it's that time of year. snow is on the ground, lights are in the trees (speaking of which, have you seen the spectacle of lights on 16th and 2nd or 3rd? it's intense), and everywhere you go, "happy christmas (war is over)" is on the radio.

i'm really excited for christmas this year. it isn't often that i get genuinely excited about the holidays, but this year, i am.

if you'd like to get me some sort of present, no matter who you are, it is not inappropriate to do so. i will accept anything from gifts being dropped off anonymously at my home to meeting me for coffee to give them to me. whatever works for you! that's what the christmas spirit is all about, right? thinking of others.

we recently got our christmas tree. my girls are so cute. (notice i didn't help.)









it usually takes me quite awhile to get into the christmas spirit (because i'm a half-grinch at heart), but this year, it hit me on december 4th, which is very early for me. i started buying christmas gifts, we made our house festive, and i brought out my favorite christmas movie (which, by the way, is not "a christmas story." i hate that movie, and i'm dead serious when i say this).

now, i'd like to claim "how the grinch stole christmas" or "a charlie brown christmas" or "frosty the snowman" or "muppet christmas carol" or even "home alone" as my favorite christmas movie. if i did, i'd be one lying sumbitch.

my favorite holiday movie is "scrooged."



bill murray's finest hour. from the scroogiest of the scrooges to his over-enthusiastic loving self, this movie is wonderful, beginning to end. murray plays francis xavier cross, a network executive and modern-day scrooge. he is greedy, narcissistic, heartless, and self-centered. (in his office, he has a poster that reads cross, n. [kros] 1. a thing you nail people to. he also wants to staple antlers to a mouse's head.) true to the dickens story, he is visited by three ghosts, and they subsequently remind him about the true meaning of christmas and what is really important in life. carol kane is hysterical as the ghost of christmas present, and it is in her big scene that one of my favorite movie quotes is yielded: "the bitch hit me with a toaster." when the disgruntled ex-employee eliot loudermilk (played brilliantly by bobcat goldthwait) decides to take the day's unfortunate events into his own hands, he appears with a shotgun at just the right time for a big raspberry on his stomach. the end is cheesy and sappy, but it's the perfect ending to this movie -- i very much enjoy bill murray coaxing the cast to sing along with him (and the "little shop of horrors" reference).

it is, hands down, the best adaptation of "a christmas carol," and quite possibly the best christmas movie ever made.


more important than christmas, however, is LOW.

i saw low today at weber music hall and i didn't cry.

but i'll probably cry when i see them on saturday at sacred heart. it's all good. i'm a weepy bastard these days anyway.