The final five...as promised...

I know you'll think some of these are weird choices...especially together...but please remember I'm eating Vicodin like m&m's...and that I'm a weirdo in general.

#5-Silent Night, Deadly Night: A horrible horror movie released in the 80's that lasted a mere 2 weeks in the theaters due to mass amounts of protest from concerned parents. The story goes like this...little boy sees his parents killed brutally by a chump in a Santa Suit...raised in an orphanage by nuns who beat him regularly...grows up and gets a job in a department store where they force him to dress like Santa for the holidays and he snaps and starts killing people whilst dressed like Santa.

Obviously NOT a warm and cozy movie, and not something I recommend watching in the least. It spawned about 30 sequels and believe it or not my cousins and I rented every one of them on a trip to Florida. I haven't wanted to go near a mall Santa since!


#4-Bad Santa (or Badder Santa): Billy Bob plays a liquored up degenerate who, with his trusty elf by his side, plays Santa at a department store in order to case the joint and rob it once closed. The best part of this whole film is "the Kid." Look at his shorts in the picture for crying out loud...how could you not love him?! He befriends Billy Bob, believing that this low-life is in fact the real deal. And he loves offering people sandwiches.



#3-It's a Wonderful Life: Back to the sappy stuff...

My mother made us endure watching this movie every year as children. Way back then it was only on once a year on channel 2. There was no colorization, no VHS, no DVD...just a cold winter night and a black and white movie that was amazingly boring!

However, at some point we matured and wanted to watch it over and over again. We hated when it came out in the colorized version...and strangely enough started to actually understand the message it had been casting over us for years. As written in Tom Sawyer, by the Angel Clarence himself: "No man's a failure who has friends." Now we watch it on a cold winter's night, with Kleenex on hand, waiting for Clarence to save the day, and wishing Uncle Billy wasn't such a loser. We wait for Zuzu's petals to be discovered by the transformed George Bailey and for the exclamation "My mouth's bleeding, Burt...my mouth's Bleedin'!" The story never changes, but I find that every year, it's my favorite movie to wait for!



#2-White Christmas: This is a classic, and despite it's title really only has a short part that has to do with Christmas at all. Two army buddies have ended their service and have decided to go forth and create a musical act between them. They end up in Vermont to stay at their old General's inn which has hit the skids because there's no snow. Obviously they do a big tv show to save the day from the inn...and even manage to rustle up some romantic interests as well. The song "Sisters" is highly annoying...we used to play the movie over and over in the last bookstore I worked...mostly to antagonize one of our favorite employees, Amanda:) It's extremely long, but still manages to make you reach for the leftover Kleenex from It's A Wonderful Life.



#1a-National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: This has become a classic to me. I laugh at this movie from start to finish...from the moment Audrey's eyeballs are frozen...to the storm sewer exploding and sending the plastic Santa Sleigh toward the moon...the ridiculousness is just comedy. The most fun I've ever had watching this movie was about a week ago. My mother, exhausted from work and the illness of her mother and the Christmas season in and of itself...was watching with me. The scene where Clark puts the new oil on the sled and zips down the hill caused an eruption of laughter from my mother. I didn't know whether she was laughing or crying...she just howled through the whole thing. I couldn't get her to calm down...and I didn't really want to because I think she just needed the giggle fit!



#1b-Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas:

Your nails won't break and your toes won't stub, You never get a fever when there ain't no hole in the washtub!

This may be the quintessential Christmas movie. Themed by the Gift of the Magi, a troupe of muppets make the scene. This was shown a lot on HBO, and when we didn't have HBO...my sister and I watched it "through the squiggles." Emmet and his Ma are poor little otters, who do what they can to make ends meet. Christmas will be especially difficult, but the chance of winning a talent show may change that. Each enters, and trades something important to make it into the contest. It's sickly sweet, and the songs are cheesy...but it's freaking awesome regardless. It's now available on DVD, but I don't recommend it being purchased that way because of some copyright laws Kermit does not appear as the narrator. He's only in it a little bit, probably because none of the other characters are familiar muppets...but he's necessary. I also have it on VHS...with Kermit. If you do get the chance to see this...trust me...it's totally not worth missing!

So that's the end of my "a-day" rants for this year. I've gotten some feedback and know that there are some suggestions floating around for more blog material...I'm sure I'll keep you buggers satiated on my goings on for some time to come! Thanks for tuning in and pretending to care about what I have to say:) Happy New Year, everyone!!