By Jonathan Morris, Antiscribe.com

I have to be honest; I’m just not a huge fan of Christmas anymore.  Sure, I know, there are a lot of people like me who decide to use every December as a chance to get snide, snarky, and cynical, to bemoan the commercialism or the often overly-manufactured good cheer that accompanies every Christmas season (or something like that).  But I have no problem with Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or Ramadan, or even the rampant consumerism that centers on all of them.  Well, maybe not on Ramadan, but you get the idea.  It’s just that Christmas, for people like me, is always a stark reminder of those in our lives who are missing.  For me and my family, that person is my Dad.

My father passed away over eight years ago, but as anyone who has ever lost a parent can tell you, when all the grieving is done, there’s still a void left behind that’s never really filled.  And at Christmas, when my admittedly somewhat dysfunctional family gets together to acknowledge, if not necessarily celebrate, the holiday, that void just seems ever more obvious.

So every holiday I’m given the choice: get depressed, or find some way to cheer myself up.  Needless to say, I choose the latter, and the way I choose to alleviate my sadness is the same way I choose every year: a mini-movie marathon of two singular 1980s comedies, the seasonally-appropriate A Christmas Story and the significantly less seasonal My Favorite Year.
Continue reading “My Favorite Christmas Story of the Year” →