favorite christmas movies

Christmas spirit is important since, as I'm sure EVERYONE KNOWS, Santa needs it to make his sleigh run.

cough

I have not exactly been feeling so Christmas spirity, as of late. I've been having anxiety issues, violent mood swings, and...it just hasn't been very fun. It hasn't been me. Also just as I wrote this a spider came creepy crawling into the open so I had to defend myself against that.

I did go into the mountains though when it was snowing and foggy and howled on a cliff above the watershed I explored after Thanksgiving. It's now frosted over.





There were also glitter farm animals to be made (though Natal made all of these, I plan to make my own: sea-creature and dinosaur style)



I drew an owl on the roof of my car in the frost



Can you see it?

Additional cheery photos







Sorry I mislead you with the title of this post, as obviously I also had to throw in some stuff about ME ME ME in there. But now I will share with you my favorite Christmas movies.

HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS



OBVIOUSLY YOU GUYS! OBVIOUSLY. Sorry, I didn't mean to shout. How could anyone not love this movie? How could it not by on everybody's favorite Christmas movie list, nay, their FAVORITE FAVORITE MOVIE LIST! I love it so much and get so squealy that my dad made me a present last year that is basically photo stills from the movie, brightened and sharpened in photoshop, and then printed out onto glossy photo paper and placed in an elaborate frame so I can hang it up as a Christmas decoration.



I love it. I love this movie. And by this movie, I mean the cartoon original narrated by my good pal Boris. I mean, the live action one is fine, but this one lives on in my heart.



The Grinch is the best character (greater than even the Lorax to me, though by a tiny degree). This movie is essential because it teaches us that Christmas isn't about packages, boxes, or bags, it's about LOVE and togetherness. Whenever the Whos begin singing Welcome Christmas in the end, my heart just brims with love. It's like the Grinch, my heart grows three sizes.



When Glee covered Welcome Christmas, I flipped my SHIT because it was so good and I am in love with their cover. No shame.



That opening man. That opening. I get the chills every time. I AM TEARING UP JUST LISTENING TO THIS, moving on.

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER



I have a thing for old-school stop-motion (in case you couldn't tell). I was raised on Rudolph and all of those other stop-motion Christmas classics (though nothing stuck as much as Rudolph did and of course Nightmare, but we'll get to that). I am known to incorporate Rudolph in my day-to-day life, as I do other favorite movies. For instance, I always say independent in the way Hermey and Rudolph do when they're trying to say it: "in-deee-penDENT". AKA I sound idiotic. Also, WHENEVER it is applicable, I yell, "SHE THINKS I'M CUUUUUTE" in Rudolph's stuffy nose voice from the part when Clarice tells him he's cute and he flies for the first time before everyone finds out he's GASP DIFFERENT.



Bumbles BOUNCE! Rudolph has amazing musical numbers, and whenever I don't want to do something the second that my mom tells me to do it(since I live at home again), I sing There's Always Tomorrow to her. I wasn't kidding when I said it is basically my life. It's just so adorable too! Yukon Cornelius is so cute with his pack of identifiably NON-sled dogs pulling his dogsled. Also whenever he throws his icepick into the air and licks it, stating, "Nothin'" afterwards, my mom and I die. We laugh every time. I AM NOT JOKING. Glee also covered my favorite song from Rudolph, amazingly enough, and it is ALSO the best song ever and I love it. LOVE IT.



Glee's first Christmas album was filled with all my favorite Christmas songs.

Elf



AHHH ELF! Elf never fails to make me laugh. I don't care what you think about Will Ferrel, watch him in Elf. He is ADORABLE. I actually generally like Will Ferrel, but all my friends who have said they think he's an asshole/not funny in his other movies have liked him in Elf because he plays such a different character. Such an adorable different character. It is SO FUNNY. I watched it with Natal and just giggled and shrieked the entire time. With occasional cooing and fake weeping.



"We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup."

"Have you ever seen a dog? You probably have."

"Buddy the elf, what's your favorite color?"

I could do it all day, but it would get super annoying (it probably already is annoying). It is so funny. I am not lying to you. Also it super puts me in the Christmas mood, I think I'm going to watch it again before this week is out.

HOME ALONE



I was recently introduced to this movie by Natal. Ever since I started college, people have been telling me that I am the pigeon lady from Home Alone 2. However, I had never seen either Home Alones, so I didn't know what this pigeon lady was. This was remedied just last week, no worries (and I love pigeon lady). Home Alone is SO GOOD! Little Macaulay Culkin is too tiny and cute to be creepy yet, and his acting is superb. Plus, what a resourceful kid! It's the kind of humor that we realized 90s movies are rife with: humorous physical violence against bad guys. It's really not done anymore because there aren't really bad guys just directed at kids anymore (aka no robbers trying to rob a house that only a kid is in while he defends it). Other examples are Flubber and 101 Dalmatians (live action style). It's funny, but really only a 90s maybe early 2000s thing. So this movie was like reverting back to childhood and seeing it when I probably would have seen it if I hadn't been so oblivious.



Plus I kept calling his next door neighbor Boo Radley. Also look at this



I just love kid empowerment movies.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Welp.







As you can see from my Halloweek and Disneyland posts, I adore this movie with every fiber of my being. Favorite favorite FAVORITE FAVORITE FAVORITE. I have a startlingly large amount of NBC merchandise, and my only stuffed animals I own are now Lola (my University of Utah sheep), my dragon Scorch, and Jack and Zero. When I was little I watched Nightmare so many times that the VHS tape got worn out. When I got the special edition DVD, I was so excited. I still own the VHS and keep it with my priceless original Star Wars VHS tapes on my "special" bookshelf (that also houses my ferrets documentary and gamecube games).



This movie is just...no words. No words. It is just the best. The best. I can't stop repeating myself. Repeating myself. Watch it.

...Watch it.

So those are my ULTIMATE FAVORITE Christmas movies that I watch around this time of year. There are others out there that I also like to watch, such as Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Charlie Brown, and others that I am forced to watch, like White Christmas, and others I haven't even seen, like A Muppets Christmas Carol.

So go watch a Christmas movie whilst you wrap presents and drink a nice mug of candy cane cocoa and get in the spirit of Christmas! Or whatever other holiday you celebrate :)

weekend roundup

Um I just died watching this video. I am a little obsessed at the moment (aka all the time, you should see my room because apparently I have a lot more merchandise than I originally thought).

Anyways, GOD THE IPHONE IS COOL. I can use it to look up youtube videos in a flash when I trying to describe Sexy Sax Man to my friends or to play Fruit Ninja when I'm waiting in line for something or to take instagram photos of EVERYTHING. Here are some pictures from my weekend (I was a fool and forgot to take pictures at the biggest events though...woops)









This one is my favorite



I also like this one

After Friday's weird sickness my weekend got a lot more fun. Saturday was spent, of course, getting my new phone and getting my eyes checked out. Turns out I have astigmatism in my right eye and that's why my vision has felt weird for the past week when wearing my contacts. I got a new astigmatism contact for it that's weighted, so it felt a little weird at first but now I'm used to it :) Saturday night was our Guy Fawkes Party at Lisa's house. She made a delicious tortellini soup full of vegetables and her friend Bri (maybe Bree, not sure how to spell it) came over and brought a salad and I brought over lemon bars, so we had a feast while we drank screwdrivers (Lisa drank a bloody mary to be especially english, but she let me taste some of it and I wanted to throw up) and watched V for Vendetta.



I forgot how GOOD it was. I saw it when it first came out in theaters, which was before I was 17 because I remember my friend's mom had to come with us and she snuck beer into the theater since she doesn't like soda. Anyways, I loved it. Now I feel all rebellious and want to stick it to the man and/or overthrow something. After V for Vendetta I was feeling pretty drunk since I'd had two screwdrivers at that point and was making my way through a vodka tonic with half a lemon in it. We took a break to talk and eat lemon bars and then started in on Ghostbusters, which I had brought with me. I passed out a quarter of the way through it, however. Sunday was spent unpacking the last of my stuff, throwing things that need to be donated into my car, doing my homework early (impressive, no?), and then hanging out with Sunny. We watched Rio, which I LOVED.



THE BABY BIRDS ARE SO CUTE!!! I basically screamed through the entire movie. Ugh it was adorable. They got the crazy bird people down PAT, as well as the movements of pet parrots. The way Blue walked and climbed and his mannerisms were all perfect. Also I'm glad that a movie was done about biodiversity conservation, especially aimed at macaws since 14 out of the 17 species of macaws are endangered. It's a movie after my own heart. The only thing that super bugged me was the parrots did not have zygodactyl feet in the movie. It's a technicality that only a bird nerd would hate, but that's me. We started Beauty in the Beast, but everyone else was asleep while I sang the songs grandly to myself, so I decided to leave halfway through.

Now I'm about to watch the rest of Ghostbusters to end this loverly weekend.

everyone hail to the pumpkin king

HAPPY HALLOWEEN



I am so in love with Halloween, even though I had the flu the entire time and was denied my parties and Rocky Horror Picture Show.

But you know what? Today was still a really, really GREAT Halloween. Here are some reasons why.

1) It was a beautiful, sunny day that made the fiery colors of the trees stand out gloriously against the sky. I didn't go outside all day, but you know. Still pretty.

2) We actually got trick or treaters at our house! Usually they don't venture up here because we don't have a sidewalk on our side of the street, it's up a really steep hill, and there are no streetlights in our front yard. Nope, this year we got some brave children (all boys). I got to answer the door in my toucan costume (well, half of it) and give them skittles and then wish them a Happy Halloween. That lifted my heart a lot.

3)

When this little girl's mom asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween, she said "Batman Princess". WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT??? God she's so fucking cool.

4) Speaking of Batman, I found out that Anne Hathaway (who plays Catwoman in the next Batman film) is not forsaking the cat ears of her Catwoman ancestors. When her goggles are up on her head they make cat ears. OH THANK GOD (because for awhile there were only pictures of her with the goggles on and it was really freaking people out because it looked like she wasn't going to have cat ears, which is bullshit).

5) Lisa said we could have a Guy Fawkes party this weekend where we eat cucumber sandwiches and drink tea and she said I could wear my toucan costume since I didn't get to wear it out at all. Also Alice and Mia said they'd wear their costumes with me when they come home for Christmas Break. AW YEAH, CAN SOMEONE SAY NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS PARTY??? (see next item)

6) I got to watch one of my favorite movies of all time, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Watching that movie was seriously the thing that made it all better, the thing that made all bitterness, disappointment, and resentment for this flu melt away and all that was left was bubbly, little girl excitement and happiness. I curled up on the couch with my cookie dough, Jack and Zero, and blanket and started screaming with happiness the second the narrator started to talk. SUCH LOVE. SUCH LOVE I HAVE FOR THAT FUCKING MOVIE AND FRANCHISE.







It has always been, and always will be, my favorite "romantic" movie (and favorite in general) and the scene at the end makes me cry. Every. Time. If someone ever sang that to me, I would die.

p.s. I just saw that there was a soundtrack of covers released in 2008 (which I apparently missed, what the hell was I doing LIVING LIFE OR SOMETHING?) called Nightmare Revisited and I NEED IT YOU GUYS. I NEED IT. I have the other soundtrack with the actual songs and demos and a few covers, and I don't care that Korn redoes Kidnap the Sandy Claws, I just NEED IT.

7) I just saw this on tumblr



AMAZING.

So basically Nightmare Before Christmas rocked my world and made everything awesome again and I'm going to listen to the soundtrack before I go to bed and have love-filled dreams of Oogie Boogies and Zeros and Locks, Shocks, and Barrels.

Just one more image that I thought was super cute



AWWW HE JUST WANTED SOMEONE TO HOLD HIIIIM

HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND GOODNIGHT