Christmas film countdown: Christmas at the Drive In

Winnie from the wonder years in a Christmas movie? Yes please! Also she looks cute with dark hair, maybe I should dye my hair dark? Why do most Christmas protagonists have blonde hair? And also there aren’t any gingers in Christmas movies - is this because their hair clashes with the abundance of red?  This film was as cute as all the others. Nothing I have watched this year is worth watching again.  

I give this film two Christmas trees: 🎄🎄

Also, Laura Vanderkam had a great short podcast called “someday you’ll be telling this story” and it definitely resonated wirh me. Someday I won’t be awake with babies every night from 3am onwards. Some day I won’t be changing a crying baby on the floor while another baby cries next to me. Someday I’ll think “wow, twin newborns was so hard. How did we do that?” Someday I’ll take a shower when I want to, not when carefully scheduled into a weekend or when Andy can sneak a long tea break. 

More often than not, when my mind start to wander, it wanders in a direction of gratitude. These are a lot of babies, but how lucky am I to get grocery delivery? To have a house stocked with food? To afford to heat my house? To have healthy children? To have Managed birthing 4 children without needing a Caesarean?  How lucky that Andy and I both like an organised house. That we have a dishwasher. That our kids are generally good. That we have friends to drop off food. That if we need something desperately I know we have a community here to help us. 

I know this is a learned behaviour, I wonder if this is just how we think as we get older or whether all the books on gratitude and mental fortitude have rewired me in this way.

I remember learning about abundance mentality and how that makes for a better lived experience than scarcity mentality. Joyful by Ingrid Ferrell Lee has stuck with me - she noted we like visions of abundance in our environment. We like bubbles and snowflakes and filled jars and twinkles lights. Abundance - multiple similar things - make people happy.

What could be more abundant than twins?

Christmas Movie Countdown: B&B merry

No one is getting much sleep at the moment. We have passed a new parenting milestone here… on Thursday just after settling babies at 2am my bedroom door burst open and the five year old yelled “I’m going to be sick” and proceeded to be sick on my floor. I run upstairs to get Andy while holding a baby and trying to be nice to the upset 5 year old but also keeping distance from germs… and mentally lamenting the fact that the toilet was equidistant to the bedroom carpet and I really would have preferred Isaac use the toilet. Oh well… our new carpets were going to be less new someday.

Isaac was mostly better by 5am but usually 2-5 is my sleep time. Fast forward to Monday… Andy came upstairs to get me at 11pm (we split sleep and twins right now, I sleep from around 9 to midnight and Andy gets the midnight till kid wake up shift) carrying a baby who hasn’t settled and informing me that the three year old has been sick in her bed. I thought I was going to be feeding a baby to sleep, instead I was changing a bed and consoling the three year old… while trying to keep distance and wash my hands a lot.

She was up from 11Pm to 6am. There was very very little sleep. I started laundry at 2am. Thank god for the drier. It was only after the 2nd sheet change that I remembered we could put a towel down on the bed rather than new sheets each time. Thankfully L seems on the mend now too.

And then there has just been bad nights of baby sleep. Babies up every two hours… but alternating hours. With twins, one sleeping baby is no sleeping babies.

So in 20 to 30 minute chunks, spread out 2-4 times a night, I have really been getting through the Christmas line up.

B&B Merry

I thought this was the squeaky girl from Superstore and the boy from A Christmas Wish for Daisy but it turns out everyone just looks the same. This movie had some amazing dialogue like

Boy: when my dad died I decided to take over the B&H

Girl: sounds like it had been a really hard time for your family

Boy: thank you for recognising that

I need to incorporate “thank you for recognising that” more.

This movie was nice because there basically was no drama at all. It was just watching a bunch of pretty people do nice stuff. Lots of trees. Lots of Christmas decorations. Lots of tiny problems all solved by a Christmas dance. 

I give this movie two Christmas trees🎄🎄

Christmas movie Countdown: A Castle For Christmas and Father Christmas is Back

A castle for Christmas

Brooke shields and Westley from The Princess Bride? Yes please! Were any of the Scottish characters played by Scottish actors? I don’t know. 

Christmas tree rating 🎄🎄

Father Christmas is Back

Fraser playing John Cleese’s brother? I’m in. I thought it was bad acting but then I realised it was an intentional style. 

Christmas tree rating 🎄🎄

Christmas film countdown: Christmas with the Coopers

Today’s review is Christmas at the Coopers. 

Diane Keaton is great. The whole cast is great.  I’m not sure I get the genre of “families that break down over Christmas” as a Christmas film.  This movie had a good amount of people from The Office and I like The Office.  I didn’t end the film feeling particularly festive or Christmassy.

Maybe that’s because my nights currently involve around 2-4 hours of sleep broken into 2-3 chunks?

I’m still sort of embracing “reflection season” and whenever I think of something I wish we could do this year but can’t I write it on next years Christmas list.

The one thing I haven’t figured out how to do with twins yet is leave the house in the car. My world has become very small. I have walked our neighbourhood every day it hasn’t rained… but now I’m getting flashbacks of Covid lockdown rules and I don’t want to relive that either.

But back to this film. It was fine if you want a good ensemble cast experiencing a series of relationship break ups around Christmas, some of which are resolved with kissing.

I give this film three Christmas trees - entirely due to the cast: 🎄🎄🎄

Christmas Film Countdown: Best.Christmas.Ever

Andy and I have a routine for night feeds and twins that was working well for a few days. I go to bed around 8:30pm and Andy gives twins a bottle, then wakes me up when they get hungry for their first feed. A few nights ago this was 3am! I had 6 hours of sleep!

Unfortunately tonight one twin did not settle from bottle to midnight. Andy got me at 12 and so my sleep was from 9-12. Now it’s 4am. I’ve read every NaBloPoMo blog. My Feedly is empty. I checked the news (why? Sad!). And I decided to get out of the Netflix romance algorithm so found Best. Christmas. Ever.

This film was fine. It wasn’t a romance. I like that Christmas films include STEM women and diverse casts now. This wasn’t particularly funny or memorable but if your stuck holding a Newborn that won’t seep in a bedside cot and will only sleep on you at night and you need to pass 7 hours until morning then I would definitely recommend this film as a way to pass 1 hour 40 minutes.

Now it’s 3 hours till morning… although sleepless daytime is not any different than sleepless night really, and sometimes harder due to energetic kids. Luckily babies are so random that when we do the same thing tomorrow they might sleep longer. Or less long. There is no cause and effect. 

I give this film 2 Christmas trees 🎄 🎄

Christmas Film Countdown: A Christmas Miracle for Daisy

Babies are not sleeping well. Actually, one baby is sleeping well and one baby is not and it’s not the same one each night. On the plus side I am really churning through the Netflix Christmas spread.

This is a classic cliche Christmas movie. Every house has so much decoration! So many wreaths! Everyone has massive kitchens. Also, how does a guy who just moved to a new town know enough people to throw a Christmas party?  Because that’s what happens in this film. 

I am wondering if al Netflix Christmas films will soon be written by ChatGBT? Or are they already written by AI? 

I give this film 2 Christmas trees 🎄 🎄

(because it was better than Angel Falls Christmas, which has been demoted to 1 Christmas tree rating): 

 

Christmas Film Countdown: Angel Falls Christmas

 For my second Christmas film I watched Angel Falls Christmas.

This was a straight up Christmas cliche movie, including weird ad breaks where people would stare meaningfully at each other or at the sky. The pros add that chad Michael Murray is nice on the eyes. The cons are the acting and the story line. And the premise. “Female doctor works to hard”? Hmm. But there was a lot of Christmas… all the Christmas… so if your looking for Christmas movie that literally has every Christmas movie thing in it (cookies! Santa! Trees! Giant houses with Christmas stuff everywhere!) then this is the perfect film for you.

I give this film one Christmas tree. 🎄

(And I upgrade Office Christmas Party to 4. I am aware this rating scale makes no sense at all) 

Christmas Film Countdown: Office Christmas Party

These twins are by 3rd & 4th autumn babies, which means I’ve spent nights shushing and feeding babies for 2 of the last 5 holiday seasons. In 2018 I decided to start watching Christmas movies on Netflix during night feeds, and with lilah in 2020 I watched even more. Normally I wait until December to start, but the Netflix recommendations are already here and I don’t sleep between 2am and 7am so I just finished my first Christmas movie of 2023:

Office Christmas Party. This was surprisingly enjoyable! I was going to comment that Netflix had scored a pretty epic cast for this one but I think this may have actually been a real movie (from 2016) not a Netflix original, which probably explains the cast. 

It also had a number of different female characters in it, not all of whom thought about men all the time. It just barely passed the Bechdel test.  Jennifer Aniston is great. I thought it was somewhat funny and somewhat entertaining but the cast pulled it all together for me.

I give this film three Christmas trees. 🎄🎄🎄🎄