As far as Christmas movies go, it’s fair to say the old ones are the best ones. For all the versions of A Christmas Carol we’ve had, it’s always Alistair Simm’s Scrooge that comes out on top; It’s a Wonderful Life continues to be watched year in year out by many; and not a December goes by without Home Alone being aired on TV.
That’s not to say that there hasn’t been any more recent Christmas movies that have been good, but for all the Christmas movies that get made every year, few are any good. I think Elf, starring Will Ferrell is the last really good Christmas movie that’s been released, and that was back in 2003.
Well deck the halls and jingle my bells the wait is finally over as someone has actually done another great Christmas movie. That movie is Arthur Christmas.
Well another year has flown by and we’re now fast approaching Christmas yet again. It seems like it was only yesterday when I was being daunted by Christmas dinner and its shed load of calories. This year’s been no different really, the same just without the 200 metres of snowfall.
Well I couldn’t let a year go by without commenting on the annual festive adverts that have been doing the rounds since October. Oh the joy.
Yes, just like this year’s snowfall the offering has been quite pathetic. From Argos’ weird alien Bill Nighy family to Boot’s relentless use of that ‘here come the girls’ advert this year has been pretty poor.
Well it’s Christmas Day and it’s all winding down here. It’s been as fun a day as ever, I hope it has been a good day for you too.
Unfortunately I was awoken at 2am this morning, not because of the Ghost of Christmas Past, he came at 1, no it was because I was in a great deal of discomfort. This abdominal pain decided to keep me awake for a while, which annoyed the hell out of me! I mean, c’mon of all days to get ill it chooses Christmas Day? Thanks a lot!
Anyway, I did manage to get some sleep before I got out of bed in the morning. But I’ve spent the majority of the day with it, how fun. It’s not really the pain that bothered me really, I’m more than used to it, it’s just the timing of it. You spend all month looking forward to Christmas and then when it comes, you’re ill. Brilliant.
So after Christmas Dinner, which I did manage to enjoy, I decided to admit defeat and head to bed for a while. Whilst lying in bed, it got me thinking about how annoyed I was at missing out on Christmas thanks to illness. But after a while I started thinking about all those people in the world who don’t even have the luxury of being with their family and friends on Christmas Day.
Those people who spend Christmas alone, people without family, people stuck in a hospital bed, working or serving their country overseas. These are the people I thought of whilst I was lying there in pain. It dawned on me at that moment just how fortunate I am to be home for Christmas, some people don’t even get that luxury.
The people I thought of most were the soldiers out serving their nation. Unfortunately war doesn’t stop for Christmas, it would be good if it did, but it doesn’t. Today, the Queen didn’t mention the troops in her speech, which I felt was a bit disappointing, instead she opted for a message about sport and togetherness in communities. One of the reasons we can even celebrate Christmas is because of the bravery of the servicemen and women, some of whom are stuck in a war zone on the 25th.
Barack Obama and his wife Michelle paid tribute to the American troops spending Christmas overseas:
“Today, we’re also thinking of those who can’t be home for the holidays, especially all our courageous countrymen serving overseas. They’ve been everything we’ve asked them to be, and even as we speak, many are fighting halfway around the globe, in hopes that someday, our children and grandchildren won’t have to”
A poignant and fitting message I thought, and it would have been nice if someone from Britain would have said something like that for our troops. I haven’t seen a mention of them today. I haven’t seen David Cameron all day either, he’s probably spending Christmas with his family, which is fair enough, but he could have at least recorded something. I just feel as a nation we’re starting to become a little too selfish when it comes to Christmas, and you can’t get much more oxymoronic than that.
All in all today has been a great Christmas, even if I was ill for it. Being unwell made me realise how lucky I am and that there are people out there in far worse situations than I am. It was quite a humbling realisation as I’d spent most of the day being irritated at the fact I was poorly and that Amazon hadn’t delivered my stuff. We take so much for granted at Christmas and in the end I’m just happy spending it at home with the ones I love.
Isn’t that what Christmas is all about?
I hope you’ve had a great Christmas yourself, and here’s hoping those who aren’t as fortunate as me today, will be with their loved ones sooner rather than later.
Are you feeling Christmassy yet? You should be, because it’s Christmas Eve everyone! Meaning only one thing: tomorrow is Christmas Day! Sounds obvious but apparently some people don’t know this.
Take Amazon for example, it’s now Christmas Eve and they still haven’t delivered my packages, but they have guaranteed me that I’ll receive them before tomorrow. Yep, I’m fully expecting a knock at the door at 23.59 tonight. If not, then there will be hell to pay!
I chose to shop online, mainly to avoid the horrible queues over Christmas. There’s nothing worse than standing in a queue down at HMV or Game, meandering around the entire store thinking of all the wonderful things you could be doing with your time instead of listening to an old woman complain about the lack of batteries in some lame plastic product.
Plus Amazon is open 24 hours. Well, there’s Tesco of course, but with Amazon you can browse and shop without any trolley rage and you can simply get into the store without being hassled by a bunch of spotty chavs asking if you can buy them some cigarettes. It really is bad for your skin sunshine.
Forget Christmas cheer! Amazon have stolen my money! I ordered my pressies over the net on the fifth of the festive month and have I received a sausage? No, I haven’t. Yes, my dad likes sausages what do you want from me? It’s blatant theft. This is treason of the highest order! And an email saying they’re very sorry isn’t going to cut it!
They must be punished for this outrage. I am hereby declaring the dismemberment of Jersey from the British isles! France can have it. Tough luck Amazon but that’s what you get for treason against me and our Queen. Au revoir.
Ah well, here’s hoping I’ll receive it before the day is out, but I won’t be holding my breath. So what can be done to ease the Christmassy stressors? Well, there’s always the trusty TV.
There’s not a great deal on tonight, the main highlight is probably QI, which is probably the best thing on the beeb right now. On just before that is a My Family Christmas special which is always a fun jaunt. The soaps are on, dishing out the daily serving of depression. Ho ho ho. And Paul O’Grady is on for an hour at 9pm.
As for Christmas Day itself there’s a few things on. BBCs traditional animated flick of the day this year is not a Pixar one unfortunately, instead it’s Shrek the Third, which I’ve never bothered to watch, so that’s in the maybe pile. Doctor Who is on at 6pm and could be worth a watch as, well, Doctor Who is actually pretty good drama these days and not only that Michael Gambon is in it! Dumbledore for crying out loud! Strictly Come Dancing might be worth a watch too, it features the same usual no name cast, but Vince Cable is on it! How utterly random, there could be murder in the dance floor if his partner secretly works for the Telegraph.
Top Gear is on again, so if, like me, you didn’t even realise it was on the other day, it’s repeated at 7pm and there's another special on Boxing Day too. Should be a laugh. More of a laugh at least than the Royle Family that’s on at 9pm on BBC1, don’t bother, this show used to be so good, now it’s awful and is about as subtle as a cock-flight in a petting zoo.
That’s about it really, there are plenty of movies on over the festive period. Avatar is on Sky Movies pretty much all the time, in 3D apparently. Forget that. Other film highlights on Christmas Day include, The Muppet Christmas Carol at 8.50am on Channel 4, Madagascar at 12.25pm on BBC1 , Stranger than Fiction at 6.45pm on Five and of course Die Hard is on at 9pm on Film4!
As for Christmas Eve, well, there’s Uncle Buck at 9pm on ITV3, Prince Caspian at 5.15pm on BBC1, but if you’re in the mood for a classic Christmas film look no further than Scrooge with Alastair Sim, on Five at 4pm. What can I say about this movie? Other than it is the best version of a Christmas Carol that’s ever been made. I defy you to find me a better Scrooge than Alastair Sim, no one has ever come close to capturing the essence of the character quite like him. I think I’ll be giving that a watch this year again. I watch it every year, that’s how good it is!
So yes, plenty to watch over Christmas, why was I angry again? Time to sit back with a smooth beverage and a mince pie, put my feet up and wait for Santa to come. Ah sweet relaxation. Holy crap was that the doorbell!?
You know, I haven’t watched television for a bit. So I thought I’d have a browse on Friday night to see what was gleefully entertaining the nation. I stumbled upon Children in Need! That snuck up on us didn’t it?
I don’t know how I’d managed to forget it was on, but I did. So I was quite surprised when I saw it on the box. I just flicked to BBC One and there he was in all his glory, father to the nation, like an old slipper with a chequered inlay. Terry Wogan in high definition. Bless him.
It’s like the one day a year Britain sees him now, he’s like some sort of softly spoken Irish Santa Claus. He was presenting with Tess Daly who as I write this must be nursing a very painful jaw, she’s be smiling even more than usual on tele this weekend; Children in Need and Strictly. Plastered onto her face, she has the expression of a lonely check-in desk worker at the least busiest airport in the world if Brad Pitt came wandering up with his passport.
All in all it was a decent show, from what I saw of it anyway. Most of it is celebrities generously helping to raise money and then there are always those who are just flogging an album. Mastermind was pretty funny, and Strictly was a lot better with Wogan as a judge. I saw some sort of Eastenders and Coronation Street collaboration which wasn’t actually that good at all but it had a funny moment where Gail and some other woman tried to get one over on each other by saying what they’d been though. A clear mickey take of the writers, well executed. The rest was rubbish.
What else was there? I missed the newsreaders do their usual dance about. How did I manage that? I’ll YouTube it…
Yeah it was pretty average, looks like this year they went with a Lady Gaga theme. Nobody dressed up as meat, out of respect for Ross Noble (she really is a thief), instead they dressed as a satellite, a cleaner, a microphone and Storm from X-men. It was pretty average, I think the producers knew this as they literally dressed a random guy as a Direct Line red telephone and pushed him onto the stage! Seriously what’s that all about? It wasn’t that funny to be honest, I think the funniest thing about it is the audience’s obvious fatigue about half way through after clapping along to the music, by the end they were clapping as frequently as it rains in the Sahara.
I did manage to see Doctor Who invite a couple of kids into the Tardis for tea, which just sounds wrong but it was actually a really nice piece. After which they showed a sneak peek at the upcoming Christmas special which I wasn’t interested in until I saw who was in it! Michael Gambon! I love Gambon, he is quality, I don’t know how the producers got him but a congratulations is in order! Welcome to the Layer Cake indeed.
After the Doctor they went off to see what people had been up to in your area, which for me was London as I was watching on BBC HD and I’ll be darned if I’m putting in the effort to change to normal BBC One! There really were lots of people generously fundraising, B&Q giving lots of money, and Pudsey himself working in some sort of warehouse in a high-vis vest! Hang on. Why does he need that? Who’s going to miss him? That’s health and safety gone mad! I mean he’s big and yellow for crying out loud! They should make cyclists dress as Pudsey the bear! That’d help me out a bit as all they seem to wear round here is a helmet with a tiny blinking red light on it!
Whatever, it was all ruined anyway when I saw the loathsome annoyance that is… I can’t actually bring myself to write her name. I’ll give you a clue, she works on Radio 1, she did Top of the Pops and she did a Nintendo DS advert with her mate Holly Willoughby as well. Anyway, she appeared after that so it was time to change channel.
That’s why I missed the newsreaders!
Well it didn’t turn out to be the best idea I’ve ever had anyway as all you do is end up on ITV watching adverts. And yes I’m greeted with the usual DFS advert. Another sale? Wow, who’d have thought it! It’s not the same sodding sale you’ve had all year round is it?! This isn’t even the annoying part. The annoying part is it’s November 19th, 35 days away from December 25th and it‘s a Christmassy advert!
Every year it seems to get earlier and earlier. This year has to be a new record for me. On October 8th I heard a Christmassy advert on the radio. 78 days before the actual day! I’ve no idea what it was about now but yes jingle bells and all that, for crying out loud it’s ages away! It drives me insane! I know people who have their Christmas tree up already! What’s the bloody point? You might as well just leave it up from last year!
That’s all you get, once the calendar flips over from September to October. Christmas thrown in your gormless face like a soggy custard pie. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas, it’s probably the best day ever, even if it isn’t as good as it was when you were a kid. It’s just that I only really start to feel Christmassy a little into December, because, well, that’s when Christmas is! All the promotion and constant barrage of the Pogues just ends up making it anti-climatic rather than the crescendo it’s supposed to be.
I just want to walk into a shop in November and not be treated to Noddy Holder shouting “It’s Chriiiiiiiistmassss!” at me. That’d be nice. And I’d love to turn on the TV without seeing Peter Kay dressing up with the M&S girls at a party with Jamie Redknapp on the decks. Yes, you haven’t read that wrong, it exists. It really does. Well it beats webuyanycar at least. God help us if they make a Christmas advert.
Oh well, it’s not like I have anything to do with deciding when Christmas starts. That’s Coca Cola’s job. This year they have decided upon November 12th to kick of the merriness with their ‘Holidays are coming’ advert. Holidays. What is that about? This isn’t America. We need our own version of it here in Britain where Terry Wogan drives it round wearing a cardigan, no pants and slippers smoking a pipe throwing Boots 3 for 2 deals at people as he drives by. Much more realistic. Oh well, such is life.
Happy Holidays one and all.
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I'll post the Marks and Spencer advert below, see if you can spot Peter Kay's body double.
