Mainlining Christmas

It's time for the annual Mainlining Christmas Last-Minute Holiday Gift Guide! Okay, so technically we've never actually written one of these before, but tossing the term "annual" onto the front just gives it some much needed gravitas. Besides, if ever there was a year the public needed some help finding that perfect gift, this is it. I mean, what do you get the person who already has everything in their fallout shelter? It's a tough nut to crack, but we've been wracking our brains to come up with the best holiday solutions. The Fondoodler Ever want to write with melted cheese using what amounts to a caulk gun? If so, the Fondoodler is what you've been waiting for. The Fondoodler can turn almost any cheese into whiz. Perfect for the foodie on your list! A Digital Subscription to the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. Now that we're on the precipice of living in a nation where the free press is threatened at every turn, the news media needs

Last year, Public Policy Polling asked 1,267 Americans a series of idiotic questions about the holidays . Among them was whether or not Die Hard qualifies as a Christmas movie. Much to our nation's shame, the vast majority claimed it wasn't. This is hardly the first time I've seen Die Hard's holiday credentials called into question. It's a pervasive idea that seems to show up at least a few times every year. Most of the time, the argument boils down to an arbitrary distinction between a Christmas movie and a movie that's incidentally set at Christmas, which is a can of worms that shouldn't be opened lightly . I mean, there's actually no reason It's A Wonderful Life has to be set at Christmas. Hell, if you move it to the states and change their names to the ghosts of Thanksgiving Past, Present, and Future, you can swap out the season of A Christmas Carol without impacting the plot or moral, if that's how low a bar you want to set. But

E: Okay, so that’s Christmas. In July. What in hell did we learn? L: That way more people are obsessed with Christmas card photos than we ever imagined. E: I know, right? Your Family or Mine , Rugrats , and… okay, just two, I guess. I could have sworn there were more, too. The Lizzie McGuire episode is basically the same idea, but with a music video instead of a portrait. Okay, let’s talk best and worst. What did you like from this? Setting aside Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July for a minute - we’re both on the record digging that. Of the new stuff we saw, what surprised you most? L: I liked Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries , but that isn’t a surprise. It was a bit of a surprise that it was Christmas in July, technically. It was such a traditional Christmas mystery, just in Australia, so if they wanted a proper ‘people dying in the snow’ it had to be set in July. E: That one grew on me. I started out a little bored by it, but as it moved along, they ratcheted up the t

When we started this project, I expected media built around Christmas in July parties, along with a few "Santa in the off-season" stories, and maybe a few things that related to marketing events. What I wasn't expecting were stories built around pagan themes and elements of horror. But there were quite a few. It turns out that Christmas in July, for all its jovial connotations, is potentially an extinction level event. In hindsight, I probably should have seen this coming. At its core, Christmas - or more accurately the Solstice, but they're really one and the same - represents a sort of perceived compact with the seasons. The celebration marks the turning point when the days start growing longer. It's a ritual for bringing back the sun's light and warmth. In this form, the invocation of Christmas in July can represent a shattering of this compact. But uncoupling Midwinter from its rightful place in time, we're potentially bringing about the c

We like to pretend what we do here at Mainlining Christmas matters, that we're creating something that will last. But deep down, we know better. In the distant, post-apocalyptic Christmases of the future, the cockroaches hyper-evolved by radiation from World Wars 7 through 14 won't be reading this blog. They will, however, decorate the festive spinal columns using Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments. Because - and this part's important - these things will be around for-freaking-ever. No one knows why exactly. Perhaps their CEO made a blood pact with a fiend of hell. Or maybe it's branding - whatever the reason, Hallmark ornaments are here to stay. And this weekend, they unveiled another year's additions to the collection. That's right, you slackers at K-Mart who wait until September to kick off the holiday shopping season, Hallmark understands the true meaning of Christmas in July. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking these aren't wor

It was a close one this year, what with the Grinch armed with a machine gun holding Santa Claus hostage in the old McCallister home. For a while there, it looked like Christmas might have to be cancelled. But some quick thinking from Dooley and the Christmas Narwhal saved the day, and... You know what? I don't need to recap this. You caught the news last night; you know the gifts were delivered, the Grinch is safely back in Arkham, and Santa Claus destroyed that asteroid before it reached orbit. We don't need to go over all the details or spend more time mourning Donner. What matters is Christmas 2015 came on schedule, and - aside from a few mishaps - it was a merry one. Here at Mainlining Christmas, we spent the season as we always do, force-feeding ourselves holiday cheer. Overall, our slate of movies was surprisingly good this year: we really weren't expecting that. That's not all, though. We hung out with reindeer, marveled at sculptures of Christmas dinosa

It seems like it was just Black Friday last week. Even though we crammed a lot of holiday cheer into this season, our list-of-things-to-watch is only getting longer. As I mentioned this year, researching one holiday special keeps leading us to more and more. Netflix sees our patterns and recommends more Christmas-themed stuff. We buy obscure movies and specials all year long whenever we find them cheap. So don’t worry about us running out of material anytime soon. The thing that most surprised me this year was how many honestly enjoyable, quality movies we watched. Some of the highlights of this year for me were: Meet Me in St. Louis - a classic movie musical, expertly crafted and gorgeously filmed The Apartment - another classic, this one quietly subversive, biting, and extremely clever 8 Women - a french film about family, anger, passion, and the judgement of women by women Mrs. Santa Claus - a sweet family musical about feminism and social justice in the 1910s, s

Too often elves are portrayed as weak and timid. Even if you doubt Christmas elves are as proficient with the long and short sword and bow as their sylvan cousins, you shouldn't underestimate their unique talents. Make no mistake: while forged in Santa's workshops, their skills have militaristic applications. With that in mind, Mainlining Christmas would like to offer a list of 10 elves who are potentially lethal. Wayne, Call Sign: Little Drummer Boy ( Prep & Landing ) Weapon of Choice: Sleep grenades, cane hook, tree trimmer, and a host of other high-tech gadgets. Danger Level: Low. Wayne's equipment is intended for non-lethal combat, and his centuries of training and experience make it incredibly unlikely he'd lose control and do anything drastic. However, it's worth remembering three facts: he's prone to depression, he's slipped up before, and he's proven again and again that his gear is extremely versatile. Would he ever take a life? Prob

After the first year of Mainlining Christmas, we knew we could keep this up for a while. We didn’t even manage to hit everything on my initial brainstorming list that year, and new Christmas movies, episodes and specials come out every year. What we didn’t expect was that even now, in year six, we would still be discovering untapped veins of pure jingle. This year we’ve patched some holes in our repertoire of classic movies, and are catching up on some of the most recent releases. A lot of the other things, we found through serendipitous chains, following the pine-needle trails from one place to the next. An example: I was looking for a reminder of some of the media we’ve seen that features an ‘alternate’ Christmas. In a fit of brilliance, I decided to see whether the trope had a tvtropes page, which of course it does.  On this page I found a reference to the holiday episodes of the Disney Channel show Sofia the First. In adding Sofia the First to the to-watch list, I w

When it comes to movies, I don't think any genre has been more under served at Christmas than science fiction. There's a massive amount of Christmas-themed horror and fantasy, but very little SF. I'm honestly not sure why: it's a surprisingly logical fit, given the genre's interest in culture and religion. There are a handful of exceptions, though most of them are mixed with other genres. By my count, there have between two and four Christmas science-fiction films with meaningful budgets made in the past five decades (the exact number depends on how generous you are in defining both "Christmas movie" and "science-fiction"). Of course, TV has been more generous: science-fiction series, like every other genre, are often compelled to carve out some time at the holidays. What follows is essentially intended as a survey of the genre and a breakdown of how the concepts interact. SPACE When most people who aren't fans of the genre