ho ho-rrendous

I love Christmas but there are things I hate about it. I'm sure anyone reading this has the same feelings towards our annual bacchanalia of eating, gift-giving, and singing in the car about the merits of roasting chestnuts on open fires, red-nosed reindeer, and talking snowmen. That's not even mentioning this Jesus fella....he's everywhere.

Like everything we do in America, it's become politicized. Stupidly, in my humble opinion. Why, on the news today I heard a report about the Loudon County (Virginia) Courthouse Holiday display. Apparently, they have a Christmas thing, a Hanukkah thing, a Kwanza thing, an Atheist thing, and a Jedi thing. The game you can play at home, kids, is to guess who's just yanking someone's crank here....hmmm? I can hear the conversation at the dinner table: "how can we - who love Star Wars - muck up the courthouse's Xmas display." Yeah. In between bong hits they decided that "Jedi" made perfect sense.

Christ. In another country they'd be sterilized for the benefit of the rest of us.

Now, I'm not a nut who insists that All bow before my religion of choice, either. I just know a Contrary Harry when I see one. Godspeed, Obi Wan.

Back to Xmas. We all have our favorite holiday songs, TV specials, and movies. So, I'm taking the lazy man's way out and just writing a sure-to-be-controversial list of the best and worst - according to me because - well - my opinions are the only ones I really care about.

Best TV

1. Still love Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. After all these years it's held up. Santa's basically a small-minded prick, as are most of the residents of "Christmas Town." There's an island where all of the non-conforming toys have been banished to - thanks presumably to Santa or his incompetent elves. Plus a snow monster, I mustn't forget Bumbles. My dad has copious body hair, and my brother Tom and I got in trouble for saying he was the Bumbles snow monster. I guess I love this one for all the memories it evokes...I was a kid, it would air on Christmas Eve some years and it was the last thing I'd watch before scooting off to bed in my footed pj's.

2. Santa Claus is Comin' to Town is a pretty good one, too. It tells Santa's back-story, from orphaned child to universal gift-giver. I especially like the villainous Burgermeister Meisterburger and his Eastern-bloc accent that's right out of the Cold War. And Mrs. Claus is hot for some of this...til she gets older, but there is a sweet scene where the Claus couple is holding hands looking at the North Star when they decide to only do the whole toy-giving thing on Christmas.

3. Nestor, the Christmas Donkey: oh man, this one killed me as a kid. Not usually on TV anymore, but it's the story of a little long-eared (think Dumbo) donkey who travels towards Bethlehem with his mother. At some point, the mother shelters little Nestor from the elements and then dies of exposure. Nestor lives, and manages to be present at the birth of Jesus. I cried and cried and cried. I know, I'm a douchebag, I get it.

4. Shrek the Halls: a newer one but amusing. I like the Donkey's giant Santa waffle and the Gingerbread Man's story of a horrific Xmas past ("you weren't there!"). Plus the great line, uttered by Shrek, "I'm sorry if you took my yelling at you the wrong way."

5. The Grinch: the animated version with Karloff doing the voice of the Grinch. NOT the Jim Carrey crapola flick

Worst TV:

1. The Year Without a Santa Claus: ugh. From the positively wretched songs to the awful introduction of the Miser Brothers, this one should be taken out to pasture and shot. I know, a lot of people love it. Barf.

2. Merry Madagascar and Kung-Fu Panda Xmas: the less said the better. I was forced to sit through these recently and am still recovering.

3. Kathy Lee's Holiday specials: part of me misses these for their sheer awfulness. God, she sucked. Nick and Jessica's weren't far behind.

4. Frosty the Snowman: I like snowmen. I like snow. I don't like this one much, with it's weirdly-animated kids. They made a sequel that was even worse, though, so this one's good by comparison.

Hon. Mention:

There's one that I'm on the fence about, the hallowed Charlie Brown Xmas. Part of me loves it and part of me hates it. Oh, I get it, the holidays are too commercialized. Ok. Now, let's beat the point into 'em, boys! It's half-good and half-bad.

Best Movies (gets shorter from here)

1. A Christmas Story: you know it, you love it.

2. Christmas Vacation: I hated this one when I first saw it, thought it was WAY too liberal in its recycling of gags from the original Vacation. It's grown on me, but the end sucks.

3. Scrooged: love it, one of the best

4. March of the Wooden Soldiers: an old Laurel & Hardy movie. It's old, corny, and I used to watch it every Xmas season.

5. It's a Wonderful Life: Ok, I didn't see this until I was about 30 years old. Very sappy, probably over-played. But a great movie nonetheless.

Worst Movies - too many to name, but here's a few I sat through.

1. Jingle all the Way: dreadful

2. How the Grinch Stole Xmas: the Jim Carrey abortion. ugh. A better movie than the Mike Myers version of Cat in the Hat, though - in which I fell asleep in the theater like an old man.

3. The Family Man: ack barf spit ouch! Nic Cage plays the lead. Kind of like A Christmas Carol, but it sucks soooo bad.

4. Jack Frost: the less said the better.

....I'm sure I've missed a whole lot of movies here.

Best Songs

1. Someday at Christmas by Stevie Wonder. A beautiful song, really.

2. It's Christmas All Over Again by Tom Petty. Featured in Jingle all the Way (the only redeeming portion of that movie). Unexpectedly awesome

3. Christmas (baby please come home) by Darlene Love, and covered by U2. Has that "wall of sound" thing going on, I like it.

4. Christmas in Killarney by the Irish Rovers. The sound of fun.

5. Standards. Tough to go wrong with the usual mixture of hymns and winter-themed standards, really.

6. Everywhere It's Christmas by The Beatles. They've never released the Beatles Xmas songs, but this was a fun one, it's on youtube. Very silly song.

7. Dominick the Donkey by Lou Monte, la la la - la la la lalalala.....tough not to sing along

Worst Songs

1. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer by Elmo and Patsy: Run. Don't listen. Just run.

2. Blue Christmas by Elvis. I love Elvis but hate this song

3. Christmas Shoes by NewSong. This is one of THE worst songs ever. It comes with an agenda and an utterly ridiculous narrative that begins at the sublime (a grimy little kid straight from a Dickens novel trying to buy his mom shoes) to the ridiculous (Jesus won't see those shoes, kid). I think the whole song was calculated to get the buzzwords "God" and "Heaven" and "Jesus" on the radio. Why? Because that's how zealots think.

4. Where are you Christmas? by Faith Hill. Over-played on the radio, and was featured prominently in one of history's worst motion pictures (the aforementioned Grinch).

5. NOVELTY SONGS: Crabs for Christmas, the 12 Pains of Christmas, etc etc etc. Awful. Flush them all before they become standards!

I'm sure I missed a bunch of stuff, but that's life. Enjoy some eggnog and indulge in some of what I think are the better entertainment options of the season.