Gremlins is the Best Christmas Movie

Many of us, when pressed, are able to give a favorite holiday movie or two in casual conversation. I know a few staples are It’s a Wonderful Life – featuring Jimmy Stewart rehashing his childhood and adult life and what it would have been like without him around. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer – a claymation film with a cute reindeer protagonist who is exiled for his differences and then exploited for them later on (relax, I kid – I still watch it every year). Santa Clause – in which Tim Allen accidentally becomes Santa. Even Die Hard – in which an office Christmas party goes awry when terrorists decide to crash it. The list goes on and as I said – almost everyone can name at least one or two favorite.

One movie that always seems to be a surprise to many folks as a Christmas film is Gremlins (1984) – and Gremlins is hands down my favorite Christmas movie of all time, and I think it should be up there on a lot of people’s lists.

If you’re shocked at Gremlins being a Christmas movie – you wouldn’t be if you simply re-watched it. At the beginning of the film, Billy (Zach Galligan) is given a Mogwai named Gizmo (Howie Mandel) – who was the original Baby Yoda in cuteness level – for Christmas. From there, lots of hijinks ensue – but all of them take place among a distinct Christmas landscape.

From Billy’s rusty Volkswagen Beetle having trouble starting in the snowy, winter weather of Kingston Falls – to the infamous “Do You Hear What I Hear” scene inside Billy’s house as Billy’s mother Lynn (Frances Lee McCain) fights off marauding gremlins – right up to the horrific Christmas childhood story told by Kate Beringer (Phoebe Cates) – Christmas is essential to the Gremlins storyline which therefore makes it a Christmas film.

Now – the reason I think it’s the BEST Christmas film is that it’s so unlike most of the other Christmas movies out there. At its heart, Gremlins is still a warm holiday movie based around the Christmas traditions and principles we’re used to seeing around Christmas time. Billy lives with his typical 1980’s American family, the neighborhood citizens are all pretty likable, and Kingston Falls seems like it would be on a Christmas postcard from Maine. However, that’s what makes it so interesting when Gizmo and the Gremlins show up and start wreaking havoc, killing people, and toying with their streetlights. I mean, c’mon – if we’re going to have to listen to the same ol’ Christmas songs, why not do it with the backdrop of deadly mayhem?

The animatronics and effects still largely hold up in Gremlins and I think you’d be surprised at how great the movie still is in general if you haven’t seen it in a while. On top of that, we seem to be – as far as pop culture goes – swinging back to the 1980’s with Stranger Things and songs like Take On Me being so popular again. So – why not give it a shot as one of your Christmas films this season? It’s currently streaming on Amazon Prime, YouTube, iTunes and elsewhere.

 

Victoria Mansion In Winter

When you think of the holidays, you probably don’t know how much you owe to the Victorians for the popularity of Christmas (Hint: We owe everything to them). With that being said, if you want to experience a true Victorian Christmas – look no further than Portland, Maine.

Built during the late 1850’s, the Victoria Mansion was a summer home for an opulent family residing here in Maine. Now, it’s used as a museum of sorts, showcasing wall murals, furniture and other decor from the Victorian era all inside a true Victorian home.

For a small price, you can walk the interior of the house and view each of the rooms, which are decorated by a different interior decorator. Each year there is a different theme. Photography is not allowed inside the mansion during the rest of the year, but during the holidays it is not only allowed but encouraged.

If you wish to know anything about the house, there are plenty of docents around who are eager to share with you the information they’ve learned. In fact, while I was there I learned that surviving family members of the original family are slowly donating original items to the mansion to be “returned” as they get older and die off. Morbid, but a very cool detail and somewhat restores my faith in humanity.

My wife and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon at the mansion, getting lost within the different rooms in the place, wondering at all the many details you’re privy to on the inside. Art adornes literally every corner. Here, a wall mural. There, the naked bust of a mermaid. Even the legs on the tables are sculpted. Even the mirrors tell tales.

So do yourself a huge favor if you’re in the Portland area and head to this mecca of Victorian sensibility. The cost is low, the return is very high. The show stops after January 7th, so make sure to drop in before then. If you miss it, don’t worry. There’s always next holiday season.

The Holidays Don’t Need To Be Stressful

It’s Christmas Eve, so naturally I’m reflecting on years past. The holidays can be kind of difficult, but I always try to remember and to remind others that the holidays can be what you make of them, at least if you try. Don’t feel pressured to have to “do” something. It’s hard, but you really can make it your own thing.

Over the years, Christmas has changed and evolved and sometimes devolved for me. I’ve enjoyed years in my childhood where the entire family would come together and we’d be cascaded with gifts, good food, and memories. I’ve had Christmases as a youngster where we were wanting for food and gifts and where we had very little. I’ve had Christmases where I was separated from my family by the state. I’ve had Christmases as an adult where I’ve had to work and I’ve missed the initial festivities. I’ve had Christmases as an adult where I’ve hosted parties, or gone to them with friends. I’ve spent Christmases with my significant other’s family and I’ve spent Christmases crying by myself in the dark with no money.

I happen to like Christmas best when it’s with family, and though that’s what I often strive for – I’ve also made due in those other situations especially now that I’m older. It’s so hard to get everyone together, especially with some people in the family being out of state and some people having passed on, and some people just busy in general. I’m thankful that I have a wife to share it with, but even if I didn’t – I’m just glad to see others happy. I really don’t care for Christmas much as an institution. My family has never celebrated its religious undertones. It’s basically just like Thanksgiving in that it’s just an excuse to get together, eat, and relax with each other.

So, that’s what I try to treat it as, and I don’t feel pressured if that makes sense. If I don’t have anyone to get together with, then I try to partake in everything else the holiday has to offer to the best of my ability. If I were single, I’d buy myself something nice. If I didn’t have much money, I’d at least make myself a nice meal or buy a nice dinner out somewhere. Or, just relax.

In any case, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone who partakes in the festivities. And, if not – that’s okay too. I appreciate you all.

The Jacket

I remember the morning very well.

My wife (at the time) and I were house-sitting for an older couple in a bright and spacious home in Old Orchard Beach here in Maine. Before we left for the day to her parent’s house in Limington to celebrate the holidays with them, we each decided to give each other a Christmas gift. She handed me the package and I remember slowly tearing the paper from around a box, the kind that clothes are usually wrapped in, and then pulling out a faux-leather jacket. I smiled, thanked her, and kissed her on the lips.

“Thank you,” I said. “A leather coat? So cool. Haven’t had one of these since I worked at Timberland.”

She smiled and waited for me to look it over.

I never really bought any leather or even faux-leather coats for myself, preferring the simple style of my cloth jackets – which served a functional purpose but didn’t look especially flashy or anything. When I lifted the jacket to examine it, I noticed a large tear under the left arm. White cotton insides were showing from beneath the faux-leather layers.

“Oh, wow,” my wife said, grimacing. “I didn’t even notice that when I got it. We should bring it back.”

I never did end up bringing it back. For lots of reasons. Winter came and went, and so did my marriage, but the coat stayed with me.

The coat is the perfect metaphor for my relationship with my ex-wife. When she originally bought it, she disregarded or didn’t pay attention to the tear in the fabric. When she bought it, she didn’t take into account my own semblance of style – the jacket was her own idea of style, her own idea of who she wanted me to be and who I’d never be, at least in her eyes. When she bought it, I know in my heart she was already thinking of backing out of the marriage because we separated less than a year later, in the Fall of 2011.

That morning, as she started to get ready for the holiday festivities we’d be attending later in the day, I left that little house by the water and walked down to the ocean. The walk was cold, silent, peaceful. My breath curled into the air, frosting my beard and mustache. As I looked out over the frozen water, even then I knew we were in trouble. We’d been having lots of fights. A few months before, we’d had a terrible falling out after I found texts from her to her friend saying she still had feelings for him since they’d dated back in high school. But we talked, and I thought we’d ironed some things out. I’d forgiven her, mostly. I just wanted it to work.

This gift should have been the start to a new year of re-building. But we ignored the tear in the fabric, so to speak. The jacket was flashy to me, more for show than for functionality – especially with the rip in it, it did little to block the cold. But just as with the jacket, she didn’t think much of the functionality of our relationship at the time. It was also only for show. Her sister had married her high school sweetheart, so had her mother. When we’d first started dating, she often told me how her family was always pressuring her to find a guy, get married, have some kids.

“Fuck that,” she said.

We both laughed when I first heard her say that, as we walked on a frozen beach not far from the one I was strolling on there that day. It had been our first date. Still, we ignored those fundamental differences, and I asked her to marry me. She said yes. We both made a big mistake, and it wouldn’t be the last one either of us made during our time with one another.

I wanted so bad to escape the horrible mundane failures of my life. I worked hard to make the marriage work, but I wasn’t good at it. Bills, fixing the house, lawn care, plumbing – you name it…I was terrible at it all. But I tried. She tried the domestic thing, too. She wasn’t very good at it either. She didn’t like cooking. She didn’t like staying home. Our marriage fell apart, just like the jacket had.

But…the jacket didn’t just “fall” apart. I punished it. I went on adventures with it, creating new memories around it, memories without her. I stuck buttons all over it, piercing the fabric with needles attached to little tiny statements about who I am. She may have gotten “me” (or her idea of who she wanted me to be) the jacket, but I was the one who turned the jacket into something my own, something that was more a part of me than if I’d just worn it as it was. The seams began to unravel. The zipper broke. I took to wearing a hoodie underneath as the warmth of the jacket became just an idea vs. being reality.

These were statements I was making to the world, to myself, to her. The jacket, like my life, was my own. She had been a major factor in my life, and it hurt me a lot the way it was handled. But I come from adversity. I’m not a stranger to betrayal, nor a stranger to overcoming obstacles.

So the metaphor in the form of a jacket ends on a lighter note than it began; on my own terms, and with my own identity intact. The jacket has been punished enough and has served its purpose. I no longer think much of anything about my ex-wife, save for passing memories. For now, I keep the jacket – and I stick it with pins, with buttons. I wear lots of layers underneath it that sometimes clash with the jacket’s style. But it’s my jacket, worn on my terms, for my own reasons. Eventually, I’ll also let it go and get a new one, more practical, actually warm.