Well, it's that time of year again, the time to set up the tree, decorate the house, and most importantly, watch "Gremlins" and "Die Hard".
Yes, those are really Christmas movies! Growing up in the UK, a lot of our Christmas routine involved looking through the TV guide for movies to watch over the Christmas period. Getting comfortable on the couch with snacks and drinks and turning on the TV to "Star Wars" or "Jason And The Argonauts" was a key part of my childhood. As we grew older, the films we would watch would grow a little more mature, and soon the Christmas staple movies involved Bruce Willis fighting terrorists, and little monsters that multiply if you get them wet.
These films are as tied to Christmas as "It’s A Wonderful Life". Die Hard tells the story of a police officer returning to see his family at Christmas. A key scene takes place at a company Christmas party. There are Christmas songs on the soundtrack, and characters hum or sing Christmas tunes at various points in the movie. Of course, it also involves people getting murdered in various ways, things exploding and Bruce Willis getting his feet cut up by broken glass, but this is beside the point. It’s a Christmas classic, and should be compulsory viewing over the Christmas period!
Gremlins is also essential viewing, but is a completely different movie. First, the art design of the film is steeped in Christmas iconography. The town in the movie is Christmas-card perfect – blanketed in snow, lit with coloured lights. The characters talk about the holidays every other scene, there are people carrying Christmas trees in the background, and there is a jolly, nostalgic feel to the opening half of the film. Then, everything goes wrong, with mischievous little monsters running around everywhere. Genuinely spooky in parts, and often extremely funny, I definitely recommend this movie too.
So there you have two unconventional Christmas movie recommendations. Enjoy!
This year will be the first time that I stay in Japan for Christmas. I usually go home to be with my family and see my friends but due to the pandemic I can't travel and therefore I have to stay here. Although I was disppointed to not see my friends and family this year, I decided to make the most of this year and be as enthusiastic about Christmas as possible. Luckily, my lovely wife also understands my feelings and has been joining me daily with her festive spirit.
One thing that was crucial to our festivities was a Christmas tree of course. In the UK there are many options for this but as Christmas is not really so popular here (a regular working day for most!) finding a tree, especially a real one, is quite the challenge.
I wasn't too keen on a plastic tree as I don't think they look as nice, they don't smell like pine (obviously) and I'm always happy to have less plastic in my home and life. Also, they aren't cheap! Some people think that real trees are wasteful as we just put them up and then throw them away, but actually due to the demand for these trees they are grown in huge numbers. This is done sustainably and actually increases the number of these trees every year. Always good.
Ikea sells real trees, but not that many. The Ikea in Nagakute said they would be selling 2,000 trees this year, starting on a Thursday in November. We had originally planned to go on the Sunday, but were both worried that there would be none left by that point, or only sad looking trees left. My wife and her brother volunteered to go to Ikea after work on the Friday and pick us up a tree while I was working! This is the kind of Christmas spirit I was talking about before, I was so surprised and filled with joy.
When the day came to finally put up our tree, we had some difficulties again. The stand was too big for our cute little tree, we had to be creative and it was a bit wobbly at first. However after some creativity and some more Christmas spirit we got it to stand up strong ready for decorating. This was the first week of December and it is still standing strong filling our home with festive smells and lights making me feel like I am really making the most of this year's Christmas.
Look at our tree standing so strong!
I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year. Let's all hope that next year is an improvement on 2020.
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