Mainlining Christmas

Our never-ending quest for the shiniest sparkliest Christmas-ness brought us, in time, to the Evergreen Community Church in Bothell, WA. This is the second year they have hosted a synchronized light show for the holidays. You walk through a pretty cool tunnel to get to the viewing area. (The guy at the end is handing out candy canes.) A sign on site said that the tunnel alone contains 7,600 lights. There's a little side display with trees and reindeer that's pretty cute. Inside the building pictured is a train set, some informational signs, a place to donate to the YMCA, and free snacks: cider, hot chocolate and cookies.  But the real show is the front of the church itself. 270 independently controlled sections of lights, 2 miles of extension cords, 2 "Mega Trees" with 12,800 lights each... Enjoy some excerpts: All in all, it was a damn fine display!

We had never seen an episode of Grimm before this. From this viewing, it’s… okay. I mean, it’s a quirky procedural, spin the dial and land on a quirky procedural these days. A show like this depends on viewers getting invested in its particular set of actors/characters and its particular gimmick. Without that investment, it’s just a mediocre mash up of tropes from X-Files and Buffy about a guy pretending to be a cop in between monster hunting. The monster of this week is Krampus, which we were excited to see. While the visual design is very nice, the plot is sort of blah. The episode opens with a couple of punk kids stealing presents, then Krampus sneaks up on them under a bridge. He snags one, but the other is just injured and hides in a car. Cut to the next morning, when the cops are investigating a dead kid. Only the kid isn’t dead. He’s really, obviously, not dead. This is the point where we started to really doubt the professionalism of the emergency responders on this s

This one's short - very short. And that's a shame, because I could really watch hours of this. It features very fantastic character design, beautiful stop-motion animation, and an awesome spin on Krampus. The short is between 50 seconds and five minutes long, depending on how many times you re-watch it. Enjoy! "A Krampus Christmas" eCard from Screen Novelties on Vimeo .

In my search for more holiday cheer, I heard that there is a street in Ravenna (a neighborhood here in Seattle) which goes all out for Christmas. Looks promising. Now, the big thing you have to know about this is how busy it was. It's a small, residential street, and you can either drive through or park nearby and walk. It was around 9 p.m. on a Saturday when we stopped by, and the line of cars to get there was blocks and blocks long. We parked and walked. Almost all the houses had pretty cute decorations. Giant candy canes and the word "peace" in many languages were prominently featured. The most impressive bit was the centerpiece, a 'carousel' around a hedge: In motion: The houses were very cute, although I'm not really sure why anyone would wait in that line of cars to drive through. When we left after about 15 minutes, we saw that the line had died down a little. However, some of the cars that we

Hey, look, two new holiday shorts from Simon's Cat! WHOO!

In what may be the single greatest Fox News clip ever recorded, Megyn Kelly hosts a frank discussion about race with a bunch of white people. This video is required viewing: To recap, Jesus and Santa Claus are historical figures. And they were white. This actually contradicts the prevailing view that Jesus's precise ethnicity is unknown (though probably not "white") and Santa Claus is a mythical being representing an amalgamation of figures from folklore, as well as stories about a fourth-century bishop. But according to Kelly, both are historic figures, both are white, and this is a "verifiable fact." Break out the champagne, people, because this is the best news we could have hoped for. You see, there's only one way she could possibly be that certain about Jesus's skin color: time-travel must have been invented. That's right. Time travel. Because no self-respecting journalist - really, no human with even a shred of integrity - would eve

Sarah Palin's new book is, more or less, a long-winded, nonsensical rant from someone who has absolutely no idea what she's talking about. I'll pause to let the shock sink in. The book is largely driven by a pervasive misunderstanding of the war on Christmas, who's fighting it, and what it's over. In her worldview, those fighting Christmas are offended atheists who want to push Christ out of Christmas and replace it with a Solstice festival, ceremonies venerating sun gods, and even Islamic holidays. She doesn't mention push from Jewish households - both liberal and conservative - who are bothered by the holiday's status in schools, nor does she acknowledge the sizable numbers of conservative Christians who boycott the holiday because of its pagan roots. She seems to have at least a passing familiarity with those roots. There's a brief mention that Jesus probably wasn't born on 12/25, and that the holiday's date was likely co-opted from

I stumbled across a story for this on CNN and thought it needed to be shared. This is a commercial ostensibly addressing kids. Since that's the intended audience, you should probably call them into the room if they're home. In fact, you should do that NOW, before you've viewed the video yourself to ensure it won't traumatize them for life or ruin this Christmas and future Christmases to come. I mean, if Greenpeace put this on Youtube where anyone could come across it, it must be appropriate for all ages, right? I'm going to set questions of morality, politics, and whether or not we're irreparably destroying the planet aside and focus on the video. In particular, I want to focus on this interpretation of Santa Claus. I've long been a fan of more realistic versions of Saint Nick, and this certainly fits that description. I like the actor's take here - he seems to be taking this seriously, which is a nice change of pace from what we usually get.

Let's take a moment to ponder, in all its complexity and multitude of facets, the phrase, "missed opportunity." I'm not a fan of Lady Gaga, but I respect her for what she is. I just don't really think she's a singer. It's not that she can't sing - she can. It's just that there's nothing special about her singing, and less than nothing special about her songs. Her music is generic, and her lyrics are gibberish. But that's okay, because - like I said - she's not a singer. She's a performance artist. And a damn good one, if her popularity is any indicator. Hell, she's practically a Muppet herself. She should be juggling porcupines with Gonzo - she'd be awesome at that. Why didn't she hang out with Animal or hire the Swedish Chef as a costumer? Her interactions with Miss Piggy should have been legendary, not trivial. Like I said: missed opportunity. Instead, we got an hour of her singing songs off her new album, b

Cards on the table here: Lindsay and I don't agree on whether this even qualifies for the blog. She thinks it's not a Christmas movie because it technically takes place in the summer, has nothing to do with Christmas, and never once mentions the holidays by name. And those are valid points. But here's where I'm coming from: I'm looking at a movie with five main characters where one's a talking snowman and another is a reindeer. A full 40% of the leads are Christmas tropes. "Are there bells?" you may ask. Yes - hanging ice bells that the reindeer gets tangled in. "But does the reindeer appear to fly ?" you'll respond. There is a scene where the reindeer leaps over a ravine that's reminiscent of flight. Let's add this all up: xMY = (1.25 Talking Snowmen * Reindeer * Winter Wonderland)  / (No Santa * No X-Mas mention) If I'm doing the calculations right, that still comes out to 2.71 megayules, which is well above th

NOS4A2 Joe Hill, 2013 Crossposted from The Blue Fairy’s Bookshelf Premise: Victoria “Vic” McQueen has a special talent: she can use her bike and a bridge that isn’t there to find lost things. Unfortunately, Charlie Manx has a talent too. Vic is the only child to escape from Manx’s one-way trip to Christmasland, but it takes more than luck to break an evil man, and every power comes with a price. I thought this book was good, but I’m not sure I actually enjoyed reading it. The tone wasn’t quite my cup of tea, and it needed to be more tightly written. Some positives: Vic herself is a great protagonist. She’s broken and flawed in completely believable and sympathetic ways. She’s brave when she has to be, even if she has to talk herself into it. The talents are interesting. Broadly and only vaguely defined, they hint at much more out of sight. The writing is quite good: the descriptions of the supernatural and creepy as well as the mundane and everyday were evocative and often p

Aint it Cool posts a weekly list of short films , which is usually worth glancing through. Like the drug stores around here, they're not waiting for Halloween to wrap up before mixing in some Christmas offerings. "M is for Merry Christmas" is only about three minutes long. It stars Krampus, a Christmas demon who really needs more exposure. It's a dark, fun little piece that's definitely worth the time. Check it out: M is for Merry Christmas from Holomax on Vimeo .

We've been watching Shane Black movies all month in preparation for this: the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film set at Christmas. I'm reviewing the movie itself over at The Middle Room , but I had some thoughts that felt more at home here. While I'm grateful it lets me talk about the movie here, the holiday backdrop actually seemed a little superfluous to me. The setting was peppered with yuletide references, and there was no shortage of jokes reminding us when the events were occurring. But ultimately, I'm not sure what these accomplished (besides being good for a laugh). I guess there's a case to be made for tone, but I didn't feel the disconnect I got from Die Hard or melodramatic juxtaposition from Lethal Weapon. The fact it was set in winter allowed them to shoot Tony dragging his broken armor through the snow (in Tennessee - in December: something's off here), but not much else. If anything, it almost felt like the movie was set at Christmas to

For several years, Community has been regarded as one of the best things on TV. I've been addicted since I checked out the first few holiday episodes. The most recent (and almost certainly the last) season of Community has been rocky. The show's creator, Dan Harmon, was fired last year, and a number of writers and directors left in solidarity. The network brought in some new writers to run the show. Overall, they've done a better job than most people expected, but they're certainly no substitutes for Harmon. "Intro to Knots" should have aired in December, but the entire series got pushed back and it aired last Thursday. This episode was less driven by a gimmick than the last two Christmas episodes: no songs or animation. It was, according to Wikipedia, intended as an homage to "Rope," one of Alfred Hitchcock's movies. Well... I've never seen that. But I certainly recognized elements from other sources. The plot revolved around the study g