I have seen many Christmas movies and enjoyed most of them, some more than others, but you can generally tell in the first five minutes who is going to end up kissing who in the snow 90 minutes later and i am fine with that, it's a happy ending and that is how feel-good Christmas movies should be but i have noticed a few things which happen in every film.
Christmas time is basically a race to see how much food and drink you can cram into your face during December and almost every Christmas film has an appearance from a Christmas Cookie somewhere and Eggnog. I have never tasted Eggnog and have no idea what's in it, i assume egg and whatever nog is. As for the cookies, if they are not home baked then the shops seem to just give them away, nobody ever seems to pay for them, what sort of business model is that?
As well as cookies, there is always a scene where someone buys someone coffee or hot chocolate but the cup always seems to be empty as you can tell by the actor or actress tipping the cup up to their lips as if it is only half full or the empty sound when they put it down on the table. Now i am to acting what Donald Trump is to weightwatchers but even i could act like i have a full cup of hot liquid and sip it and not risk tipping hot liquid down the front of my blouse.
Most movies take place in a small American town, normally the place where the female star grew up and returned from some high powered career for the Christmas period or to resurrect a failing family business and is destined not to return to their job for that imminent partnership or promotion because she has fallen for an old flame or the local hunk who sold her a Christmas Tree. It appears that it always snows in these small towns but obligingly it only snow at the edges of the roads and pavements but it will always snow, sometimes so heavily that it means the person is stranded in the town and unable to leave and everyone runs around willy nilly in the snow and never complains about how bloody cold it is or slip and falls on ice or if they do, it's in an adorable way.
We put up our fake Christmas Tree at the end of November and then take it down early January but in the movies they usually not only go out and buy a new Christmas Tree from a Christmas Tree Farm (owned by a handsome tree salesman with no regard for the environment), but they leave the purchase until a few days before Christmas.
What's the point of that? It would only be up for a few days and that means you have dragged a tree in to your front room and will be finding pine needles everywhere until Easter for just those few days.
If someone is in a relationship at the start of the movies then a break up is inevitable, it has to be so they are single and can fall for the super nice, hunky guy or cute girl at the end but there has been a twist on this in recent years by making sure the character is single by giving them a dead spouse.
Nothing says Christmas cheer like a dead wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend leaving you free to shack up with the girl who has the high powered job that has turned up or the good looking guy who does all the odd-jobs around town.
Many of the perfectly decorated small towns will feature a competition, either a talent show at a child's school, float decorating in a parade, or something related to baking and a tree lighting ceremony in the town centre where the characters decide they really are in love and she will give up her career and live in the small town with the hunky new boyfriend. It's almost always the girl giving up her job in the City for someone she met a few days ago or hasn't seen since she left town 15 years ago and at no point asks herself hmm, he's in his late 20s or early 30s and single, what's up with him? I guess high-powered executive men don’t need to go anywhere, they fall in love with the Christmas-obsessed women that cross their path in the office.
The overriding message is that there is more to the season than presents and the real meaning of Christmas is love and family and not the presents or materialism and they will drum this message home between commercials trying to sell you stuff that you didn't know you wanted or needed.
It seems that every street in these American small towns have a Santa standing around ringing a bell which seems to make people automatically put money in the their bucket. That would never work here, they would have to at least sing or do something to get a few pound, the ability to say Ho Ho Ho and ring a bell doesn't qualify but they do sometimes turn out to be the real, actual Santa.
As heart-warmingly familiar as the plots are the actors who show up and get us saying 'wasn't he in' or 'Isn't that the woman who was in' and any actor with a white beard is going to be the real Father Christmas (possibly ringing a bell on a street) and will impart some wise words of wisdom at some point to bring the two together which is unlike the usual older people who say inappropriate things, call you by the wrong name or button up cardigan wrong. Old people are not always a reliable source of information pertaining to your love life.
If the actor has an English accent there is a very good chance he will turn out to be a Prince of somewhere in Europe nobody has ever heard of and he is destined to take over as King soon which is fine if you didn't know that the only place in Europe which speaks with such a pronounced clipped English accent is England and the heir to the throne is married and the only single Prince's within touching distance of the throne are both under 10 years old.
The most annoying thing which happens in Christmas films which really crumbles my cookies is the way that the characters, at the end of a phone call, never say goodbye to the person they are talking to.
No 'Bye, speak later' or 'See you at 8' or even as much as a mumbled 'Love You', they just hang up which is not only rude but makes me wonder why they gave that person they hardly know their telephone number in the first place, they have only known them for a few days and they are handing out their personal number to them?
That's a lax attitude to your own personal security right there because he may seem nice, love Christmas and have a chiselled jawline but if you get woken up by a series of texts of photo's sent you of him wearing your knickers over his head, then then you may regret being quite so casual with your phone number.
No comments:
Post a Comment