Let's Talk Swimming Swans and Milking Maids...

Since we started Mainlining Christmas, we've had an unofficial policy of disregarding New Year's media unless it also directly tied to Christmas Day. We've always known this was kind of silly, but then again this blog is silly, so that worked out.

For the record, here's the logic. This blog was conceived as a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the massive juggernaut that the Christmas season represents in the United States. As such, the blog would primarily update between Black Friday and Christmas Day (i.e., the holiday shopping season).

We've always known this runs counter to several historical versions of Christmas (e.g., the Twelve Days running between December 25th and January 5th) and our own decision to embrace a definition of Christmas much wider than the Christian holiday (which... look, we've written extensively about how this is really just Saturnalia, anyway, so let's not rehash that here).

Ultimately, we mostly sided with the idea our study of Christmas should generally end on the 25th since that's when we stopped regular posting. Besides, once you exclude the ones that also feature Christmas, how many New Year's movies are left?

That logic held us over for a decade, but our thinking's starting to change. There aren't a lot of movies centered on New Year's, but a few are really significant. And as this weird yuletide experiment has evolved into an unintended study of the relationship between the holiday season and media... those omissions are starting to bug me.

What I'm saying is consider the New Year's exclusion canceled. We're not changing our regular schedule, but we are going to start including movies set on New Year's Eve and Day as part of the holiday canon. We haven't decided whether that'll take the form of reviews published normally or an occasional New Year's bonus - maybe both - but going forward, New Year's is Christmas. And what the heck? Let's kick this off with a bonus post tomorrow.

Same goes for Epiphany, in the unlikely event that ever comes up. As for Thanksgiving... eh. Maybe we'll revisit that on a later date.

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