TV’s Warm, Glowing, Warming Glow.

I spent a lot of time over the holiday season watching television. Actually, I spent a lot of time watching television period, especially this year, but the holiday season is always a time in which lots of television is watched because when you don’t have to get up for work the next day and you can’t go out because you’re handcuffed to your family, there’s not much else to do. Sure, you could talk to your relatives, but after about half an hour of that you remember why you only see those people a few times a year.

Regardless of where you are, television always changes for the holiday season. Whether it’s a Doctor Who holiday special, the annual showing of It’s A Wonderful Life, or the omnipresent special sporting events that fill the televised landscape between Halloween and New Years Day, you never really know what to expect when you turn on that box full of pictures and noise to distract your relatives from the fact that you’re still not married, have a crap job, and live in your parents’ basement.

One of the big time killers is the marathon. If you own the rights to a lot of something, then the holiday season is the time to force it on your viewers whether they want to watch it or not. It gives those hard-working programmers a much needed break, allows you to avoid competing with Santa Claus and company, and gives Grinches like myself something to fall asleep while watching in the midst of a holiday drunk.

Check out my five favorite holiday-time TV marathons.

Santa at the Drive-In

Everyone has a favourite holiday. For people like me, that favourite holiday is Halloween. The airwaves are full of horror movies, websites indulge in theme weeks celebrating underappreciated horror films (ahem), there’s lots of candy and treats, pumpkin-flavored beer, cool costumes, and general indulgence of our darker natures. Then, there’s the antithesis of Halloween: Christmas.

Ahh, Christmas, the all-consuming black hole of the winter holiday season whose approach means big money for stores of all sizes, shapes, and genres. This is one of the few times of year I find myself beyond miserable, and that time of year is starting earlier and ending later every year. Any holiday or pseudo-holiday in Christmas’s orbit is sucked in, subsumed wholly, by the Christmas monolith.

First, Christmas came Chanukah, and I said nothing (after all, I’m not Jewish, and my Jewish friends say that Chanukah isn’t such a big deal for them as Christmas is for everyone else). Next, Christmas consumed Kwanzaa (which I didn’t care about, as Kwanzaa is a completely invented holiday made up in the late 60s and has never had a bigger meaning). Then, it ate New Year’s, and I said nothing (Christmas decorations stay up until the New Year most places). Then, Christmas came for Thanksgiving Day, and I said nothing (mostly because I ate too much turkey and kept falling asleep in front of the television). Thanksgiving is merely the day before the official launching point to the Christmas shopping season in America, the ominously named Black Friday. Now, Christmas comes for Halloween, and there is no one to stand with me (or at least complain loudly on the Internet).

But, perhaps, not all hope is lost for redeeming this holiday season, even though the only person who knows my grandmother’s custard recipe is my aunt. I mean, I did receive The Simpsons Movie on DVD for an early Christmas present.

So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Plus, there’s always Joe Bob Briggs’s Christmas poem and Joe Bob Briggs’s Christmas Special videos over at the Wittenburg Door to make me grin dumbly and explain why I spent three hours looking for/at Joe Bob clips on YouTube.

This is my idea of Christmas spirit

It’s sad, but I actually remember the Monstervision Christmas marathon from back in the early 1990’s. Good times, gang. Good times. Cable television could use a man like Joe Bob Briggs again, that’s for damn sure.

Xmas/Xsmash

Squirrel Queen tagged me, so here goes nothing. In the spirit of my newfound desire not to be the Grinch’s meaner half-uncle, it’s a Christmas-themed Xmas meme!

Rules for the game include:
1) Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2) Share Christmas facts about yourself.
3) Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4) Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your friends.

1. Wrapping or gift bags? I prefer bags, just because, like most folks without a retail background and with absolutely no patience, my wrapped gifts look awful.

2. Real or artificial tree? Most of my life, we had fake trees; there were a few years awhile back we had real trees, but these days we’re treeless. There’s a cat in the house after all.

3. When do you put up the tree? Generally, we don’t. Before, we usually did it mid-December.

4. When do you take the tree down? After New Year’s, but before the Super Bowl.

5. Do you like eggnog? I agree Squirrel Queen—give me boiled custard, or give me death. My mom likes eggnog, and I like bourbon, so maybe she and I can compromise.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Anything electronic.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Nope, and my idea for a fight scene between Santa Claus and Cobra Commander got shot down, too.

8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Nothing immediately springs to mind, though I have been disappointed by the performance of some gifts.

9. Mail or email Christmas cards? In case you missed the post below, mail. Even if I’ll see you between now and Christmas, you’re still getting mail. And you’ll like it, ass!

10. Favorite Christmas Movie? Reindeer Games, starring Ben Affleck and Lt. Dan, featuring Naked Charlize Theron before she could act.

11. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I start as soon as possible, though since I tend to buy from Amazon, I have a lot of boxes laying around the house for November.

12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Everything, especially candy canes, bourbon balls, fudge, chocolate anything, desserts, and all that fattening stuff that still manages to go great with the beer in the Samuel Adams Winter Collection

13. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Must… resist… urge… to make… lynching joke… ah, screw it. If it’s hanging from my tree, it has to be colored.

14. Favorite Christmas song? Pretty much any of the many Christmas songs by The Vandals.

15. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We go to relatives’ houses. Used to do two in one day, but now just one.

16. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer. They call them Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen… Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. And yes I recall… THE most faaaaamous reindeeer of allll… Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

17. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star.

18. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning? Christmas Eve, but Santa usually ends up bringing surprise presents Christmas morning.

19. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Crowds and lousy TV specials

20. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme or color? We don’t have a tree, but the house is generally festooned with Christmas-themed stuff.

21. What do you leave for Santa? Half a kilo of uncut Colombian marching powder. Oh, wait, that’s what I hope Santa leaves for me. Diet Pepsi and peanut brittle?

22. Least favorite holiday song? “Do They Know Its Christmas” by the disgusting Band Aid.

23. Favorite ornament? Hmmm… I don’t think I have one, but I did buy someone a Godzilla plushie that ended up becoming a permanent addition to her Christmas tree, which is pretty cool.

Tag, you’re it: Ginger, Klinde, Chez Bez, Jade (who doesn’t really have a blog but will no doubt read this), Sarah Dobbs, Mr. Peace (or one of his guest bloggers), and GingerFeathers.

Take it away, boys and girls!

In the movie version of this, I will be played by Joe Don Baker

You know how I know Newscoma and I will be BFFs? She likes Mystery Science Theater 3000 (so does Ginger, surprisingly). Amusingly enough, she posted about her desire for a Patrick Swayze Christmas at the very same time I was writing my Cultelevision article about those very same awesome folks for Den of Geek.

It was supposed to be like 500 words at best, but it ballooned to nearly three MS Word pages. What can I say? I like the show, and I want to make other people like it too, even if it means that I have to call Big McLargeHuge to come in and beat the crap out of them.

Send More Paramedics

A brief update on this chilly and haunted Halloween night. I’ve been busy over at Den of Geek the last week, and here’s a little update of what I’ve been doing yonder for those still in the Halloween spirit (and also fans of The Office).

The Office 4.05: Local Ad. Limitless paper in a paperless world.

My review of 30 Days of Night. I fucked up in the review, and nobody fixed it. Danny Huston as Marlowe is the lead vampire; Mark Boone Jr. played beefy loner Beau. Don’t tase me, bro.

My defense of Night of the Living Dead (1990) as an underappreciated horror film. No one agrees with me, but really; it’s not a bad movie and updates the original quite nicely in my opinion.

And, of course, Den of Geek Loves Bruce Campbell, just for Newscoma.

I also saw my second Christmas commercial today, this one featuring the characters from Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, no less! In an advertising break from HALLOWEEN on AMC! What in the hell is going on here?!

it begins…

Date: October 28, 2007.

Time: 1:57 PM EDT.

Program: NFL on Fox, Colts Vs. Panthers

Event: The first Christmas commercial of the year, for the Garmin GPS navigator deal. Sigh. IT’S NOT EVEN HALLOWEEN YOU ASSHOLES!

I don’t ask for that much. All I want is to not see Christmas commercials until after Thanksgiving. Hell, I’ll wait until November 1st before lifting my ban on Christmas ads. Don’t try to rush me past the only holiday of the year that makes TV worth watching.