Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve I wore out the Hallmark and LifeTime channels watching Christmas movies, my first time doing a marathon like that. (I know, I’m a gluten for punishment.) Last night, all I saw of the New Year’s Eve festivities on TV was the final 28 seconds of the ball dropping in Time Square then I turned back to a stupid Christmas movie about a three-years-out widow who found love again. Did you know that a surprising number of Christmas movies feature widows finding love again? I didn’t. Other popular themes seem to be the workaholics and the confirmed bachelors/bachelorettes who find love. Christmas, apparently for some script writers, means it’s a good time for romance. Queue the mistletoe and the people who invite their single friends home for the holidays who accidentally meet their neighbor/brother/uncle/the lonely widow who sings in choir or the single father who owns a coffee shop and you have a genre holiday movie. And I can think of at least three house swapping Christmas romance movies including the one last night. There seems to be a rule about house swapping movies that requires not one, but two couples to fall in love and at least one of the four must be widowed.
The overload of romance Christmas movies didn’t bother
me---it’s Hallmark and LifeTime, after all and they do genre, formula films so
I knew what I was in for---but what really got me irritated with the Christmas
movies is how many costume directors don’t seem to know that snow is cold! They
have couples walking along snowy streets, having snowball fights and watching tree lighting ceremonies while wearing nothing more than summer weight
clothing. Hint to movie makers who grew up where it never snows: when there’s two
foot of that white stuff on the ground and snow is gently falling, it’s below
32 degrees! Your actors should be wearing coats unless you show them with their
teeth chattering so much they couldn’t find each other’s mouths for a romantic,
winter kiss if they tried. And high heels might be sexy but they aren’t ski
lodge and icy sidewalks friendly.
One widow themed Christmas movie I saw twice and on one
level it intrigued me because it feathered the woman’s devoted husband who
appeared as a ghost that only her teenage son could see until near the end of
the film when the ghost finally appeared to his wife as well. The ghost said she couldn’t
see or feel him because she was still mad about him dying and leaving her with
so much debt and responsibility. Thus, he couldn’t go on to where ever it is
that ghosts/spirits go. But true to genre romance films along came a white knight,
aka her son’s school counselor and a widower himself, who saves her from being
alone and lonely. She finally forgives her died husband allowing his ghost to pop
into her life to say a final goodbye. The timeline of her finding love again so
closely following her husband’s car accident and his spirit appearing in her
life was totally unrealistic and silly in my opinion but it got me thinking about
my experience with Don’s ghost in the house. (I wrote about here.)
At the time I thought I had a ghost in the house I vacillated between thinking there had to be a
logical explanation for what was going on with my wedding ring appearing where
I didn’t leave it and thinking that Don’s spirit was playing head games with me.
But after all this time passing with no more ‘ring incidences’ the most logical
explanation leads me to believe spirits do hang around awhile after the
physical body dies. Before then, I believed spirits and ghosts fell in
the realm of pure fiction. Like the teenager in the movie who felt his dad
around him, I could feel Don around me until sometime this past summer when one
day I woke up and couldn’t feel him close-by anymore. Even though life got
lonelier after that revelation I viewed it as widowhood progress. It was like
Don had decided I was standing on solid ground and I didn’t need handholding
anymore.
I’m glad the holidays are over. They started out with so
much promise but ended in a whimper. I didn’t manage my holiday expectations
very well and that led to unnecessary disappointments. I also didn’t make any
resolutions to start the New Year which, except for last year, is out of
character for me. For 2013 instead of resolutions I used a one word mantra of ‘courage’
and that worked well for me. I repeated it many times over the first part of
the year, to get me out of my comfort zone. For 2014 I thought about picking ‘choose
your change’ as a mantra for the new year but then I decided that makes it sound
like I’m expecting a whole year of transition. Instead, I going with the mantra
of ‘seek contentment’ which I hope will help me keep a tighter lid on my
expectations and help me to settle in, building within the social circles I established
last year. I have the bones to a more satisfying life, I just need to flesh it out.
Whatever you’re goals for 2014, I hope we'll all find success
in the coming months. ©
Jean :
ReplyDeletewanted to wish you happy, healthy & Prosperous New Year. I love your one word mantra. I will borrow your seek contentment mantra for this year too.
Asha
Great! We can compare progress with our mantras as the year goes by. Hope you and your family have a good New Year!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year!! I love 2014's mantra. What is more important than contentment?
ReplyDeleteWow! You survived those movies with your sanity intact. Your descriptions are hilarious - I think I'll go out in the blizzard tonight in my high heels and meet the lonely widower who just happens to get stuck in his pick up at the end of my driveway.
ReplyDeleteYou've got me thinking. Managing expectations is power. You've got the power and you've got the sanity. What a gorgeous combination!
Thanks, AW! Contentment really is what is missing in my life right now.
ReplyDeleteGowiththeFlow: I actually watched all those Christmas movies in an attempt to desensitize myself to the holidays---at least that was the plan and I think it worked to some degree. After awhile all the holiday happiness seemed so unrealistic and fairytale like. It was the Grinch's up against those who go all out for the holiday with nothing in between.
Thanks for watching those shows so I don't have to. ;) All that wish fulfillment is pretty sappy, but I can see how it ropes you in.
ReplyDeleteAh, contentment. It evaded me for most of 2013. I've little doubt that you'll find that contentment, now that you're looking for it. I entered these holidays with lowered expectations, and I was pleasantly surprised at the simple pleasures I found. It's a fine line--lower expectations without being pessimistic or grumpy. You're not grumpy, though, so that should be a problem.
LoL No problem, Fichereader. With Valintine's Day coming next, I will probably watch enough of those movies for both of us, too, before I'm ready to wrap my brain around something more complicated. I was knitting a complicated pattern baby blanket while watching those movies so it helped not to have to concentrate on hard to follow plots while knitting.
ReplyDeleteI'm a sucker for those made-for-TV Christmas movies, too. They're perfect for wrapping gifts by. I think the answer about the clothing may be that all those movies are filmed in southern California, where it's 70 degrees while they're filming and the snow is fake. When I lived there briefly in 1969-70, I couldn't get over the fact that you couldn't by a plan green, fresh Christmas tree; they all came sprayed with fake snow -- usually in psychedelic colors. (My ex-husband suggested the reason was that these trees were so old that the fake snow was the only thing keeping the needles on the branches.) Wishing you a happy -- or contented -- 2014 :-) -Jean
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not the only one, Stepintofuture, who admits to watching those movies.
ReplyDeleteI can't even picture trees in psychedelic colored Christmas trees! I was doing a lot of professional decorating for rich people and private clubs back in that same era and I never once put up a psychedelic tree.
Happy New Year to you...I know you're going to be contented and happy with your retirement coming.
I have a pragmatic, no nonsense friend who lived across the street from me years ago. One day she came over and told me that a necklace her grandmother gave her had disappeared months ago. When she was fooling around with her curtains, she found the necklace on top of the cornice box. She was convinced it was placed there by her grandmother. It occurred to me that my friend had placed it there and forgotten it, but we were young and sharp back then. A cornice is a unique place to hide something. It would be hard to forget getting the ladder out and placing it there. I don't know. Weird at the very least.
ReplyDeleteWe watched The Holiday during the holidays and I'll never forget Cameron Diaz walking down that snowy lane in her designer shoes.
You've made it through another holiday season. I hope you get lots of invitations next year and the weather cooperates.
Boy, a cornice would make a great hiding place, but I agree it would be hard to forget putting something there if you did it yourself.
ReplyDeleteI like 'The Holiday'---I've have seen it many times and I know the exact scene you're talking about. LOL crazy costume directors!