Thursday at 8 PM ET, WordPress is updating their interface to a new version. Since I want time to play with it prior to this week’s Friday Night Fights and Saturday Night Galactica (which I’m hoping will actually be on Saturday night this week), I’m creating this delayed post, which I made yesterday. Hopefully, the scheduled auto-post puts this up when it’s supposed to.
There’s one more thing I want to do with this weekend: research! See, there is one thing you must know about me this time of year: I LOVE CHRISTMAS! However, Christmas programming lately isn’t. There are songs that have nothing to do with Christmas playing on my radio. No, I don’t mean those songs that are really just about winter, because somehow they’ve become classics. I’m betting it’s because they came from some famous Christmas movie in the past, but most “current generation” kids probably couldn’t tell you which ones. Heck, I can’t. However, there is a song that I would hate otherwise in which the singer comes across an old girlfriend, gets drunk with her in her car while she complains about her architect husband, watches her drive off (probably to be arrested later on a DWI charge), and walks home in the rain. How is this thing a Christmas song? Allegedly it happens on Christmas Eve. Riiiiight!
Then you have the TV episodes and movies (both TV and theaters) that act like they’re Christmas stories, but really have nothing to do with Christmas and could have happened any old day and nobody would notice. There’s no heart in these stories and just happen to have Christmas decorations (and may not even use the word Christmas) around. Many comics are the same way. I saw a scan over at scans_daily where Marvel characters are pounding on each other (such as the Punisher doing what the Punisher does) at Christmas. Somehow killing someone with a Christmas tree has something to do with the season? What?
What I love most about Christmas isn’t the gifts. (Although I like getting gifts as much as the next guy.) It’s the atmosphere. It’s the heart of soul of the season that, if it were remembered, wouldn’t result in some of the Black Friday nightmares this year. (One guy died, and I heard about some woman miscarrying. Their families Christmas is going to suck hard, and those who caused these deaths do not deserve a Merry Christmas. You STINK AS HUMANS!) More and more I see the Christmas spirit being squashed, usually by what I call “Anti-Christians”, like the athiest group that put an anti-Christmas display up in a public square. They have the right and I wouldn’t change that, but talk about total lack of respect!
Even on ABC Family’s website there are posts about how this year’s “25 Days of Christmas” is light on the Christmas. Unless you can convinve me that Harry Potter (that I couldn’t give a lick about), Cars (which I keep missing), and the first Narnia movie (which was the awesomest movie released that year) are somehow Christmas. (Well, in Narnia’s defense, someone shows up that resembles Santa Claus and Aslan is supposed to be an analoge for Jesus, and Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus’s birthday because someone lost his birth certificate. Still, it’s something of a stretch.)
So when I’m not reviewing current comics, old sci-fi shows, and something else demands my attention (and I can find enough material), I’m going to devote my “free days” for the next three weeks to Christmas media. (And who’s to say I can’t have more than one post a day?) All the songs, shows, and stories that actually are Christmas stories. Stories with heart, and you can feel the spirit of Christmas. Barring that, good and fun Santa stories. So I need to find what I need online, at network sites, places like Hulu, Veoh, and You Tube, and whatever else I can find. I’ll also post comics that feature Christmas and review their Yuletide levels.
If you’re just not into Christmas, or the other holidays that take place around this time that I might discuss, there’s still the usual review articles, so just come back for the usual Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday night features and ignore the Noel goodness. The party starts next week, and it’s bring your own egg nog. And a Merry Christmas to you all!
BW Media Spotlight 