Eyes Wide Shut is the best Christmas movie.

On Christmas songs, check out It's Christmas Time by Status Quo.

It's a wonderful slice of 70's/80 rockers Christmas music, that wasn't actually written until 2008 so most people have never heard of it.

Wookienopants wrote:

Ah Griff, thats a lovely ad. I hadn't seen that

I'm still a bit of an unreconstructed old cunt. But it is a lovely ad.

This wil be my first Christmas with paid leave since 2013 so Im going to really lean into the whole switching off vibe.

I’m using up all my leftover holiday time for an extended Christmas laziness bonanza, so I finish up for the season halfway through the 16th. That’s really pretty soon. HYPE TRAIN BOARDING.

I finish on 10th Dec and not back til 10th Jan, result.

I'm on call for various days through that tho so not all getting pissed throughout.

I’m looking forward to trying out the new Pistol Annies Christmas album. Deliberately ignored it on release to wait until it’s actually relevant …

I'm loving hearing all of these Christmas plans.

Im off from the 22nd to the 4th Jan (although there's an annoying possibility I may have to take a trip to London for some oversight work on the 30th, hoping to justify doing it virtually)

I'm actually spending most of that time with my in laws (god send help or whisky) but this year won't be so bad. All the kids will be playing nicely (one hopes) and I'll be mostly drunk anyway. Biggest risk will be the inevitable argument over the table with my anti mask in laws (though thankfully not anti Vax!!).

Politics is always an interesting one and my wife frequently has to kick me under the table as she knows I will argue back.

Still, should be wonderful to see everyone again and just be able to switch off for a week!

Taking my daughter to see Dick Wittington at the theatre on next weekend. Her first really. Looking forwrd to it. 

Then it's her birthday on the 22nd and then Christmas, so lots of present hunting between now and then. Got click happy on amazon earlier. She's coming to mine as she does every christmas and my partner will be cooking turkey we've ordered from the local butcher. My sister and her family will come over as we're still adjusting to life without our parents. Creating new traditions. Will be so nice having two kids running around excited. 

Will be church, presents, lunch, xmas TV. 

Films - new grinch, die hard and home alone every time.

Carols - it came upon a midnight clear and once in royal davids city

LivDiv wrote:

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is an event movie in Div House so that will be watched for sure.
A company called Department 56 do a great line of Griswolds decorations that I will maybe look into next year once settled. They do other movies as well I think.



Would love the Home Alone Lego set as well.

Holy crap that's amazing!!! WANT

Haha. Do it anyway.

Re Christmas films.

There are some that are set at Christmas that I enjoy watching at Christmas but I don't consider as a Christmas film. Fanny & Alexander , Gremlins and Eyes Wide Shut fit that bill.

There's proper Christmas films then. Elf and Scrooge '51. (Most other Scrooge films I enjoy too - The George C Scott one is rather good).

Then there's Love and Death - a Woody Allen film. First time I saw it was during a BBC Allen season that was shown over the Christmas break. It saw it late at night with my Old Dad and so I like to recreate the feeling I had. It's a transitional film for Allen - moving away from the slapstick to more thoughtful films. It shows the influence people like Fellini and Bergmann have on him too. The soundtrack includes Povokief's Troika from the Lieutenant Kije suite which conveys the feeling of a sleigh ride.

I was going to put the outside lights up tonight but I can't be arsed.