A Very Special ("Special"-less) Christmas
If I hadn't begun the 75/25 Create/Consume Project* I'd probably be watching a lot of Christmas movies and TV shows this time of the year. As with many people, certain holiday movies and TV shows have become part of my Christmas tradition. For me they had perhaps taken on even more importance because my nuclear family of origin has sort of dissolved** and because for many years I was living in Korea where Christmas was not a big-deal holiday, but more of a eat an ice cream cake and go on a date kind of affair. These movies and TV shows provided a measure of comfort and home, a through-line, connecting me to Christmas past. In past years I've felt an almost primitive urge to watch these movies and shows, but this year I've found that shifting.
So, last weekend, when I was very bad and veered off-project***, Lee asked me to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" with him because he had to return it to the library. I did. Now, "It's a Wonderful Life" is pretty much at the top of the Christmas movie pyramid for me, despite the fact that it's kind of a predictable choice. Not only is it great storytelling with a socialist theme (seriously, this movie voted and campaigned for Bernie Sanders), I also associate it with the best things about my father (his honesty and ethics). My dad actively identified with George Bailey, although I don't think he exactly gave up world traveling to be a small town banker - I never heard the man express any interest in seeing the world. But, whatever the case, when I watch the movie it connects me to my dad and my Christmas memories. I generally cry at the end.
This time I did cry at the end, but I also felt bored for much of the movie. I was sort of stunned by this. It could be because I was already off-project and OD-ing on content. It could be because I felt guilty about being off-project. But it could also be because I've seen that movie probably 30+ times in my life, and I'm figuring out that there are other things I'd like to do with 2 hours of my life than watch the same movie again.
As I was having this realization I felt guilty for having it, as if I was offending the movie, or Lee who asked me to watch it with him. It also, though, felt like part of my identity was falling off, and that can be a rather scary sensation. Who am I if I don't watch "It's a Wonderful Life" every year? That may seem like a small concern, but once you start chipping away at the small routines and tastes, you might find that this "Jennifer" or "Lee" or "Thomas" you're dealing with is not so solid after all.
This shocking lack of interest in a Christmas movie happened again later on in the weekend, during the last gasps of my off-project time. I was making chocolate gingerbread cookies from Isa Chandra's book "Isa Does It"****, and I thought I'll just put on "Pee-Wee's Christmas Special" while I bake. Just this one thing. I've also watched Pee-Wee's Christmas probably in the neighborhood of 30 times. It came out when I was in the 6th grade and everyone was talking about it the next day in school. It was hilarious and zany then, it seems downright bonkers now. The list of guest stars is bewildering, and it somehow creates a sense of wholesome deviance, if such a thing is possible. I recommend it, in other words. It was the only Christmas thing I was excited about having access to on Netflix.*****
But this time, as I was baking cookies, the magic was gone. I started off laughing at the parts I had always laughed at, commenting to Lee about jokes I had once particularly loved and pointing out the weird guest stars as they showed up. But at first it felt dutiful, and then it felt forced. Finally, after a while, the special itself seemed to become too noisy, too confusing, too much. I love K.D. Lang, but K.D. Lang singing "Jingle Bell Rock" was the last straw. I just didn't want to watch this show anymore that I watch every single year, that I've identified with Christmas and perhaps that I've used to identify myself as a person who celebrates Christmas "edgily." Oh, Pee-Wee, we'll always have our two fruitcakes, but not this year.
Where does this leave me then, vis-a-vis Christmas and Christmas movies? Well, I don't really want to watch any. Part of me feels panicky about this. Surely not, my brain says, you at least have to watch "The Muppets Christmas Carole"****** or "The Snowman"******* But I'm not sure. Do I have to? What's really going to happen if I skip a year? And what might I gain by skipping a year?
Christmas media served a purpose for me at one point, but now I'm wondering if part of its purpose has been to spare me from working through a whole lot of uncomfortable feelings about family and loss that tend to flare up this time of year. I can watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" all I want, but I'm never getting my mom back, and watching "Frosty the Snowman" isn't going to make me turn into a 7-year-old kid in my pajamas and transport me back to my family room where my dad will be waiting with some observation about which actor is voicing the narrator. It used to be if I watched enough shows, I could avoid the pain. But this year, it might be time to pay the piper.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, I'm not really feeling Christmas this year. We do have a lovely tree, which I was initially quite excited to put up, and which still holds some charm for me. I have a shiny bowl of ornaments which I arranged. I've bought a few small things for my husband Lee, but I can't really afford to get any other gifts. And somehow I managed to not send out Christmas cards in time yet again********. I might make cookies for a few people. But in general, I'm just not feeling it. Somehow, even 20 years on from my Mom's death, and about as many from my Dad's departure from the Land of Behaving Like a Normal Dad, Christmas to me is the time when all my loss is magnified and I find it much harder to appreciate all the family and friends I still do have, and all the potential for good things in life. It could be that the very focus of Christmas media on this ideal family and a sense of nostalgia is part of what causes the stress. Perhaps the very thing I've been trying to cure myself with all these years is part of the damn problem.
It might be an odd way to close out this entry, but I feel like I want to close with a list of the things I do typically watch this time of year, and very brief explanations. So, here you go, Jen's Twelve Days of Christmas Movies and Shows She Usually Watches (Most of Which She Will Not Be Watching This Year) In No Particular Order:
1. It's a Wonderful Life (a.k.a. A Very Socialist Christmas) - the #1 classic of all time still
2. The Muppet Christmas Carole (oddly one of the most faithful Dickens adaptations)
3. A Charlie Brown Christmas (mainly for the soundtrack)
4. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (for that aforementioned feeling of being 7 years old)
5. The Snowman (an animated poem. Gorgeous. If I actually were to recommend you go out and watch something from this list you haven't seen, I'd pick this.)
6. Love, Actually - I actually do not love this movie. I hate-watch it. I can't help it.*********
7. Pee-Wee's Christmas Special - Someday I'll watch this pure essence of 90's kitsch again.
8. "The OC" Season 1 "The Best Chrismukkah Ever" - I love that show. I love this Christmas episode. My favorite Christmas episode (and New Year's episode) of any TV show are in this season of "The OC."
9. "When Harry Met Sally" - Not a Christmas movie, but a lot of it takes place around Christmas and it is objectively the best romantic comedy in history. You can also get your Carrie Fisher nostalgia from it, which is quite big these days.
10. "Little Women" - Again, not a Christmas movie, but significant Christmas scenes, and it reminds me of my mother.
11. "Trading Places" - This is for New Year's, but it also has Christmas scenes. Would make a good double feature with "It's a Wonderful Life" if you're hoping to show people that our economic system is fundamentally unjust.
12. "Black Christmas" - The ultimate in Christmas horror movies. Forget "Silent Night, Deadly Night" this one has Margot Kidder, for god's sake!
*In which I am striving to create content at a ratio of 3/1. Details here: http://7525createconsume.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-project.html
**Mother died in '97, father became basically incommunicado about '04, and brother and I live far apart and are both too broke to travel to the other.
***http://7525createconsume.blogspot.com/2017/12/my-journey-to-dark-side.html
****Good cookies and good cookbook by the way.
*****Unless you count the "Christmas episode" of "Black Mirror", which I don't. You'd be better off just watching an episode of "Mad Men" which happens to take place at Christmas, and then going back and watching "Black Mirror" at some other time when suicide rates aren't already abnormally high.
****** This movie is a modern classic, a delightful musical with a performance that I honestly think Michael Caine should have received at least an Oscar nomination for, given that he manages to completely make you forget that basically everyone around him is a puppet, with the sheer conviction of his performance as Scrooge.
******* This animated movie contains some of the most beautiful shots I've ever seen, and it reminds me of my mother who introduced it to me because she was the sort of mom who was always hunting out the best stuff for my brother and I to watch and read.
******** Every year I somehow think this is going to be different. Every year it is not different. Some people really have their shit together in this regard, and I salute each and every one of them.
********* And now I realize that at some point I'll need to blog about the phenomena of hate-watching and hate-reading, a perverse habit if there ever was one!
So, last weekend, when I was very bad and veered off-project***, Lee asked me to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" with him because he had to return it to the library. I did. Now, "It's a Wonderful Life" is pretty much at the top of the Christmas movie pyramid for me, despite the fact that it's kind of a predictable choice. Not only is it great storytelling with a socialist theme (seriously, this movie voted and campaigned for Bernie Sanders), I also associate it with the best things about my father (his honesty and ethics). My dad actively identified with George Bailey, although I don't think he exactly gave up world traveling to be a small town banker - I never heard the man express any interest in seeing the world. But, whatever the case, when I watch the movie it connects me to my dad and my Christmas memories. I generally cry at the end.
This time I did cry at the end, but I also felt bored for much of the movie. I was sort of stunned by this. It could be because I was already off-project and OD-ing on content. It could be because I felt guilty about being off-project. But it could also be because I've seen that movie probably 30+ times in my life, and I'm figuring out that there are other things I'd like to do with 2 hours of my life than watch the same movie again.
As I was having this realization I felt guilty for having it, as if I was offending the movie, or Lee who asked me to watch it with him. It also, though, felt like part of my identity was falling off, and that can be a rather scary sensation. Who am I if I don't watch "It's a Wonderful Life" every year? That may seem like a small concern, but once you start chipping away at the small routines and tastes, you might find that this "Jennifer" or "Lee" or "Thomas" you're dealing with is not so solid after all.
This shocking lack of interest in a Christmas movie happened again later on in the weekend, during the last gasps of my off-project time. I was making chocolate gingerbread cookies from Isa Chandra's book "Isa Does It"****, and I thought I'll just put on "Pee-Wee's Christmas Special" while I bake. Just this one thing. I've also watched Pee-Wee's Christmas probably in the neighborhood of 30 times. It came out when I was in the 6th grade and everyone was talking about it the next day in school. It was hilarious and zany then, it seems downright bonkers now. The list of guest stars is bewildering, and it somehow creates a sense of wholesome deviance, if such a thing is possible. I recommend it, in other words. It was the only Christmas thing I was excited about having access to on Netflix.*****
But this time, as I was baking cookies, the magic was gone. I started off laughing at the parts I had always laughed at, commenting to Lee about jokes I had once particularly loved and pointing out the weird guest stars as they showed up. But at first it felt dutiful, and then it felt forced. Finally, after a while, the special itself seemed to become too noisy, too confusing, too much. I love K.D. Lang, but K.D. Lang singing "Jingle Bell Rock" was the last straw. I just didn't want to watch this show anymore that I watch every single year, that I've identified with Christmas and perhaps that I've used to identify myself as a person who celebrates Christmas "edgily." Oh, Pee-Wee, we'll always have our two fruitcakes, but not this year.
Where does this leave me then, vis-a-vis Christmas and Christmas movies? Well, I don't really want to watch any. Part of me feels panicky about this. Surely not, my brain says, you at least have to watch "The Muppets Christmas Carole"****** or "The Snowman"******* But I'm not sure. Do I have to? What's really going to happen if I skip a year? And what might I gain by skipping a year?
Christmas media served a purpose for me at one point, but now I'm wondering if part of its purpose has been to spare me from working through a whole lot of uncomfortable feelings about family and loss that tend to flare up this time of year. I can watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" all I want, but I'm never getting my mom back, and watching "Frosty the Snowman" isn't going to make me turn into a 7-year-old kid in my pajamas and transport me back to my family room where my dad will be waiting with some observation about which actor is voicing the narrator. It used to be if I watched enough shows, I could avoid the pain. But this year, it might be time to pay the piper.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, I'm not really feeling Christmas this year. We do have a lovely tree, which I was initially quite excited to put up, and which still holds some charm for me. I have a shiny bowl of ornaments which I arranged. I've bought a few small things for my husband Lee, but I can't really afford to get any other gifts. And somehow I managed to not send out Christmas cards in time yet again********. I might make cookies for a few people. But in general, I'm just not feeling it. Somehow, even 20 years on from my Mom's death, and about as many from my Dad's departure from the Land of Behaving Like a Normal Dad, Christmas to me is the time when all my loss is magnified and I find it much harder to appreciate all the family and friends I still do have, and all the potential for good things in life. It could be that the very focus of Christmas media on this ideal family and a sense of nostalgia is part of what causes the stress. Perhaps the very thing I've been trying to cure myself with all these years is part of the damn problem.
It might be an odd way to close out this entry, but I feel like I want to close with a list of the things I do typically watch this time of year, and very brief explanations. So, here you go, Jen's Twelve Days of Christmas Movies and Shows She Usually Watches (Most of Which She Will Not Be Watching This Year) In No Particular Order:
1. It's a Wonderful Life (a.k.a. A Very Socialist Christmas) - the #1 classic of all time still
2. The Muppet Christmas Carole (oddly one of the most faithful Dickens adaptations)
3. A Charlie Brown Christmas (mainly for the soundtrack)
4. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (for that aforementioned feeling of being 7 years old)
5. The Snowman (an animated poem. Gorgeous. If I actually were to recommend you go out and watch something from this list you haven't seen, I'd pick this.)
6. Love, Actually - I actually do not love this movie. I hate-watch it. I can't help it.*********
7. Pee-Wee's Christmas Special - Someday I'll watch this pure essence of 90's kitsch again.
8. "The OC" Season 1 "The Best Chrismukkah Ever" - I love that show. I love this Christmas episode. My favorite Christmas episode (and New Year's episode) of any TV show are in this season of "The OC."
9. "When Harry Met Sally" - Not a Christmas movie, but a lot of it takes place around Christmas and it is objectively the best romantic comedy in history. You can also get your Carrie Fisher nostalgia from it, which is quite big these days.
10. "Little Women" - Again, not a Christmas movie, but significant Christmas scenes, and it reminds me of my mother.
11. "Trading Places" - This is for New Year's, but it also has Christmas scenes. Would make a good double feature with "It's a Wonderful Life" if you're hoping to show people that our economic system is fundamentally unjust.
12. "Black Christmas" - The ultimate in Christmas horror movies. Forget "Silent Night, Deadly Night" this one has Margot Kidder, for god's sake!
*In which I am striving to create content at a ratio of 3/1. Details here: http://7525createconsume.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-project.html
**Mother died in '97, father became basically incommunicado about '04, and brother and I live far apart and are both too broke to travel to the other.
***http://7525createconsume.blogspot.com/2017/12/my-journey-to-dark-side.html
****Good cookies and good cookbook by the way.
*****Unless you count the "Christmas episode" of "Black Mirror", which I don't. You'd be better off just watching an episode of "Mad Men" which happens to take place at Christmas, and then going back and watching "Black Mirror" at some other time when suicide rates aren't already abnormally high.
****** This movie is a modern classic, a delightful musical with a performance that I honestly think Michael Caine should have received at least an Oscar nomination for, given that he manages to completely make you forget that basically everyone around him is a puppet, with the sheer conviction of his performance as Scrooge.
******* This animated movie contains some of the most beautiful shots I've ever seen, and it reminds me of my mother who introduced it to me because she was the sort of mom who was always hunting out the best stuff for my brother and I to watch and read.
******** Every year I somehow think this is going to be different. Every year it is not different. Some people really have their shit together in this regard, and I salute each and every one of them.
********* And now I realize that at some point I'll need to blog about the phenomena of hate-watching and hate-reading, a perverse habit if there ever was one!
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