How to Cope with 24+ Hours of Intense Family Togetherness

It’s Christmas Eve babe, and if you’re not spending it in the drunk tank you are probably spending it with your family [1]. Come to that, you are probably spending all of Christmas Day with your family too. Heck, you may even be stuck with them on the 26th, aka Boxing Day! This is the day you unpack presents from boxes, or engage in a refreshing post-holiday round of fisticuffs, or watch the big match or something. I don’t know. I’m an American and we prefer to spend the day in the department store returns line with 340, 394 of our closest friends.

Well crap Kirsten, you’re thinking. How am I supposed to cope with all this family togetherness? I’m not here to expound on that (the answer is usually booze, by the way. Booze and of course the love and Christmas spirit we all carry in our hearts, thanks to the barnyard birth of that adorable, chubby Savior approximately 1,974 years ago. Hi Mom.) but rather to offer a cautionary tale of what not to do.

When you’re spending 24-72 hours with your family you have 3 options: eat, talk or stare at a flickering screen in companionable silence. Though we tend to ignore the physics of it around Christmastime, our stomachs have a limited capacity and there is but so much conversation you can have about Aunt Ida’s goiter surgery or your cousin’s hush-hush marriage and subsequent hurried divorce from that Balinese prostitute he met over Spring Break. This leaves us with TV Christmas specials! There are some you should definitely skip. Take a nap and sleep off that sherry; there’s no need to watch Mickey and Minnie galavanting around Orlando, Florida wearing fur-trimmed costumes in 90 degree weather. Sure, the cast of High School Musical might make an appearance, but some things are just more important than Zach Efron.

Some other holiday specials you should definitely skip include:

1. The Yule Log. Honestly, there’s probably something burning in the kitchen if you really feel the need to indulge your pyromania. Or you could go somewhere with a fireplace. Santa’s not coming via the TV, kids.
2. A Christmas Carol, starring Kelsey Grammar. This was a delightful Broadway play with music that didn’t make your ears bleed and acting that didn’t make you want to die with a stake of holly through your heart and be boiled in your own pudding. Then they filmed this atrocious TV adaptation, let Kelsey Grammar pretend to sing, and ruined it forever. And how often do I say bad things about anything involving Jesse L. Martin? Approximately never. That’s how bad it is. (If you need a Dickens fix, I recommend the best Christmas Carol adaptation of all, The Muppet Christmas Carol. We’re Marley & Marley, wooooOOOOO!)
3. Hogfather. A Terry Pratchett classic. It takes 4 hours to watch. Incidentally, it also takes about 4 hours to read. I recommend going the reading route, because it’s an excellent story but a terrible movie. I just watched it yesterday. It was bad. Don’t listen to the crazy people who’ve posted IMDB reviews; they’re crazy! I guess it’s a noble attempt. I guess it was made for TV. I guess you can sort of follow what’s going on if you’ve read the book. Whatever.
4. The Christmas Shoes. I haven’t seen it, but the song makes me want to hurl so I can’t imagine that extending those 5 minutes of listening pleasure into a 2 hour movie is anything but terrible.
5. Anything on Lifetime or the Hallmark channel. Unless you want your heart warmed by tales like A Grandpa for Christmas, A Dad for Christmas or A Very Married Christmas. Definitely not recommended if you are a sentimental drunk.

I hope this guide will help you safely navigate the schmaltz-infested waters of holiday television, even though I know I haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much out there! So much of it is bad!

But do you know what is good? Most of the other stuff about Christmas like Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men, Jesus and cookies. Hooray cookies. So Merry Christmas to you, and I’ll probably update in another month or two.

[1] A million bonus points if you’re an American and you get the reference. Zero bonus points if you’re from a country where they play this at last call.