Tis the season to be jolly
I've decided: it's time
Time to get properly Christmassy. I’ve been letting it build slowly by decorating the tree & a small portion of the house but I’ve long thought you don’t want to go early with Christmas content or you’ll knacker yourself out. Many, many, many of you are not like that, I know. I like to leave the festive season wanting more, excited for the next one to roll around, thinking ‘ooh I never got a chance to watch that one’ - as opposed to being sick to the back teeth of the season in its entirety and keen to put it off for longer than the usual calendar year.
There is an abundance of Christmas everything nowadays: Christmas specials from your favourite TV shows, Christmas movies (& not just the age-old classics: Netflix has really leaned into the festive romcom niche), Christmas versions of books and even Christmassy podcasts. It’s everywhere.
The thing about Christmas is that everyone has their own way of doing it: the meal, the movies, the day itself. So this week won’t be about re-inventing the wheel: I merely hope to remind you of some classics that you may care to re-visit, introduce some newer titles that might peak your interest and also give honourable mentions to Christmas-adjacent stories that are enjoyable, seasonally-appropriate and perhaps less likely to cause you to burn out on festive fun.
Be sure to get all the way to the end this week for some important information.
TL;DR
Watch Trading Places, Gremlins & Scrooged, listen to Christmas Past & Victoria Wood - Loose Chippings, watch Father Ted Christmas special & read A Christmas Memory and A Child’s Christmas in Wales.
WATCH
I love the Christmas-adjacent films as much as proper Christmas films - and let’s be honest, no one needs yet another list of must-watch Christmas films really. So why not give Trading Places a try - or revisit it if you’ve been there before
. Eddie Murphy & Dan Aykroyd are pitch perfect as a homeless man and finance bro type unwittingly selected by the real-life ‘Statler & Waldorf’ brothers Mortimer and Randolph Duke to feature in a bet about social engineering. Aykroyd plays an educated, successful banker Louis Winthorpe III while Murphy is Billy Ray Valentine a homeless man living on the street. The Brothers Duke upend both their lives & hilarity ensues. It’s an excellent (if unnecessary) reminder that the super-rich are awful.
I’ve just realised that this section accidentally focusses on movies from the 1980s. A glorious time in Hollywood where they didn’t feel the need to make every. single. film at least two hours long. At 106 minutes long, Gremlins is long enough to engross you but not so long that you run the risk of missing that you have in fact reached pensionable age whilst watching. Or that Santa’s been. Or the turkey’s burnt.
A doting dad gives his son an adorable creature called a mogwai for Christmas. There are three simple but strict rules regarding the mogwai (named Gizmo): do not expose it to light, do not let it get wet and whatever else you do: do not feed it after midnight. Needless to say: all the rules get broken. All hell breaks loose. Great fun is had.
Finally a straight-up Christmas flick. One that’s definitely not completely forgotten but can easily slip through the cracks. If you haven’t watched it for a few years give Scrooged a go.
The movie marked Bill Murray’s return to acting after a four year absence after making Ghostbusters (apparently he found the whole circus overwhelming) and you can definitely see the benefit of his having had a bit of a rest. He is at his quirkiest, most effervescent self in this 1988 version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol; this time playing soulless TV executive Frank Cross who is hell-bent on making everyone work on Christmas Eve and pretending he doesn’t give a damn about the holidays because he could be making money. Needless to say, three ghosts visit, lessons are learned and Frank Cross becomes a new man. The over-the-top 80s-ness of it all is hugely enjoyable and keep an eye out for the hilarious boob-exposing outfits featured in Cross’s live TV production of A Christmas Carol (meta before meta ever even Meta’ed).
LISTEN
Podcast Christmas Past is a fun wide-ranging examination of all things Easter. Ha! No, paying attention? It’s about Christmas.
It starts out with a history lesson about where Santa Claus originated (you do all know St Nick was Turkish right?) but from then on we learn about Jingle Bells, Gremlins and there’s a light sprinkling of spooky Christmas stories. An excellent mash-up of two of my favourite times of year.
Another Christmas-adjacent title is not even available yet - that’s how current I am. (& by Christmas-adjacent in this instance I mean: it’s being released around Christmas). Victoria Wood - Loose Chippings is broadcasting at 8pm on Saturday 14 December on BBC Radio 4 and again on Christmas Day. (& I’m sure it will be on BBC Sounds soyou can listen at your leisure. Presented by her biographer Jasper Rees, it’s a mix of Wood’s audio diary, songs and sketches that have never been heard before. She might not be for everyone but her quick wit & gentle humour make her ideal company for me during an evening of present-wrapping. Just check out this Christmas poem of hers for a wee giggle:
WATCH
There isn’t really much in the line of tv series just about Christmas other than the ‘behind-the-scenes’ shows on Channels 4 & 5 about Christmas in various big houses or cathedrals around the UK. But there are plenty of Christmas specials from all kinds of TV shows. I shall signpost but one here: the Father Ted Christmas special - A Christmassy Ted.
It has laughs, it has tension & the lingerie department of Dunnes Stores (Ireland’s answer to Marks & Spencer to those who aren’t au fait). You don’t need to know anymore, you just need watch it.
READ
The original (& honestly best) Christmas book is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. If you haven’t read it yet, pick it up now. It’s such a slim book you will easily have it finished by 25th December (or tomorrow).
But if you’re looking for something a little different why not try Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory, a somewhat autobiographical story of the unlikely but adorable friendship between seven-year old Buddy and sixty-something year old Miss Sook - who are also distant cousins - as they prepare for Christmas: making fruitcake, getting a tree & picking presents. It’s a little slice of festive joy that will be easily zipped through over the holiday season.
Another Christmassy tale from the perspective of a little boy - this time in Wales. A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas is another tale of remembrances of Christmas past which is blessed with brevity. (No tomes here - no time!)
Thomas’s poetic talent delivers a warm hug of nostalgia that envelops you as you learn about Mrs Prothero’s cat - though some of the sentences are amongst the longest I’ve ever read. But wrap up in a blanket with a glass of something hot and indulge - & try to ignore the rather dreadful cover art.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
A Muppet’s Christmas Carol is the greatest Christmas film of all time. Fact.
I love lots of others but this literally has it all: the Gonzo & Rizzo the Rat narrator partnership, such a huge cast of Muppets in most shots that you will notice something new with each viewing and Sir Michael Caine playing Ebeneezer Scrooge as deathly straight as opening night of Shakespeare’s Macbeth at the Globe.
You must watch it every year. You won’t get bored. It is perfect.