in awe of a massive tree being dragged into your house, and gakloads of presents and food suddenly materializing.
9.
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire - Nat King Cole. Probably my favorite Christmas song of the year. Between the luxurious instrumentation, Cole's buttery vocals, and the intoxicating good-old-days vibe (dived into why this is such a thing for Christmas, and it turns out people have been using xmas to whist for good old days since the middle ages at least), this is a gorgeous song. I used it for one of my xmas lessons at a local special educational needs school this year, and the sense of calm was utterly unreal. For a moment, in this crazy year, at the end of a hectic week, there was peace, at least for me, and it was glorious. Hope I'll never forget it.
10.
Xmas - Ghostface Killa. Discovered this song this year and it's utterly brilliant. Ghostface brings his most serious Wu-Tang chops to a lyrically adorable ode to Christmas. I played this in my highschool xmas lessons, much to the terror of a Japanese colleague, who spent a few years in Texas, and is pretty savvy with hip hop music. It always feels like Ghostface is about to say something very classroom inappropriate, but pulls it away at the last minute by making the verse about hot cocoa or reindeer, which is at once a hilarious testimony to his lyrical talent, but also very, very nervewracking around a classroom of 15 year olds. Supremely underrated.
Movies:
I don't watch movies that much, but here are some holiday faves for me.
1.
Muppets Christmas Carol. So I think I was about 4 in the Christmas of 1999, and it felt like all I did was watch the muppets with my dad. Between Michael Caine acting to muppets like they're people, and just being very comfy, conventional Christmas kino, this is a great movie, at least to me.
2.
Harry Potter and the philosophers stone. Again, a movie from the era of little McBogus. Look, there's like a Christmas bit in it, yeah? Proper Christmas telly this. Kid friendly action movie, that is actually very nicely made, and stands the test of time.
3. Is my entire taste in movies informed by my childhood impressions of them? My love for the Phantom Menace ssys yes. But this is a different movie.
Elf. The references to the old 60s stop motion Videocraft International movies, Will Ferrell's overacting and Hollywood version of New York just kind of feel right. This is almost a satire of Christmas/ fish-fish-out-of-water movies, but I can't help falling for its by-the-by-the-book formula.
So! What do you think? What is essential holiday media for you? Hate my takes, and have far better ones? Wanna write a 6,000 eord essay on how Scrooged is a far better adaptation of Christmas Carol? Go ahead! Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and here's to a better 2021 (I'm full of payday wine
)
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