Jack Frost – Dead parent reincarnated as a live snowman. Yep. Could happen. Just no bonding nights around the fireplace, right? Oh wait, what's that you say? A Christmas miracle? Right. The only miracle here is that the filmmakers ever worked again.
Jingle All the Way – The movie that comes closest to capturing the “real” spirit of Christmas: Get what you need at all costs. Fatherly love as shown through the procurement of an impossible-to-get action figure. Pit the dad against a stressed-out postal worker for the last one anywhere and watch the hilarity ensue. Starring Ahhnold, so you may need to use the subtitles.
All I Want for Christmas – Starring Leslie Neilsen of Naked Gun fame, this one wanted to be the Home Alone of holiday movies, and failed miserably. (Some might put Home Alone on the list as a holiday movie…nope. While successful, the original and it's sequels never quite accomplished mood changer status.) There is a good lesson to be learned, however: Kidnapping Santa is never a good way to bring your divorced parents back together.
Santa Claus Conquers the Martian s– Made in 1964, this movie tried to capitalize on the fear of alien life and extraterrestrials that had begun to build in the public. And if you're drunk enough or high enough, this movie can also be quite funny. It also begs audience participation, like the The Rocky Horror Picture Show…but I'm a little afraid of what you might want to throw instead of rice.
Eight Crazy Nights – Adam Sandler's homage to Hanukkah. Even at a scant seventy-one minutes, this one is seventy-one minutes too long. There's enough scatalogical references and sophomoric humor to make it feel like it takes eight hours to watch.
Fred Claus – Santa's dumber yet craftier older brother. When he gets in trouble, Nick bails him out. But he has to promise servitude at the North Pole…yikes. Where's Dr. Phil when you need him?
The last movie above actually leads into a subcategory group. It stars Vince Vaughn, who seems to have latched on to the whole holiday-means-box-office premise. So when you're on Netflix or at the video store, looking for that one movie that will help you find the spirit and the mood, here's another rule of thumb for your viewing protection:
No Vince Vaughn movies…no Ben Affleck movies…no Tim Allen movies…and beware Jim Carrey.
All have done multiple Christmas flicks and all are bad. So rent the good ones again, make yourself a cup of nog and some popcorn, snuggle in, and watch for that moment when Clarence gets his wings or when Natalie gets her dream house…and be thankful you didn't opt for The Santa Clause…part 3, no less—now THAT'S a Christmas miracle.
Don't even get me started on television…
—THE AUTHOR
Christmas cards are just junk mail from people
you know.
—PATRICIA MARX
If you don't know about Hanukkah, I'll give you a brief
little history. Hanukkah was conceived in 1957 by an
optometrist in Nova Scotia, Dr. Maurice Tarnouer.
And a lot of people think it's some sort of answer to
Christmas to appease children who see their more
powerful, affluent Christian friends able to celebrate
this day. And they think it was somehow invented to
appease those kids and say, “Well, you know, us Jews
have our own thing. Here's eight days, so fuck you—
how ’bout that?” And people who believe that
are correct.
—DAVID CROSS
Roses are things which Christmas is not a bed of.
—OGDEN NASH
When decorating the tree, always use strings of cheap
lights manufactured in Third World nations that only
recently found out about electricity and have no words
in their language for “fire code.”
—DAVE BARRY
Christmas: Holiday in which the past or the future are
not of as much interest as the present.
Christmas is a holiday that persecutes the lonely, the
frayed, and the rejected.
—JIMMY CANNON
When you compare Christmas to Hannukkah,
Christmas is great. Hannukkah sucks! First night you
get socks. Second night, an eraser, a notebook. It's a
Back-to-School holiday!
—LEWIS BLACK
Four Reasons Hanukkah Sucks
1. No good cards: Rows and rows of Christmas cards and only one row of Hanukkah cards. Yeah, like you've got a hundred different people you want to send Hanukkah cards to…well, you'd better get them out in time because, after all, there only are EIGHT DAYS ON WHICH THEY CAN BE DELIVERED. The best Hanukkah card ever? “It's not your fault that Hanukkah sucks.” End of story.
2. The name: Too many ways to spell and pronounce the name of the holiday. Yeah, I know. It's hard to say. Sounds funny too. Like you've got something stuck in your throat. And oy, boychick, is it hard to spell. Gee, is it Hanukah or Chanuka or Chanukah or Chanukkah or Channukah or Hanukah or Hannukah or Hanukkah or Hanuka or Hanukka or Hanaka or Haneka or Hanika or Khanukkah…Please kill me now?
3. Bad gifts: Small. Large. Two medium. Small again. Large. Nothing. Small. Large (ish). Let's face it, Jewish parents don't really have much imagination. Not their fault. They've been struggling forever in the shadow of the Big One. For years. Their parents had the same problem. It's up to you to stop the madness.
Family
(HELL)
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ALIENATES EVERYONE WHO
SHARES HIS BLOOD LINE—DEALS WITH MYRIAD
PERSONAL QUESTIONS ABOUT MARRIAGE, LOVE LIFE,
SEXUAL ORIENTATION—CONJURES UP EVERY SLIGHT,
MEAN WORD, OR PECCADILLO THAT's BEEN HIDDEN
AWAY ALL YEAR—ALL IN THE NAME OF CHRISTMAS
SPIRIT, LOVE, AND BONDING
WHEN YOU GO HOME, you're going to have to see people you'd just as soon avoid. For many people, that's pretty much your entire extended family.
Everybody has an uncle, aunty, brother, or cousin who doesn't know his/her limits…or that wine and vodka and painkillers are a bad combination…who then puts his/her arms around you, sits you down on the couch, and talks incoherently to you for hours, all the while blowing that heady combo of alcohol breath (mixed with onion dip) into your face. You can't get away fast enough.
5 Keep reminding yourself. Over and over.
You feel guilty. You're definitely not happy to see them and couldn't be less interested in what they have to say, but they are family.5 You can't even muster a fake smile and start to amuse yourself by muttering asides that would make Andrew Dice Clay blush. Ah…there's the snark. Is it working?
If you want to restore your faith in humanity, think about Christmas. If you want to destroy it again, think about Christmas shopping. But the gifts aren't the important thing about the holidays. The important thing is having your family around resenting you.
—RENO GOODALE
My mom wanted to know why I never get home for the holidays. I said, “Because I can't get Delta to wait in the yard while I run in.”
—MARGARET SMITH
I believed in Christmas until I was eight years old. I had saved up some money and was going to buy my mother a clothes boiler. I kept the money hidden in a brown crock in the coal bin. My father found it and stole the money. Ever since then I have remembered nobody on Christmas, and I want nobody to remember me.
—W. C. Fields
A little boy wrote to Santa Claus “Please send me a sister.”
Santa Claus wrote him back, “OK, send me your mother.”
I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included.
—BERNARD MANNING
A menopausal mother and an electric carving knife? Not a good combination.
—JENNY ÉCLAIR
For the holidays, I bought my mother a self-complaining oven.
—RICHARD LEWIS
I hate Christmas…. I am an atheist—thank God…the hypocrisy of it all, it is a shopkeeper's delight. I see women who are panicked by the kids spending money they can't afford on crap that will only be thrown away. The murder rate goes up at Christmas. Most families hate each other and can't wait to say piss off.
—WARREN MITCHELL
No self-respecting mother would run out of intimidations on the eve of a major holiday.
—ERMA BOMBECK
Everyone thinks I'm Jewish. I'm not. Last year I got a call: “Happy Hanukkah.” I said, “Ma, I'm not Jewish.”
—JOY BEHAR
A Bubbie was giving directions to her grown grandson who was coming to visit for Hanukkah with his wife.
“You come to the front door of the apartment complex. You'll see a big panel at the door. With your elbow push button 14T. I will buzz you in.”
“OK, got it.”
“No, there's more. When you come inside, the elevator is on the right. Get in and with your elbow hit 14. When you get out, I am on the left. With your elbow, hit my doorbell.”
“Grandma, that sounds easy,” replied the grandson, “but why am I hitting all these buttons with my elbow?”
To which she answered, “What, you're coming empty-handed?”
6 Festive Ways to Drive Your Family Crazy
Go to the mall with your mom and sit on Santa's lap. Refuse to get off.
Claim you were a Christmas tree in your former life. When your dad tries to bring one into the room, scream bloody murder and thrash on the floor.
Hang a stocking with your sister's name on it and fill it with coal. When she asks, say, “You've been very naughty this year.”
Build a snowman with your brother and place a hat on its head. If it doesn't come to life, start crying, “It didn't work!”
Stand in front of the mirror reciting “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” over and over in your underwear.
Wake up the house every morning by singing, “He sees you when you're sleeping…“
This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's world contracted, day by day, into the microcosmic single festive household, each with its own rituals and obsessions, rules and dreams. You didn't feel you could call people. They didn't feel they could phone you. How does one cry for help from these seasonal prisons?
—ZADIE SMITH
Marry an orphan: You'll never have to spend boring holidays with the in-laws (at most, an occasional visit to the cemetery).
—GEORGE CARLIN
When I was little, my grandfather gave me a box of broken glass for Christmas. He gave my brother a box of Bandaids and said, “You two share.”
—STEVEN WRIGHT
My parents, my whole life, combined my birthday with Christmas, and you know how frustrating that is for a child—especially as I was born in July.
—RITA RUDNER
My husband is so cheap. On Christmas Eve he fires one shot and tells the kids Santa committed suicide.
—PHYLLIS DILLER
Christmas always sucked when I was a kid because I believed in Santa Claus. Unfortunately, so did my parents. So I never got anything.
—CHARLIE VIRACOLA
The worst part of Christmas is dinner with the family, when you realize how truly mutated and crippled is the gene stock from which you sprang.
—BYRON ROGERS
We're having the same old thing for Christmas dinner this year…relatives.
—MARK TWAIN
Last Christmas, I gave my kid a BB gun. He gave me a sweatshirt with a bull's-eye on the back.
—RODNEY DAN GERFIELD
I'm still keeping my New Year's resolutions. I only make one because it's the only one easy to keep; I resolve to spend less time with my family.
—MARIA MENOZZI
Thanksgiving. It's like we didn't even try to come up with a tradition. The tradition is, we overeat. “Hey, how about at Thanksgiving we just eat a lot?” “But we do that every day!” “Oh. What if we eat a lot with people that annoy the hell out of us?”
—JIM GAFFIGAN
A man in Phoenix calls his son in New York the day before Hanukkah and says, “I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing. Forty-five years of misery is enough.”
“Pop, what are you talking about?” the son screams.
“We can't stand the sight of each other any longer,” the father says. “We're sick of each other, and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Chicago and tell her.”
Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. “Like heck they're getting divorced,” she shouts. “I'll take care of this.” She calls Phoenix immediately and screams at her father, “You are NOT getting divorced. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling New York, and we'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?”
The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. “OK,” he says, “they're coming for Hanukkah and paying their own way.”
My family wasn't very religious. On Hanukkah, they
had a menorah on a dimmer.
—RICHARD LEWIS
The one thing women don't want to find in their
stockings on Christmas morning is their husband.
—JOAN RIVERS
Christmas, it seems to me, is a necessary festival; we
require a season when we can regret all the flaws in our
human relationships: It is the feast of failure, sad but
consoling.
—GRAHAM GREENE
Christmas is a time when you get homestick—even
when you're home.
—CAROL NELSON
I looked in my mom's closet and saw what I was getting
for Christmas…an UltraVibe Pleasure 2000.
—ERIC CARTMAN, SOUTH PARK
10 of the Worst Gifts for Kids
1. Lottery scratch-offs
2. Knitted sweater and socks set (that are connected to each other)
3. French fry-o-lator
4. An assortment of maps
5. Membership in a food co-op
6. 10-count of dental floss from Costco
7. A fur (fake, of course) toilet seat cover
8. An address book, already filled in
9. Jane Fonda workout tapes
10. A Chia-Rat
It is customarily said that Christmas is done “for the
kids.” Considering how awful Christmas is and how
little our society likes children, this must be true.
—P. J. O'ROURKE
Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people once a year.
—VICTOR BORGE
The one thing I remember about Christmas was that
my father used to take me out in a boat about ten miles
offshore on Christmas Day, and I used to have to swim
back. Extraordinary. It was a ritual. Mind you, that
wasn't the hard part. The difficult bit was getting out
of the sack.
—JOHN CLEESE
The thought of Christmas overwhelms him. He no
longer looks forward to the holiday; he wants only to be
on the other side of the season. His impatience makes
him feel that he is incontrovertibly, finally, an adult.
—JHUMPA LAHIRI
Thanksgiving is an emotional time. People travel
thousands of miles to be with the people they see only
once a year. And then discover that once a year is way
too often.
—JOHNNY CARSON
The Office
(WORK)
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR EXPLORES THE PIT
FALLS
OF FORCED INTIMACY, CONFINED JOCULARITY, AND
REQUIRED BROTHERHOOD—SHOWS THE ERROR IN
THE WAY OF OVERINDULGENCE—AND WARNS OF A
HEINOUS DANGER THAT LIES BEHIND EVERY FILE
CABINET
“DID I REALLY SAY that? Did I really DO that?”
Man, those sentences carry with them the weight of the world and all the remorse, fear, and embarrassment that can be mustered by someone who has absolutely no idea what happened….
And the catalyst for all this angst? The Office Party. Yes, it's that time of year again when reason and logic lock themselves away in that file cabinet with the drawer that sticks…when decorum and common sense head to Jamaica for the holidays…when your real self leaves your body and is replaced by a demon that can't drink enough, party hard enough, or say enough stupid things to last an entire career—a demon that is The Exorcist, Damian, and Freddy Kruger rolled into one, and that wipes out everything great you've done in the year before it.
Here's the thing (and write this down and refer to it—before you go to the party and at every bathroom break): No matter how cool you think you are, the Office Party is NOT the place you're going to prove it to everybody. Especially after a half dozen drinks.
You must be careful. There are pitfalls, traps, and danger around every corner. You may do or say something that you will never live down—something so heinous that it may get you put on probation, warned, or even fired…and could follow you and haunt you throughout the rest of your career.