Mainlining Christmas

Mainlining Christmas will be covering the Macy's Thanksgiving parade! Live! From NEW YORK CITY (more specifically, from our apartment in Queens, where we'll be watching it on TV). Yeah. Here's the link .

Clocking in at two ninety-minute episodes, this is one of the longer pieces of work we've seen for this project, but it's completely worth the time. This is an excellent adaptation of the novel, with all of its zany twists and dry satirical humor. As in said novel, the plot revolves around Hogswatch (Christmas) on Discworld. The Hogfather is missing, and while Death himself holds down the fort, his granddaughter Susan has to figure out what happened, then how to save both Hogswatch and possibly the Discworld itself. The characters are fun and interesting, most of my favorite parts of the book made it into the adaptation, and Erin, who hasn't read the book, was able to follow the plot, and the point, without a problem. I'm hoping to re-read the novel soon and post about it, so I won't go too far into the plot here. Instead I'll give you a few screenshots. I wish there had been more Death of Rats, but Death was surprisingly well done. I wasn't sure that

Do you believe in Christmas? Do you love Christmas? Most people would answer yes to those questions without a moment's hesitation. And that's a shame, because it means they're not considering the implications. It means they don't actually know what Christmas is. To many people, Christmas is silver bells, angels, and love. But that's not Christmas. Christmas is an angler fish a thousand feet long from the space between worlds; its tinsel and decorative lights are lures to draw us in, so the jaws can snap shut. You think I'm being harsh? Think I'm just cynical? Then you don't know a damn thing about Christmas -  you've never seen its teeth. Have you listened to 20 versions of Silent Night back to back? Have you stared into the abyss long enough to see the icy stare of a snowman gazing back? No? Then you don't know Christmas: you know only its shadow. Last year, we descended into the wide maw of the holiday. We stared down its throat and

We're back .

Before I go, I'd like to pass along ten observations I've had about the holiday. 1. The human capacity to stand any non-parody version of The First Noel is inversely proportionate to the clarity in which the lyrics are sung. 2. Really awful Christmas specials and movies are nowhere near as bad as mediocre ones. 3. The Christmas Story is not, in fact, the "greatest story ever told," however the version told by Linus in It's Christmas, Charlie Brown is the greatest version of the Christmas Story that's ever been told. 4. Gaudy Christmas lights can be beautiful, but only in extreme concentrations. 5. Inflatable Christmas lawn displays were conceived of and produced by the Devil. 6. With very few exceptions, parodies of Christmas songs are superior to the originals. 7. As a general rule of thumb, the less appropriate a holiday episode is to any given television series, the better the result will be. 8. Among the thousands of forgotten Christmas specials, there are

Well, I didn't learn to appreciate Christmas, although my uneasy truce with the holiday may be a trifle less Grinchy. I'm looking forward to escaping the time vortex effect. For several weeks, I've ben unable to shake the feeling that Christmas was “tomorrow”, even when “tomorrow” was Dec 5th. I expect that sensation to fade soon... right? I'm also looking forward to not listening to holiday music for a while... I am pretty darn burnt out on it. I actually took off my headphones in the Laundromat the other day when I realized that they weren't just playing Christmas music, unlike all the stores. We watched about three-quarters of the list of specials I compiled at the beginning, and finally just ran out of time. So long for now, me and my copy of The Atheist's Guide to Christmas have a holiday to get to.

We're coming upon the end of this Christmas experiment - at least for this year - and, as such, I'm legally obligated to offer some best of/worst of lists.  I don't think it's fair to group movies and specials together for the "best of" list, so I'm going to set the three best movies aside now.  In no particular order, the best holiday films I saw this year are:  Nightmare Before Christmas , Miracle on 34th Street , and Elf . I'm not going to differentiate between Christmas specials and holiday themed episodes, though I am going to set one ground rule: these need to be full length.  This eliminates some of the best - including The Spirit of Christmas South Park short where Jesus fights Santa. Here, then, are the top 10 Holiday Episodes or Specials: 10. Christmas With the Joker : This is a tough one - a case could easily be made that Holiday Knights or Comfort and Joy are better.  But I'm going with my gut and picking the classic.  All three a