Yay, Christmas Dreck!

Sorry, Jews! It's that time of year when your television gets taken over by Christmas movies, Christmas specials, and very special Christmas episodes of every show. I LOVE Christmas movies. I mean really love them. I would watch Miracle on 34th Street or Christmas in Connecticut any time of year. And if I couldn't catch A Christmas Story at least once while they're showing it over and over and over again on Christmas Day then it just wouldn't seem like Christmas. That's not unusual, everyone loves the classics. But I will also sit through the most appalling crap just because it has the word "Christmas" in the title, or because someone at some point wears a Santa hat. (Die Hard is a definite exception here. Somehow if you get slaughtered while wearing the Santa hat it somewhat detracts from that Christmasy feeling.) In fact, I am so hooked on televised Yuletide joy that I will watch any ridiculous adulteration of A Christmas Carol, even the one with Tori Spelling and William Shatner. And it should shame me greatly that a new made-for-TV movie in which Christina Milian gets trapped in a Christmas snowglobe has actually sparked my interest, but lo, I am not ashamed! To celebrate my obsession, here are some terrible Christmas specials that I will watch on TV every year until I am too old and blind to see, at which point technology will probably be such that I can get them beamed directly into my brain.

Santa Claus. No, not the one with Tim Allen. That's The Santa Clause. This one has Dudley Moore as hapless elf Patch, who just wants Santa to love him and who tries to bring the assembly line to the North Pole. It also has John Lithgow, leaving no scenery unchewed in his potrayal of the evil B.Z., a toymaker who relishes the fact that his toys can do children great harm. The movie is all over the place. It covers the evolution of Santa Claus, the evils of mass production, and the unlikely (and heartwarming! Don't forget heartwarming!) friendship between two unloved children, one homeless and one rich. (We are beaten around the head and neck many times with subtle hints that Cornelia is living large. My favorite such poke-in-the-eye reminder is when her nanny scolds her to learn her Latin verbs, I guess because that's what wealthy 8-year-olds do in 1985.) There's also the Lithgow story line, in which he evilly plots to resuscitate his evil toy company by selling evil exploding candy to kids. There's fun elves at the North Pole lore, for which I think they just got some really short actors -- they had not yet perfected the en-smallening techniques that made Ian McKellan tower over the hobbits. The (heartwarming!) homeless kid finds friends and love, but also gets tied up in a basement or something. And Santa gets disillusioned about Christmas and the materialism of this modern generation, but finds his Christmas spirit again by the end with the help of his friends, both human and elf-kind. Love it! You get at least two movies in one here, if not three, which I consider a good bargain but which some might just call bad storytelling.

A Diva's Christmas Carol. My favorite Christmas Carol is the straight-up version with Patrick Stewart as Scrooge (and never a sexier Scrooge there was), and the Muppet version is also pretty fun. (If you're wondering which muppet played Scrooge, don't -- it was Michael Caine, which is kind of a shame. I think Sam the Eagle, grumpy muppet newscaster, would have done the job admirably.) But, I can't help but love the diva version. Vanessa Williams really knows how to bring the bitch. In fact, I'm sure this movie was all the casting director of Ugly Betty needed to see before deciding on Williams to play the deliciously wicked Wilhelmina Slater.

Once Upon a Christmas. This movie is exactly the kind of made-for-TV Christmas schlock that gets me every time. Kathy Ireland plays Santa's daughter, Kristen Claus. Santa is once again feeling disillusioned about what horrible people we all are in this modern world and wants to go somewhere tropical on vacation instead of delivering toys on Christmas. Kristen makes a deal with him: If she can turn one sad-sack family from naughty to nice, Christmas will take place as usual. Of course the family's not really bad, they just (heartwarming!) never recovered after the mom died. This movie is so great because it combines the best of made-for-TV movies (C- or even D-list actors, the just-before-the-commercial-break rise in conflict) with the best of cheesy Christmas movies (a surfeit of cuteness, children who need to believe in Santa for everything to be OK, and lots and lots of Christmas sweaters). Plus, Santa has another daughter named Rudolpha!

And just for a little balance, here are some Christmas specials that even I couldn't stomach this year.

The Christmas Gift. A widower and his daughter spend Christmas in a town where everyone believes in Santa. I recorded this movie because it has John Denver. I have a soft spot for John Denver, mostly because he recorded a Christmas album with the Muppets. And I think my parents used to have a John Denver 8-track that we listened to on car trips. (Yes, I am that old.) I only lasted 10 minutes. The first 7 or so of these we were in said Santa-believing town, and some old guy I probably should recognize was reminding everyone (including an even-crankier-than-usual Kurtwood Smith) to write their letters to Santa. This scene was very, very long, nigh on interminable. Apparently we needed this long introduction to show us how very quaint the town is, and how neighborly everyone in it. I thought it could only get better from there. After all, I hadn't even seen John Denver yet! I was so wrong. There was my beloved John, sporting a classic 80s mullet (I had naively hoped for the endearing floppy-haired 70s John Denver) and spouting off ridiculous dialogue of which everyone involved should have been deeply ashamed. John was the top architect at a firm seemingly composed of idiots. They have acquired some land, but what to do with it? John's boss asks everyone else for ideas and gets blank stares.
In walks John: (Speaking with quiet confidence.) We should build some stuff. (I am paraphrasing.)
Boss: Brilliant!
John: Stuff people will like.
Boss: (Nearly peeing himself with excited admiration) Is this guy the best, or what!
Me: I've had enough. (Delete.)

Las Vegas does Dickens. Or is it Capra? They can't quite seem to decide. Mike has lost the Christmas spirit because Josh Duhamel won't play basketball with him or something. I don't know. Then he gets knocked out by an electrical short on his Christmas tree. Then there are spirits from the requisite time periods, but instead of showing Mike what a dick he's been and how in his future lies doom, they show him how great Vegas is because he gets laid a lot, how his friends' lives would be affected for the worse were he not around, and how awesome his future is looking from here. The episode made no sense and was an unacceptable bastardization of not one but two classics. That's what I get for watching a show that exists primarily to prove how very, very pretty everyone is.

The Note. A plane crashes into the sea. A newspaper columnist (Peyton) finds a note, presumably from someone on the plane to their child, addressed only as "T." She decides to solve the mystery and deliver the note to its intended recipient, while trying to outfox the asshole local TV news celebrity who wants the story for himself. This movie was truly awful. I watched the whole thing. I don't know why. It did not spread Christmas cheer. In fact, in only passes for a Christmas movie because everyone kept talking about how it was almost Christmas, and because at the end Peyton puts up some Christmas decorations. The acting was really bad, especially by the bland actress playing Peyton (Genie Francis). It had the usual lack of subtlety that I sometimes find amusing (such as in Santa Claus) but that here I just found annoying. Example: Ted McGinley plays another columnist at the paper who befriends Peyton. They, of course, fall in love despite displaying no chemistry whatsoever. We know he is a good writer. How do we know? He mentions his Pulitzer. That's right. A Pulitzer-prize winning journalist is writing a column at some tiny local paper. I could give 50 such examples, but I'm trying not to be petty. I just couldn't get past the stupidity of the premise. If you're on a plane that's about to go down, writing a note to a loved one, and hoping beyond hope that it will somehow find its way to that person, perhaps you could increase the odds by addressing it more specifically than with an intitial. And that's all I have to say about that.

I think I'll stop there. I could go on forever about Christmas movies, the good and the bad, but instead I'll invite everyone to put their favorites, or least favorites, in the comments.