Saturday, December 25, 2010

Favourite Christmas Specials & Films

Okay christmas day and arguements over who gets to watch what where and listen to what when that I decided to drop a couple of lists here.

First let's start with my personal favourite television Christmas Holiday specials.
The list is always debateable but as I mentioned this is my personal faves.
Let me number these!
23. Santa Claus is Coming to Town
22. The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus
21. Twas the Night Before Christmas
20. Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too
19. Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas
18. Hope for the Holidays - A Bob Hope Christmas
17. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus
16. The Man Who Saved Christmas
15. The Littlest Chistmas Tree
14. The Hogfather
13. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
12. the Alister Sim animated Christmas Carol
11. Frosty The Snowman
10. The Little Drummer Boy
9. Rudolph The Red nosed Reindeer
8. A Year Without Santa
7. Elvis Christmas in Hawaii
6. A Rugrats Hanukah
5. California Raisin Christmas
4. A B.C. Christmas
3. O'Henry's Gift Of The Magi
2. A Charlie Brown Christmas
1. A Wish For Wings That Work

Now while this is a personal list it is not to say it's a end all and be all. I mean part of me misses the Dofasco Christmas Choir. There are four other Peanuts Christmas themed specials but to me the original is the best. Rugrats has two Christmas specials and a Kwanza special and to me their Hanukah is miles better. Not that their explanation of Kwanza is at all shabby. I am saying when I see a Power Ranger's Christmas Carol i always get the feeling the broadcaster is selling too hard to re3alize they may be missing the point. That is to say I try to look for actual special not dependent on the current television situation. In the meantime there are going to be less holiday specials in coming years because it's easier for network and cable stations to air holiday movie family events. To this here is a list of my favourite Christmas and Holiday themed films.

Christmas films twenty of my faves of the moment....
22. Fitzwilly
21. Ernest Saves Christmas
20. Christmas In Connecticutt (original version)
19. Muppet Christmas Carol
18. The Shop Around The Corner
17. Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas
16. We're No Angels
15. Holiday Inn (I like it better than White Christmas)
14. Babes In Toyland (Laurel & Hardy version)
13. Ebbie
12. Home Alone
11. The Santa Clause
10. The Bishop's Wife (tie between Cary Grant and Denzel Washington's Preacher's Wife versions)
9. A Christmas Carol (Alister Sim Version) ties with An American Christmas Carol (Henry Winkler version)
8. Elf
7. Bells of St Marys
6. A Christmas Story
5. Miracle on 34th Street (Original version)
4. It's a Wonderful Life (Black & White not Colourized)
3. Love Actually (you can't help but snuggle with your loved ones after this.)
2. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
1. Scrooged (Bill Murray version)

Should I consider something instead? Any objections to the current order?
Then again maybe I have set about your holiday viewing for the season.

See you all next time and enjoy your holiday's whatever they may happen to be.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Christmas shopping

so Today is the 9th of December 2010 and it's the 30th Anniversary of the world finding out about the death of John Lennon. Oddly it was just 9 years ago last week that George Harrison passed away from cancer. Hard to think of the world with only half the Beatles around but such is life that the Monkees out lived them all. Just Imagine.
With two weeks until Christmas I have done none of the real shopping for presents yet. With Mark and U.S. Black Friday we got MASH the complete series on DVD for him, North & South the Compete collected mini-series for him, The Wizard Of Oz Blu-Ray DVD for him, The Princess Bride for Mary Anne, The Flash the complete series for Paul, Ten Speed & Brown Shoe the complete series for me, Red Dwarf the almost complete series for me, Office Space DVD for him, and the House Of Cards trilogy DVD for Mum, and the best John Wayne films of WWII for Dad. What I need to do is get some clothes for the good people like Mary Anne, Mum, Paul, Dad, Mark, and myself. I can try Wal-Mart for Mark and Dad but Mum is wider than Dad and I am never sure of Paul or Mary Anne. For the past two year's Mary Anne has sent back clothes that were Medium, and Large so I need to get it right this year. I think I can get her a couple of T-Shirts at the CBC Store at CBC headquarters with Coronation Street on them. Something she and her mum like and unique enough to be special for the holiday. Paul will be either XXL or XL but the trick will be to get him a jacket or shirt that he can wear every day to work. So I can get him something at Mark's Work Wear House same for Dad and possibly Mark. Mum get's her stuff from Pennington's so either a Gift Certificate or underwear or another blouse she will rarely wear. Socks are good for Mark and they can be cheap at Wal-Mart. Mark has been pretty good so I will try to get him a game at EB GameSpot they have some they use as bait in their bargain bins. With that in mind I will be very busy for the next few weeks so to all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
P.S. Sometime in the new year I will talk of the Police coming to visit.