Another Christmas Upon Us

As we settle with the people in our household to enjoy the warmth of a raging inferno burning through the remnants of our once-great civilization, it seems like a good time to stop and reflect on the things we didn't do, the friends we didn't see, and the experiences we didn't get to have together. We can also take a moment to reflect on the movies we watched through the long, long, excruciatingly long months of 2020. I assume you're doing the same thing, because - let's be honest here - it's not like there was anything else to do.

This has been weirdly a good movie year for us here at Mainlining. Year after year, I keep expecting the well to run dry, only to discover it runs deeper and stranger than I possibly could have imagined. This year, we were introduced to 3615 code Père Noël, The Proposition, Ben is Back, Dash & Lily, and Happiest Season, all of which I'd rank among the all-time great Christmas media (I'm trying to be inclusive to Dash & Lily, which was a series rather than a movie).

I'll admit I was a bit disheartened to find Happiest Season didn't get quite as much love from audiences as I expected, but... you know what? This is destined to be revisited and reevaluated in a decade or two. It'll make its way into the canon of holiday classics - mark my words. It's too good not to.

We saw plenty of movies that fell short of our favorites, too, though not all were bad. Ma nuit chez Maud was absolutely fantastic, though I can't say it connected with me as well as the movies above (I still really enjoyed it, though). On the weirder end of the spectrum, Trancers was more fun than it probably had any right to be.

We sat through plenty of abysmal movies, too, but that's all part of Christmas. The joy of opening gifts comes from the surprise of unwrapping something meaningful and affecting: you can't create that atmosphere of anticipation if there aren't a few packages hiding socks and fruit cakes.

All in all, as good a collection of Christmas movies as anyone could hope for. As for the rest... well... this certainly wasn't the best year in recent memory, or even the second best. Nor was it ranked anywhere in the middle. Or in the bottom third. It wasn't the third worst year, or even the second. In other words, let's try to stay positive and focus not on 2020 itself, but instead on the lessons we can hope to learn from it going forward. Lessons like, "Don't elect sewer clowns to the office of president." Or perhaps, "Wear your mask and give your neighbors some space when there's a pandemic raging." Things like that.

Let's hope for a better year in 2021. Things are already looking up by about seven million votes.