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Wrapping presents & listening to Michael Buble
There is no point to this post. Just sharing Christmas music - this is THE Christmas album - and being determined to being happy despite the current shitshow.
(Sidebar: Every time I hear 'All I want for Christmas is youuuuuu' all I can think of is Crowley & Aziraphale and goodness, just imagine them + that song. ♥)
Also drinking my Secret Santa, which included a tiny bottle Jack Daniel's. :)
ETA: Also thought I'd add another signal boost for
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a_phonexidragon's Go Fund Me: Help for a Big Move. (She and her family were evicted just over a week ago and have now moved states and are trying to get back on their feet. Just before Christmas. With next to nothing. And she's still doing her best to be positive.)
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.. If you say so. (I was under the impression that the most Christmassy things to watch - apart from the Muppet's Christmas Carol, which reigns supreme - was The Great Escape and Die Hard.)
Anyway, that all sounds LOVELY. <3
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That was entirely facetious ; )
(I was under the impression that the most Christmassy things to watch - apart from the Muppet's Christmas Carol, which reigns supreme - was The Great Escape and Die Hard.)
Welp, I hate A Christmas Carol and I've never watched the other two. So Top Gear it is.
Anyway, that all sounds LOVELY. <3
My bed is covered in sheets of parchment paper with cooling cookies because #small apartment problems, but otherwise we are doing good!
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I wasn't about to quibble with your Christmas traditions!
Welp, I hate A Christmas Carol
I had forgotten this. I still can't wrap my head around it. Is it any adaptation (apart from Dr Who?). Do you hate the book too? Looking it up (out copy seems buried, but since I now want to re-read I'll just have to read it online), I realised it is... very Good Omens-y in its style:
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.
The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.
*profound love*
I've never watched the other two. So Top Gear it is.
You have... NEVER WATCHED DIE HARD??? *boggles* OK, you need to remedy that. Like. NEED. Sit down with your sister & some seasonal treats & get on that. You can thank me later:
My bed is covered in sheets of parchment paper with cooling cookies because #small apartment problems, but otherwise we are doing good!
*has done zero baking* You win!
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My favorite Christmas album is probably the incomparable Charlie Brown Christmas album. Perhaps not as transcendently joy inducing for you if the Charlie Brown Christmas Special doesn't run through your veins as it does mine, but it is still objectively great Christmas piano jazz for all of your Christmas piano jazz needs. (The good kind of jazz, not the stuff that loses the melody and never finds it again.)
I wasn't about to quibble with your Christmas traditions!
I am sure that I have watched Top Gear at Christmas before, but Top Gear is really a year-round thing. If it was my Christmas tradition, however, I would fully invite you to mock me for it.
I had forgotten this. I still can't wrap my head around it. Is it any adaptation (apart from Dr Who?).
Any adaptation. (And Doctor Who is more . . . inspired by than an adaptation, so it gets a pass. Also because metaphors.) I was terrified by A Christmas Carol as a kid and, much as with dogs, this has translated into a lifelong dislike. I have distinct memories of being awake in the middle of the night, trying to convince myself that ghosts couldn't come to get me** because my bed didn't have curtains on it (the bed always has curtains in A Christmas Carol. Clearly this was the determining factor.) We had an ornament that was a tiny Christmas Carol book, which I always surreptitiously hung on the back of the tree so I wouldn't have to see it and think about A Christmas Carol.
Do you hate the book too? Looking it up (out copy seems buried, but since I now want to re-read I'll just have to read it online), I realised it is... very Good Omens-y in its style:
I have not but, like, I have read far more Dickens in my life that any human should be expected to. I'm not about to take on more voluntarily.
I see what you mean about being GO-y, but . . . omg, Dickens is the worst.
You have... NEVER WATCHED DIE HARD??? *boggles* OK, you need to remedy that. Like. NEED. Sit down with your sister & some seasonal treats & get on that. You can thank me later:
Really!??! I find this hard to believe. Also you know how I feel about movies.
*has done zero baking* You win!
Well, I have done zero cards. But anyway: go me!
** (I feel like it would be an illustrative question to ask people, what kind of supernatural scary thing actually freaks them out? Along the line of my 'if you could get away with one crime scott free, what would you do?' I have a friend for whom its zombies, and I'm just like 'but . . . why?' They're just kinda there, all physically present, dumb, and slow. Get your chainsaw and get on with it. For me, however, it is ghosts. They obey no physical laws, there is no way to practically deal with them, and you have to figure out their emotional needs and how to fulfill them to get them to leave you alone. I'm sorry, that is horrifying. Who thinks that is in any way enjoyable to contemplate?)
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It's lovely. <3 (Apart from the Ave Maria because he mispronounces 'Gratia' and it's like nails on a blackboard.) But otherwise, just wonderful.
but it is still objectively great Christmas piano jazz for all of your Christmas piano jazz needs. (The good kind of jazz, not the stuff that loses the melody and never finds it again.)
Duly noted, I shall look it up. (And thanks for the clarification. I have nothing against the other kind of jazz, but I find it impossible to concentrate on.)
I am sure that I have watched Top Gear at Christmas before, but Top Gear is really a year-round thing. If it was my Christmas tradition, however, I would fully invite you to mock me for it.
Cool cool cool.
Any adaptation. (And Doctor Who is more . . . inspired by than an adaptation, so it gets a pass. Also because metaphors.)
Obviously.
the bed always has curtains in A Christmas Carol. Clearly this was the determining factor.
Yes, the curtains are an important point.
We had an ornament that was a tiny Christmas Carol book, which I always surreptitiously hung on the back of the tree so I wouldn't have to see it and think about A Christmas Carol.
<3 (See my most recent post as to why I love it so, if you can't remember/I haven't told you before.)
I see what you mean about being GO-y, but . . . omg, Dickens is the worst.
I sort of agree, but A Christmas Carol is the exception that proves the rule? It's just delightful.
Really!??! I find this hard to believe. Also you know how I feel about movies.
I know, but... It's like a sort of ur-movie, The Original (TM), and it's composed entirely of clichés, but it mostly invented them and they're so utterly delightful. Also Alan Rickman. Do NOT deprive yourself of Alan Rickman.
Well, I have done zero cards. But anyway: go me!
You're saving trees and your carbon footprint.
For me, however, it is ghosts. They obey no physical laws, there is no way to practically deal with them, and you have to figure out their emotional needs and how to fulfill them to get them to leave you alone. I'm sorry, that is horrifying. Who thinks that is in any way enjoyable to contemplate?
Hmmmmmm. Interesting. I'd say that the ghosts in A Christmas Carol are not there for their own emotional needs, but to teach Scrooge (and the reader) a lesson. I am seriously tempted to create a Twitter account called 'A Christmas Carol quotes' and just go round attacking rightwing people with it. It's absolutely savage. ETA: Having pondered this, it's not a 'ghost story' in the way that these things are usually understood. The ghosts (or spirits) are the framing device that's used, and sure they're unsettling, but it's a bit like how GO uses Heaven & Hell but doesn't say anything about faith or religion? The point is elsewhere, the true horror lies in how uncaring people can be towards their fellow man, and does its best to hammer home the point that kindness > money.
Anyway, I am not sure what my one thing would be. I shall ponder.