So my daughter wants to make this Christmas season memorable for Wee Jamie by going on a Christmas movie binge in the evening; a mix of movies we have watched before – Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story; both old favorites. (A Christmas Story takes place at Christmas 1940 although an argument can be made for 1939. I know this because it must be after The Wizard of Oz premiered in August, 1939, since characters from that movie appear in the Christmas parade and Higbee’s department store scenes. There is no mention of WWII going on, which would have marked any time after December 194; no war news, no mention of rationing, bond and scrap drives, air raid precautions, etc. Not post-war, for pretty much the same reasons – all the toys, for instance, are primo 1930s-era items, including the dirigible that Little Brother hugs to himself in bed Christmas night, even as Ralphie hangs on to his Red Ryder BB gun. Am I old? I can remember Red Ryder being in the comic pages when I was a kid myself,,,)

We also explored movies that we know about but never have actually watched. We bailed on a couple of them after the first twenty minutes or so: Jack Frost being one, and Fred Claus being the other. Just didn’t feel any interest at all. As for the others that we watched so far – Home Alone and Home Alone 2 – still quite amusing, (in spite of cartoon-accident violence that would likely kill a normal human outright), especially the brief guest appearance by Donald Trump when he was just a TV celebrity and habitué of the NY gossip columns. Barely made it through Elf – an annoying main character, balanced by some very high-end acting talent in the rest of the cast. We were totally creeped out by The Polar Express. I suspect they were probably trying to replicate the ‘look’ of the book throughout the movie, but we cared nothing for the four kid characters – Annoying Girl Boss, Annoying Main Character Boy, Really Annoying Know It All Boy and Silent Boy … and who the heck was the hobo anyway, and what was he doing on the train? I mean ON the train? On the other hand, Arthur Christmas was a charmer – and I liked the visualization of Santa’s factory at the North Pole and his international distribution network – it just was much more engagingly humorous than Polar Express’s version. Can’t go wrong with an Ardman or a Pixar production, mostly. We’re currently watching A Muppet Christmas Carol, which I like, being a Muppet fan from long ago. Seeing Michael Caine chew the scenery in grand style is a nice bonus, as he is playing it absolutely straight, despite being knee-deep in puppet rats, pigs, chickens and whatever.

I don’t know if we will watch Die Hard, as the ultimate Christmas movie, although other people insist that it’s not really Christmas until Hans Gruber falls off the Nakatomi Tower. Probably just settle for Christmas Vacation again