My Picks: The Worst Christmas Song/Movie November 23, 2007

Don’t forget to vote! Here are my picks.

Worst Song: “The Christmas Shoes.”

Every time I hear this song, I want to gouge out my own eyes. If I ever listen to it, it’s only so that I can loudly talk through the whole thing, explaining to everyone within earshot the enormity of my hatred for this self-indulgent drivel. This is the kind of song that makes me want to reform the welfare system so I never have to hear whiny ballads about poor children ever ever again.

Here’s the rundown: a poor child wants to buy his mother shoes before she dies. The guy behind him in line – purportedly singing the ditty – watches him empty his change onto the counter and “count his pennies for what seemed like years,” and when the kid doesn’t have enough, the guy ponies up.

I can’t even begin to describe all the things wrong with this story. Why is a kid out alone on Christmas Eve? Why isn’t the kid at home with his DYING MOTHER? Who was supervising him? Is his dad a wino, or what? Has he no extended family? And if this guy genuinely wanted to help this kid and his family, couldn’t he GIVE THE KID A RIDE HOME? Or write him a check to offset the cost of the mother’s funeral? Instead of buying shoes for this woman who is most likely bedridden?

Bob Carlisle, who sings the song, talks through the verses in an annoyingly conversational angst-ridden monotone and wails through the chorus as though someone is repeatedly poking him in a vital organ – “And I want her to look BEAU-tiful if MOM-ma meets JEE-sUs……..to-NIGHT.”

They actually made a movie of this song, with Rob Lowe the Curse’d………but it was so bad even I didn’t see it. Thus, my pick for worst Christmas movie is

Worst Movie: “One Magic Christmas”

This movie features Mary Steenburgen as a desperately poor mom at the end of her rope with two guilt-ridden children and an emasculated out-of-work husband. Needless to say, they can’t afford a merry Christmas. Enter Happy Christmas Angel to show them how much they love each other! Right? Well, almost.

The angel, a hangdog Harry Dean Stanton in a trenchcoat and fedora which make him look just like the polygamous cult leader I always think of him as, is not exactly Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life.

Harry decides that the best way to make Mary appreciate what she’s got is to magically disappear what little money there is in the family bank account. As you may imagine, this turn of events only makes Mary more shrewish, snapping at her kids, screaming at her useless husband, and generally raging at God.

Since she failed to respond to this brilliant tactic, the angel magics a bank heist next to Mary’s work. Mary’s husband gets shot, and the robbers try to run away his car, in which the kids were waiting. The robbers drive the car into a river in their haste, drowning the kids. Yes, you read that right: the Happy Christmas Angel just killed Mary Steenburgen’s entire family in front of her.

Feeling jolly now, Mary? Are ya?

But it’s okay! The angel Harry has the whole family hidden away in Santa’s workshop, and after Mary treks about twenty-five-billion miles in the snow, she gets them back! And they’re all happy and together! But they’re still desperately poor! But that’s okay, really! Because Harry Dean Stanton has ways of making you merry. Ways you don’t want to know about.

I hope this kicks off some worthwhile ranting/voting. Read the instructions in the vote post, and comment! Merry Christmas runup!

It’s That Time of Year Again: Vote on the Worst Christmas Dreck Ever November 23, 2007

On the way home from Thanksgiving dinner at Calvin’s house, positively filled with the four Thanksgiving foods I eat – mashed potatoes, turkey, pecan pie, and bread – I observed the lighted houses, trees, and plastic life-sized nativity scenes many of my neighbors had erected (some as early as Monday) and realized that I have been falling down in my sacred duty as an American: here it is the day after Thanksgiving – 31 days, 6 hours until Christmas – and I haven’t even begun to think about that most excitingly commercial holiday. Why, Wal-Mart, ever on the ball, had their Christmas decor up on October 31! What is wrong with me?

So, to get into the swing of things, I lit a fire, made some hot chocolate, and put on some Christmas music.

And that’s when it hit me: a lot of this music is awful.

Dave Barry, funnyman extraordinaire, one wrote a series of columns called “The Bad Song Survey.” He asked his readers to write in with their nominations for the worst song of all time, and he was flooded with responses. “Song badness is an issue Americans care deeply about,” he wrote.

I could not agree more, Dave. Which is why I extend a similar challenge to my readers: Please, between now and December 24, post a comment to this post with your nomination for the worst Christmas song of all time, and on Christmas, I’ll combine them all into one post with the winner (determined by most votes): The Worst Christmas Song of All Time. Here are the specific instructions for the contests:

Contest 1: The Worst Christmas Song of All Time:

1) Pick what you think is the worst Christmas song ever. Use any criteria you want – level of sappiness; lyric badness; poor rendition; or annoying melody/harmony.

2) Specifying which contest you are voting in, post a comment to this post and give a detailed explanation of your decision. Quotation of lyrics is encouraged.

3) Feel free to rant, but please, keep it clean. I don’t have a problem with cussing altogether, but it usually isn’t necessary. Be smart, use your discretion, and help me maintain the integrity of the blog. For more info on this, check my comments policy on the right-hand side of the blog.

Contest 2: The Worst Christmas Movie of All Time

1) Pick what you think is the worst Christmas movie ever. ANY MOVIE: made for TV, theatrical release, classic. Use any criteria you want – level of sappiness; stupidity of plot; poor acting; inanity of lines/script; poor message or total lack of message.

2) Specifying which contest you are voting in, post a comment to this post and give a detailed explanation of your decision.

3) Feel free to rant, but please, keep it clean. I don’t have a problem with cussing altogether, but it usually isn’t necessary. Be smart, use your discretion, and help me maintain the integrity of the blog. For more info on this, check my comments policy on the right-hand side of the blog.

Have fun, everybody, and later I’ll post what I, PenguinDust, consider to be the worst Christmas movie and song.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody November 21, 2007

This is an real conversation which Kikki and I actually had Monday.

Kikki: Since I’m the first person in my family to be born in America, we don’t really do thanksgiving. We just sort of use it as yet another excuse to get together and drink wine.
Me: What do you think an American thanksgiving is?
Kikki: Well. You have pilgrims. It’s different.

Have a safe and happy drunken pilgrim day.