On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
Merry Christmas to all, or just “have a great day/night”. I’m 46 and it’s been amazing to me watching how Christmas as celebrated in North America, England, and continental Europe has infiltrated non-Christian countries. In Japan, they eat fried chicken – thank you Col. Sanders – and I’ve seen great non-Christian celebrations in Singapore and Hong Kong.
Really, they celebrate gift-giving, lights, good food, friends and family, in a civic festival context. This is good – there’s a certain non-religious aspect of Christmas that is truly the reason for the season for so many, captured well during an opening to a Christmas Doctor Who special a few years back (“well done, you can make it through the dark, etc.”). Which reminds me – are you as pumped for the female Doctor’s debut? I wish my mother had lived to see it, for she watched the original broadcasts in London when she was young, and remained a lifelong fan. Like so many things, I owe my love of something amazing to her having blazed a path.
So I wish you all some joy and happiness to you and yours on this Christmas day, and may the rest of this year be merry.
With that, I will not be sharing pictures today, but two offbeat movie recommendations. The first one’s a fun Finnish Christmas movie, so long as you don’t mind seeing lots – and I mean LOTS – of naked old men with saggy balls. Don’t let that turn you off – this is a really great movie.
The next one isn’t a Christmas movie – really anti-Christian in a way – yet it’s a similar modern European exploration of myths and legends set in winter mountains. I find this kind of exploration of myth and legend so completely fulfilling, like great reinventions of ghost stories. I’d recommend seeing them with English subtitles, especially with Trollhunter – Norwegian just sounds so nice to the ear.
Bonus:
Very silly vampire movie, with more instances of the word “fuck” than any movie known. If you need to bust a stitch laughing your ass off and don’t mind profanity, this is a great escape. Enjoy!
And with that, Merry Christmas to all. I’ll have pictures and more normal content tomorrow!
To submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email
rikyrah
Merry Christmas, Alain. Thanks for all you do.
Sending positive thoughts to you ?
eclare
Seconding rikyrah, thank you, and peace to you and yours.
Sab
Merry Christmas, Alain. To quote one of my favorite columnists, Connie Schultz regarding holidays: may this day land gently on you.
I’m sleeping over with my 93 year old dad who has dementia. He is at the stage where he has no interior voice. He sits around a lot grumbling with his cat about my failings as a caregiver. The cat is mainly concerned about food. My dad is mainly concerned about lack of car rides due to winter snow.Cat goes for car rides in his carrier but would rather not. Cat should do great with Christmas dinner. Hilarious in an aggravating sort of way.
I should be home with my husband, next door to my stepdaughter and grandkids. But here I am.
I finally got the tree lit and decorated. It was sitting around forlorn for about a week in the living room, in its stand, watered, and undecorated. Now it’s a Christmas Tree!
Also I finally found a Yule log on cable, up amongst the music channels. Finally feels like Christmas!
eclare
@Sab: That sounds tough, hope you can go home soon and enjoy your tree.
ThresherK
Warmest holiday greetings from our new, still box-filled apartment.
Christmas miracles: After six weeks here I found the box with my Bean boots. I won’t have to go out in today’s snow in sneakers. And yesterday was mild enough for me to change the oil in my wife’s car, and I found the tools required!
Sab
@eclare: Tree is at my Dad’s. My husband and I have a weird little fake tree that looks exactly Ike a real tree but has weird fake snow that the cats think smells horrible. Great for us and for our tree’s survival. Cats have demolished several amazing fiber optic trees over the last few years. Fiber optics just obsess cats.
NotMax
Try – try – to cut away from Aliens 3 at any point and not randomly come back in when someone is saying the F word. Can’t be done.
Sab
@eclare: Yes I do love my phony fake tree. Also love my Dad although he’s not much there any more.
Lost my Mom about six years ago. She was mentally mostly intact but physically an absolute mess. My Dad is just a shadow of himself, but physically ok for an out of shape 90+ year old.
Love that cable Yule tree.
Can’t say whose decline is more painful to watch.
Sab
Up in 30 minutes to bake cookies, then do the turkey and Xmas dinner. Long day. Should have done some stuff yesterday but couldn’t be bothered. We pay for inaction.
Still, I found that Yule log on cable!
Mary G
@Sab: You are a great caregiver. It’s so hard to do that well. Merry Christmas!
(Not saying that because of you, Twitler.)
Raven
@Sab: posted above, here’s our company tree in 1968
?BillinGlendaleCA
I mentioned this in a comment a few days ago, I gave myself a Gear VR for Christmas. So last night after dinner I passed it around to madame, the kid and our friend who joined us for dinner. Madame and the kid were pretty impressed by the virtual experience.
On a somewhat unrelated note the kid shared some really stunning pics from her recent visit to the slot canyons in northern AZ.
Major Major Major Major
Ooooh, can’t wait for the doctor who Xmas special. I’m sure there will be reruns when I’m there. Go suck an egg, Moffat.
Merry Christmas to all though!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Bah Humbug!
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: that movie is so weird, almost as weird as the story of its production.
Major Major Major Major
Put on the first Futurama Xmas special.
“This snow is beautiful. I sure am glad global warming never happened.”
”Actually it did, but then nuclear winter canceled it out.”
satby
Merry Christmas Alain.
Schlemazel
Merry Christmas to all.
Sab: that is a tough row to hoe but it sounds like you are facing it with good humor which is half the battle. I hope you have some delightful surprises for Christmas
Alan: You keep this place going while other get the credit, thank you is hardly adequate but the best I can do. Thank-you.
I am surprised Hollywood has not remade all 3 of those movies by now. I am sure they would be crap but commercial successes. Personally I hate the handheld, “reality” style of the Troll one but would watch it anyway. They all look like fun rides
Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.
An underrated Xmas movie I loved was “The Ref,” starring an early still-funny Denis Leary as a small-time crook who robs the house of a wealthy couple who turn out to be Judy Davis and (sigh) Kevin Spacey (dammit), playing these neurotic rich nightmare humans who make him totally miserable. The cops get tipped off, and the family and Leary agree that’ll have to play along with Leary being part of the family Christmas (sweaters and all). Glynis Johns shows up later as Spacey’s horrible mother and just steals the show. Davis is as volcanic as always. It’s a really funny movie unfortunately tainted by the revelations about Spacey.
Hunter
Merry Christmas to all.
Keep in mind that pretty much every temperate zone culture has some sort of observance for the Winter Solstice — the time when the days start getting longer and the nights shorter. It’s not necessarily Christmas taking over the world.
Tokyokie
I discovered Rare Exports a few years ago, and now I have the Blu-ray, which I’ll be taking with me to my brother’s house in hopes of starting a family holiday tradition. My guess is that I’ll wind up watching it with my college-age niece and nobody else, but I’m pretty sure she’ll love it.
mapaghimagsik
Rare Exports is a tradition for us, as well as Hogfather, which is faithful reproduction of the book.
Our tiki bar is designed to look like piled up crates and equipment from an expedition that mysteriously disappeared. One of our crates has the Rare Exports logo on the side.
laura
@Sab: I’m sending you my love. I lost my mom August before last to dementia and am losing my dad to the four horsemen copd,congestive heart failure, melanoma and cll.
Neither is better both are worse. I wish you peace love and acceptance.
Alain, I wish you well, and what’s already been said so well.
geg6
Merry Christmas, jackals! ??
And sending good thoughts to you, Alain.
Izabela
I’ve seen both Rare Exports and Trollhunter, they’re fun movies!
suezboo
Happy Christmas to all jackals who celebrate it from a very warm SAfrica. Especially to you, Alain, for keeping us all going right here and to the lovely frontpagers who give us something to read when we get here. Thanks and have a good holiday time.
Alain the site fixer
@Izabela: then you’ll love Strigoi, I’d expect!
Josie
@Sab: My folks were like that. My father could hardly get around and was deaf as a post but mentally sharp. My mother had dementia but was quite healthy and strong otherwise. My older brother used to say that, between them, they made a whole person.
ThresherK
@Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.: Ahhh!
It’s got a great Old Hollywood concept, like it could have been made by Warners in the 30s or 40s. (Language excluded, obviously.)
JanieM
Alain:
My son lived in China for five years. One year, someone saw evidence that he was getting ready for Christmas and asked him, “Oh, you celebrate Christmas too?”
A story that speaks to so many things…..
My one long visit when he was there was during Spring Festival time. Someone on the street engaged us in conversation one day, wished us a happy new year (or whatever they say; I didn’t know any Mandarin), and expressed appreciation that I had come to visit. Either my son should have headed home, or I should have joined him, one or the other — that’s what you do on the holidays.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all, and may 2018 be an improvement on the model now limping to a close!
Skepticat
@Sab: You are giving your dad the best (and arguably the most expensive) gift imaginable.
kindness
Merry Christmas everyone. Happy New Year (we hope). The family is just beginning to stir. I’ve been drinking coffee and reading up on the web till it begins. Have fun. Be merry. Tell the people that you love that you love them. We need each other to get through these times.
ThresherK
@JanieM:
Tangent: I want to send all the precious Trump snowflakes who were afraid to say Merry Christmas to the old USSR. A few years in fucking gulag for being an out Christian would do them some good.
Okay, it wouldn’t. But it’d satisfy my schadenfreude needs.
J R in WV
Dear Alain:
Thanks again for all you do for all us Jackals!! Happy Yule to ya’ll in particular, and every jackal in general.
So glad to see you indulging us in a little silliness on this most silly day in our calendar!!
Happy Holidays to everyone, as well~!! We should remember the past well today, and relive the best parts of it in our memories.
And I especially want to thank my fellow jackals for helping me through the nights when insomnia is more bothersome than other nights.
Merry Christmas to all!
JR
Yarrow
Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates! I am taking care of my neighbor’s cats while she’s out of town. I’m on morning shift and someone else has evenings. I went over this morning and it looks like the evening person didn’t show. Poor kitties. :(
I gave them extra food, which they looked at and then walked away from with a distinct air of disdain. Were they attempting to punish me for the evening food service going missing? They came back eventually and tucked in, but they certainly seemed to want to show me I had MISSED THEIR DINNER SERVICE. LOL. They’re good kitties. I gave them extra because of the missed meal and also it’s Christmas!
MomSense
Merry day, Jackals. We’ve had a bit of a bumpy start so hoping some good Home food will help to make things better.
Alain the site fixer
@suezboo: ooh, land of my birth! I hope to get back sometime for a visit. It’s much better than when I was there in 1985!
Yarrow
@Sab: Caregiving is hard work. Your dad is lucky to have you. Enjoy the time with him, as challenging as it may be.
Major Major Major Major
Well, we’re off to Dulles for the first leg of our trip! Merry Xmas again jackals.
frosty
@Yarrow:
One would never, as in NEVER, see a dog do this, LOL.
Miss Bianca
Merry Christmas, dear Alain!
I’ve seen “The Troll Hunter” – high-fives! No one else I know has copped to watching that one!
I have “Rare Exports” dialed up in my library reservation queue – so I guess I’ll be adding “Strigoi” too!
Hope to see you in these parts sooner rather than later – right now the mountains have only a slight coating of snow, and it’s bright and sunny but windy as all get-out.
Regards,
MB
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: Merry Christmas, Yarrow, you are a goodly cat sitter!
worn
Delurking momentarily…
I’m not surprised, at least for any location in the northern hemisphere, given that Christmas is just an overlay atop the older Roman holiday of Saturnalia, which in turn is an acknowledgement/reaction of/to the winter solstice. That is, there’s a reason that these types of celebrations pretty much always include a festival of light component. Ditto of the later Germanic addition of having a tree inside the house – an act I’ve heard effectively argued isn’t Christian in the least (ref: Jerimiah 10, KJV).
That said, best of the season to each and every one of you – though I comment almost never, I am a dedicated, daily visitor & this joint continues to be a mental oasis for me, as it has been for well over a decade and a half. And I’d like to extend even more heartfelt holiday wishes to you Alain, given your terrible, wrenching loss this year.
Much love to all.
Doug R
You want thoughtful zombie movies, find Girl With All The Gifts. Starring Glenn Close as a scientist, but the kid that plays the “Girl” is the star and Gemma Arterton gives a solid performance.
Sandia Blanca
Merry Christmas, Alain, and thank you for your many contributions to this blog. I was looking forward to your promised posts about your mother–did you already publish and I missed them? She must have been a fascinating person. Best wishes to you and yours.
Ruckus
@Sab:
Sorry about your folks. It’s never easy, but don’t forget to take care of yourself.
Mine are both gone, 17 yrs ago for dad – Alzheimer’s, he was 84, 6 yrs ago for mom – she just wore out, she was 94.
Life goes on. It changes with the loss, with the generations, but it goes on. Like the sun, every morning is a new day. Make the most of each one as best as you can, it will get easier. I guarantee it gets easier. Not better but easier. The loss will become the memory of the good times, the fun times, the better times and the world will regain some of it’s balance. Like the time I became an adult to my mom. I was in my mid 50s and at least had some adultness about me, but that didn’t matter to mom. She was trying to set me up with the daughter of a friend of hers. I only lived about 2400 miles away at the time but still, she though we should go out. So for months, every time I talked to her, “You should go out with __________.” I tried every rational nicety to dissuade her but being mom, no dice. So I’m visiting her and of course the first thing she says is not hello, but “You should go out with __________.” Being a bit tired of the whole thing I ask mom “Will she fuck?” Mom, without breaking stride or tone or getting in the least bit upset, says, “You’ll have to ask her.” At least I never heard another word about it. So mom finally treated me like an adult. It was a nice moment, when we could be friends, not just mother and young son. She was a good egg, she tried hard, she had, like all of us, faults, but she was mom.
workworkwork
@mapaghimagsik: Hogfather is one of our Christmas traditions as well. However, I tried explaining it to someone who wasn’t familiar with Terry Pratchet’s work….
mapaghimagsik
@workworkwork: That would be very difficult. That, and it is a long movie, with a lot going on. But any story that starts with a hit on Santa (The Hogfather) is alright by me.
First, we have to off the Tooth Fairy…
oldster
Just watched “Rare Exports,” and that is one bizarre film. I mean, deeply, wtf, weird.
I’m not saying it was bad–I liked parts of it, and I am not sorry to have seen it.
But as weird as I thought that Finnish people are? This film makes me think that they are much weirder.
Do I recommend it? Um, kinda? If you like very weird, very deadpan humor?
Anyhow–happy holidays to all.
Paul in KY
Have seen Troll Hunter. Great film, must be watched with the subtitles. Found out ‘OK’ is pronounced same in Norwegian. Hope all Juicers are well! Merry Holidays & Happy New Year!!