Sonny Garrett Odds & Ends
Now that the turkey’s been reduced to a la king and broth ingredients, and the last thing you want to see is a green bean casserole, the holiday season officially begins. This is the way.
On Thanksgiving, housefuls of relatives gather. They gorge on turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, that green bean casserole with the crispy fried onions, pumpkin pie and whatever the pink gelatinous stuff is Aunt Helen brings every year. Then they sit around groaning as their meal digests, which may take hours, sometimes even days.
Next, the commercially dubbed Black Friday kicks off the Christmas season. Folks who gave thanks the day before for all they have set out early to battle other households to get even more stuff at discount prices. It’s sort of like Dune with tinsel.
Thus begins the holiday season. It’s time to bring out the lights and the garland. Drag the tree out of the attic, or out of the woods if you’re a traditionalist. Inflate that 10-foot Santa on the front yard next to the eight-foot snowman and set out the manger scene with the 60-watt baby Jesus. Flip on the stereo to play those songs you’re supposed to only play in December.
For the next few weeks, we’ll decorate our homes and businesses, lighting up some of them until they’re visible from the International Space Station. Cookies will be baked by the dozens, candies will be made, and fruitcakes of indeterminate age will be passed on to families and friends who haven’t had them before, and who will pass them on next year. Shopping will grow at a frantic pace until procrastinators go into a buying frenzy on Christmas Eve.
As the season follows its course, many folks will cope by watching the thousands of holiday movies, specials and Christmas episodes of television shows. And that’s just on the Hallmark Channel.
Everyone has their favorites. It’s a Wonderful Life, originally not a Christmas movie, tops many people’s holiday list. It’s up there with any of the hundreds of versions of A Christmas Carol. I think John Wayne and Don Knotts are the only actors who never portrayed Scrooge. You probably could start a streaming channel with nothing but variations of A Christmas Carol.
There will be multiple showings of Miracle on 34th Street in all its versions, too. My favorite remains the original, which was not promoted as a Christmas movie and was released in the summer.
No contemporary holiday season is complete without at least one viewing of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, perhaps the most dysfunctional Christmas comedy ever. Elf is another modern “classic,” and one of a few movies in which I can tolerate Will Farrell.
And who can forget one of the great Christmas movies – Die Hard.
There’s a lot of debate about whether this is a Christmas movie, or just an action film with a holiday setting. Real Diehard fans are adamant that it’s a Christmas movie. For many fans, it really isn’t Christmas season until Hans Gruber falls from Nakatomi Tower, sort of like the Times Square New Year’s Eve ball.
Honestly, if It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street can evolve into Christmas movies, then so can Die Hard, even if it’s not as heartwarming as its predecessors. (Movie trivia: The novel on which Die Hard is based originally was optioned as a movie for Frank Sinatra. Imagine what that could have been like.)
As we celebrate the holiday season and sometimes become stressed by all the activities, it’s nice to know there are so many seasonal movies that can help us unwind. Movies that remind us of what the season truly is about, uplifting our spirits and reminding us there still is good in the world. Movies to inspire us to be kind, generous and love our fellow persons. Movies that tell us all we need to do is believe.
Movies that encourage us to return to our small-town roots for Christmas, find the flannel-clad hunk or gingham-wearing beauty we stupidly left for an unsatisfying and smothering career in the big city, go caroling with them at the winter festival on the town square, fall in love, give up our unsatisfying career to open a hometown cappuccino shop and live happily ever after. At least until next year’s sequel.
So, get out the cocoa, pop the corn and settle in for the happiest time of the year, holiday movie season.
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December 01, 2021 at 03:00AM
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It's beginning to look like holiday movie season - Baxter Bulletin
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