The Blessssing

Seeing that Christmas is less than a week away, I decided it was a great time to unveil the next top 10 list here at ETC. ETC. ETC. So as you may have guessed, given the time of year, this is the Top 10 Christmas Movies, according to me. But before I get to the list, there's something that's really bothering me that I'd like to bring to your attention. When did the word "mature" start being pronounced "ma-tour"? I hate when people say it like they were a character in a Jane Austen novel. Get off your proper high horse and say it the way its been pronounced for the last 200 years, "ma-chure". Am I the only one who finds this bothersome? Anyway....here's my Top 10 Christmas Movies and they are anything but "ma-tour"

10. Jingle All The Way- Did you really think I could leave this classic Ahnold film off the list. I wish I could rewind the clocks back a few years and show this film to every person in California who was planning on voting for Arnold as Governor and see if they wanted to reconsider. What says Christmas more then an Austrian bodybuilder yelling "Jingle all the Way"?

9. How The Grinch Stole Christmas- I mean the original cartoon version and not the live action Jim Carrey version. Its a Christmas staple, and yes it's not technically a movie but its got to be on the list. When the Grinch's heart grows three times its size at the end my eyes well up like a broken New Orleans levee. Too soon?

8. It's A Wonderful Life- Another Christmas classic although I have to admit I don't love this flick. It's black and white, its slow and I only think about Dana Carvey doing his Jimmy Stewart impressions instead of following the story. But at the end of the day its as much Christmas as holiday lights on the house, so I included it on my list. And I'm sure everyone has heard that "every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings".

7. Home Alone 2- Easily one of my favorite Christmas movies, even though its almost exactly like the original. I can't get enough of Marv, formerly of the Wet Bandits, but now a founding member of the Sticky Bandits. The brick throwing scene is hysterical and I still laugh every time Marv gets plunked in the face. I prefer the original but you can't go wrong with the sequel. "OHH YOUR COOKING FRANKIE!!"

6. Scrooged - This is often overlooked when you think about the best Christmas movies. But it's Bill Murray in the modern re-telling of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". Its kind of scary for little kids, or older kids that get scared easily at movies. Being a huge fan of Bill Murray I find this very funny yet fits perfectly into the Christmas spirit and its also makes it so that I don't have to read or watch the original Dickens version and risk death by boredom. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

5. Trapped In Paradise - This is a Cazalet family tradition. Many people probably have never heard of this movie let alone seen it. Well I can promise you that you won't be disappointed and need to rent this before Christmas. It stars, guess who, Nic Cage as the older brother of two con men who have just been paroled a few days before Christmas. The two brothers are played by SNL alums Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz and they inform Cage about a bank in a small town that could easily be robbed. Mayhem and hysterics ensue as they attempt to rob the bank. If that little description wasn't enough to sell you on this movie, let me try this....Nic Cage + Christmas Movie = ETC ETC ETC Hall of Fame. Go rent it.

4. Elf - This was back when Will Ferrell wasn't making ridiculous, over the top flops like Blades of Glory and Land of the Lost. Buddy the Elf is just a funny character and loves everything about Christmas, including the world's best cup of coffee. It's the most recent movie on this list and it deserves a top 5 ranking. There are so many great quotes and moments in this movie. "I just like smiling, smiling's my favorite" or "Your not Santa, you smell like beef and cheese". And it also has Zooey Deschanel (a sleeper cutie) and James Caan in a role as far from Sonny Corleone as you could ever imagine.

3. Home Alone - The sequel came in at #7 but the original gets the Bronze Medal. I really wanted to put this at number 2 and perhaps in a few years it will move up a spot. I love the quotes from this movie like "Buzz, your girlfriend...WOOF" or "I took a shower washing every body part with actual soap, including all my major crevices, including in between my toes and in my belly button which I never did before but sort of enjoyed". It's got a great cameo from John Candy and when Joe Pesci take a BB gun shot to his BB's, I crack up laughing like I had never seen it before. Little known fact about myself...this movie inspired the greatest "criminal act" of my childhood when at the age of 6, me and my two neighbors broke a screen window, climbed into my neighbors house when his parents weren't home, dragged a mattress into the living room, made a bag of popcorn, and started jumping on the mattress like Kevin McAllister while watching this movie. Our parents didn't find it very funny, but let me tell you this...it was awesome.

2. A Christmas Story - You know its a Christmas classic when TNT can play this movie for 24 straight hours on Christmas eve and you watch at least 6 hours of it ( or am I the only freak that does that). Who hasn't heard "You'll shoot your eye out"? So many great parts of this movie, like when the younger brother eats his food like a little piggy or when he falls down wearing so many layers of snow clothes that he can't get up, or being triple dog dared to lick a frozen pole...poor Flick (Flick? Flick who?) And who can resist the Leg Lamp, "Fragile, must be Italian". I even have a small, functioning leg lamp that my sister got me for Christmas on my nightstand.

1. Christmas Vacation - All of the previous 9 movies are great, but this is the Mecca of Christmas movies. It doesn't get any better then this. I've seen this movie hundreds of times, literally hundreds of time, and I still laugh as hard as I did the first time I saw it. "It's not going in our yard Russ, it's going in our living room". I could quote this movie all day. From Cousin Eddie to Aunt Bethany to Snots to the squirrel, this is Christmas movie perfection. "I learned everything I know about exterior illumination from you dad". I can only hope that someday my house is as bright and well decorated as Clark Griswolds. I'll leave you with one of my favorite, but perhaps overlooked lines of the movie when his wife Ellen asks him what he is looking at..."Oh, the silent majesty of a winter's morn... the clean, cool chill of the holiday air... an asshole in his bathrobe, emptying a chemical toilet into my sewer". It's so good I had to put two pictures just to get you in the Christmas spirit, the Griswold Christmas spirit that is....

Honorable Mentions:
The Santa Clause, The Polar Express, Bad Santa, Muppets Christmas Carol. Die Hard (I left this off my list simply because its the greatest action movie of all time and it just so happens to take place at a Christmas Party)

Well that's it for this edition. I hope you have a Happy Hanukkah, Festivus, Christmas, Kwanzaa or whatever it is you celebrate. So until next time, as always.....Stay Sweet!