Bryce Moore's Blog, page 233

The Non-Existant War on Christmas

I just read this absolutely fascinating article over on CNN, with the misleading clickbaited title of “Did Lincoln Start the War on Christmas?” The actual article does talk about Lincoln, it’s true–but it talks about a whole lot more than that. Mentions things like how the post office used to deliver mail on Sundays, or how Christmas was only recognized as a national holiday in the late 1800s. Things I had no clue about and had never heard mentioned before. (Granted, there are a lot of things I don’t know anything about . . . )

But it got me thinking, like the internet has been known to do. So much of what we believe is permanent and immutable is really fluid and fleeting. Culture changes far more quickly than tectonic plates. I liked this quote in particular:

When they champion “Christmas as it was,” they do not mean “Christmas as it was for George Washington or Abraham Lincoln” and much less “Christmas as it was for Martin Luther or Jonathan Edwards.” They mean, “Christmas as it was when I was young.”

Because that’s certainly true for me. I want my children to have the sort of Christmas I had. But the funny thing is that I don’t think even that statement is correct. A better statement would be “I want my children to have the sort of Christmas I remember having.” And once you’re talking about memories, things get really complex. They’re influenced by other things, like time and pop culture, and the further away we get from the time in question, the blurrier those crisp memories become.

No one wants a “war” declared on anyone’s belief system, but then again, I wonder what a “war” consists of. An assault on traditional beliefs, in this case? But how do you define “traditional”? As the article pointed out, federal observance of the holiday has been a fleeting thing. You could just as easily argue that people who don’t want a federally recognized and embraced Christmas have been fighting their own war for 80 years.

I believe we have become too prickly as a people. Too quick to take offense where none was intended, or to go out in search of offenses when none are readily apparent. And whenever we’re told that we’re being too prickly, we’re too quick to go with the toddler defense of “he started it.”

I had a conversation with someone the other day about what is okay to say to other people around this time of year. Some people get upset if you wish them a Merry Christmas, because they’re not Christian. Other people get upset if you wish them a happy holidays, because they *are* Christian, and they demand the full Christmas treatment. I’m of the opinion that I’m just happy when people wish me a happy or merry anything. They’re not required to wish me good will at all, after all.

My advice? Don’t think of the world in an “us vs. them” frame of mind. No one’s declaring a war on anything (or if they are, they’re taking themselves far too seriously). There are plenty of things other people believe that I don’t, and plenty of other things I believe that other people don’t. And that’s okay. I live my life in my own little corner of Maine, and I don’t let news pundits or online columnists or pop culture trends really upset me much. I think I’m happier for it, and I highly recommend that frame of mind.

In the meantime, I hope you and yours all have a very happy day, for whatever the reason. May it be just as good as you remembered it would be.

My New Favorite Christmas Movie

I do a fair bit of movie watching, and I’ll admit that when the holidays come around, I sometimes suffer from movie fatigue. I love me some White Christmas, but I’ve seen it a slew of times, and sometimes I’m just not up to watch it again. And so I go searching elsewhere. I look for movies that I’ve missed out on. I check Top Ten lists–look to see what other people are watching for their holiday cheer. It’s how I came to my last blog post on this subject. But I’ve continued to be on the  lookout for more since then, and last night I hit pay dirt.

I’ve seen We’re No Angels before. I’m sure of it. I remembered a fair bit while I was watching it, but what I’d completely forgotten was the fact that it’s very much a Christmas movie. A hilarious, dark comedy, Humphrey Bogart and Peter Ustinov starring, dyed in the wool Christmas movie. Did I mention it’s got Basil Rathbone in it, too? And it was directed by Michael Curtiz (of Casablanca fame. Oh yeah–and he directed another movie right before this one. White Christmas). I don’t know when I watched this movie before, but I do know I didn’t appreciate it for the gem that it was.

The plot is straightforward: three convicts (a conman and two murderers) escape from prison and plan on killing their way onto a ship to get back to France. They take temporary refuge in a store, where they’re all set to murder the shop keeper and pillage the store. And this is all happening on Christmas Eve.

Perfect set up for a heartwarming comedy, isn’t it?

The movie is pulled off by flat out great acting. Peter Ustinov in particular stands out. He’s a man who had a “slight disagreement with his wife” that led to him killing her. How in the world do you make a character like that charming and appealing? Usually the approach is to throw someone else up on the screen even viler than the main character. In this case, however, the approach is to make that character . . . charming and appealing. He’s hilarious the whole time. Quick witted, nice, perceptive. As I thought about it, it appears what they did was take a genial, genuinely nice person, and have part of his backstory be that he murdered his wife. It sounds like it wouldn’t work at all–but it does. Wonderfully.

I can’t say enough good things about this movie. Maybe part of it is because I saw in it a lot of what I’m trying to do in GET CUPID. Lovable criminals. Maybe I’m the perfect audience for this, but I don’t think I’m alone.

So if you’re like me–you’d seen the movie, but largely forgotten it–might I suggest you give it another go? I watched it on Amazon Prime, and it’s unfortunately not available on Netflix. You can rent the thing online for $3, though. If you’ve never seen it, you owe it to yourself to correct that problem. Am I right or am I right?

Which Would You Choose: Staycation or Vacation?

I go on a fair number of vacations. Big vacations. Off to Orlando. Germany. Slovakia. Utah. Pennsylvania. You name it. And I enjoy those vacations. I’ve made wonderful memories on them, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. But they take an awful lot of work. Work to plan. Work to travel. And that work creates stress.

This time last year, I was embarking on a big European vacation with the fam. It took a ton of time to plan and execute, and it really went marvelously–all things considered. But like I said–it took a lot out of me.

This year? I’m staying home. Taking two weeks off and going absolutely nowhere.

And I’m so excited for it! There’s no travel. No planning. No stress. I’ll have time to get the things done that I’ve been wanting to do for months and haven’t had time for. Fix some areas around the house. Clean up some rooms that are in desperate need of decluttering. Watch a ton of movies. Play board games. Just relax.

I know that staycations can get a bad rap sometimes–that people claim they’re just things people do when they’re lazy or cheap. But I’m here to say that they’re wonderful, marvelous things. I look forward to them probably more than “classic” vacations–because there’s none of the baggage that goes along with them.

And so I thought I’d ask you, my faithful readers. If given the choice of planning a great two week vacation, or staying at home for two weeks and going nowhere, which would you choose, and why?

Do share.

Duck Dynasty, Submission of Women, and Freedom of Speech

When I read the news this morning about the Duck Dynasty star who called homosexuality a sin and likened it to bestiality, I really wanted to write a blog post, but I said to myself, “Self. Do you really want to start a discussion about that? Today?”

And myself said, “Heck no.”

So I was going to bite my proverbial tongue and just do something safer. Maybe a post about bunnies. But then I kept delving into the news, and I came across this article about a book causing a stir in Europe. It’s title? Get Married and Be Submissive. That’s right, folks. It’s got such gems as

“It’s true, you’re not yet an experienced cook or a perfect housewife. What’s the problem if he tells you so? Tell him that he is right, that it’s true, that you will learn,” Miriano said. “On seeing your sweetness and your humility, your effort to change, this will also change him.”

And once I’d read about that book, my fingers just started itching, and it was too late. I had to say something, even if I wasn’t quite sure what it was going to be. But that’s why I’m glad I have this blog. I can think through things by writing these posts, then bounce those ideas off a diverse group of people and see what comes out at the end of all of it. So with the big disclaimer and plea that we try to keep things civil (as we usually do), let’s go.

So there are these things called freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and as far as I’m concerned, they mean people can say what they want to say and believe what they want to believe. Which means if people want to say or believe homosexuality is a sin, or women should be barefoot, pregnant, and permanently perched in front of a Kitchenaid, then people can say those things. People can say or believe just about anything they want in this country.

Except.

There’s also this thing called hate speech. And this is where things get tricky. Because while people are allowed to say what they want to say, they’re not allowed to say things that are going to incite people to violence against a group of other people. To try and separate this from touchy subjects, I’m going to delve into the hypothetical. Let’s imagine for a moment that I said something like “People who enjoy Two and a Half Men are idiots.” That’s my right. And if I extended it to say “I’m starting a new religion based on my belief that people who enjoy Two and a Half Men are idiots,” things are all still groovy. But if I had “and we should beat them all up” to the end of my statement of belief, then I’ve crossed the line. I can believe or say what I want, but that belief or speech shouldn’t incite others to violence against a group of people. Or at least, that’s how I understand hate speech. (Note: Bryce is not a lawyer.)

And all of this seems pretty cut and dried when we’re just talking about people who like Two and a Half Men, but when we start applying it to the real world, it gets very messy. Because what happens when you start stating your beliefs about groups that are often victims of persecution–especially when the continued bias against those groups is the cause of that persecution or violence.

What if it’s a person talking about how they believe Jews are evil, or Muslims are all terrorists? What do you do then, if they aren’t adding “and they should all be killed” at the end of those statements? They might not be actively using “hate speech,” but they’re propagating continued prejudice against a people–prejudice that often results in violence and persecution.

I don’t know this Duck Dynasty guy at all. I’ve never seen the show. Never heard one quote from him until this morning. (I guess that makes me out of touch with a sizable chunk of pop culture. Such is life.) When you look at what he said, he doesn’t appear to be actively advocating harm or injury to homosexuals. He’s saying he believes homosexuality is a sin. But he’s saying that belief in the middle of a GQ article that will be read by a very large audience (theoretically. Do people read GQ? I don’t.)

If he had said, “Adultery is a sin, and I can’t stand it,” I wouldn’t be writing this post. But then again, adulterers aren’t really persecuted against these days, are they?

The question I kept asking myself as I read his statements and the furor that’s erupting around them is “Where is the line?” Many religious groups believe homosexuality is a sin. Fact. Some people use that belief to persecute homosexuals. Fact. Then again, should people not be allowed to state their religious beliefs, just because other practicers of those same beliefs are crappy at actually practicing the whole package? People who focus on the sins and forget all about that little old “Love thy Neighbor” bit?

What Mr. Duck Dynasty actually said doesn’t appear to be anything other than colorfully stating some widely held religious beliefs about what behavior is sinful. When you read the actual article (instead of the snippets that are being widely quoted), you find out he was asked specifically what he believes are sins. From what I understand of the show, the fact that he’s a hardcore, Bible-thumping, sin hating Christian is kind of one of the center pieces of the show. So to have A&E all of a sudden be like, “Wait. He believes homosexuality is a sin?” and gasp and go all a-flutter seems sort of like putting a lion in a cage, throwing some meat in front of it, and then expressing outrage when it eats it up whole. “Lions aren’t vegetarian?”

Mr. Dynasty follows up his comments about sin and homosexuality with this:

We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?

While he even then lumps homosexuals in with terrorists, it seems clear he’s not advocating hating anyone for their beliefs or actions. He’s just saying what he believes.

So in this case, I’d have to say I’m siding with the bearded duck guy. He was asked what he believed, and he said it. He followed it up by saying–in his own colorful way–that people shouldn’t be judged. I’m not sure what else he should have done in that situation. The sound and fury around it feels a lot like bear baiting to me.

It’s the same with the book about women being submissive. The author can think what she wants to think and write what she wants to write. People don’t need to believe her. People can feel free to ignore her. In both cases, the outrage expressed by other groups over what’s written or said seems to me to be more a case of “People looking for a platform” to garner attention to a message they want highlighted. And again, they’re allowed to do that.

Bah. That’s all the writing I’ve got in me at the moment. I’ll throw this out there to you hungry wolves and see where it takes us. Remember–be kind.

Gingerbread Houses for the Lazy!

Not that my son is the lazy person in this instance. Rather, it’s me who’s the sloth. My k ids have wanted to do gingerbread houses for the last few years, and each year, Denisa and I plan on doing them. But it’s a fairly time-intensive project that requires planning and forethought. Let’s be honest–that description covers a lot of what goes on at the holidays, and there’s only so much planning and forethought I have to go around. (See  my post on why I don’t do Christmas cards for more on that.) Still, nothing like starting a new tradition that will mean I’m even more stressed in the years to come, right?

RIGHT?

So we did gingerbread houses this year. Well, technically they’re graham cracker houses, but who’s counting, right? I whipped up a batch of royal icing, and we followed this page for the basic construction. (No idea where they got such long crackers, though. It’s a mystery to me.) I did make a small alteration, using the cut scraps of cracker to construct chimneys for each house. After the houses were made, the kids had a blast adding candy to their heart’s content–although the longer they did it, the more convinced I became that this new tradition was really just a ploy by my kids to be able to eat more candy. They’re tricky like that.

Anyway–just thought I’d pass on the tip for those of you who might be contemplating a little gingerbread housing in your future. The crackers worked very nicely. Are the houses as ideal as I would have liked? No. But they’re exactly what my kids were looking for, and so mission accomplished.

And here’s a pic of my daughter with her house, just to complete the set. Have a happy Wednesday!

Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug Review

Headed out to the theater to catch Hobbit 2: Desolation of Smaug yesterday in 3D. By myself. Because when you’ve got a baby, your options for theater viewing become narrower, and I really didn’t want to miss this one in theaters. I imagine that for most of you, this review is superfluous. You’ve already made your mind up about whether or not you’re going to see the film, and you’re mainly curious as to what I thought.

First, some context. I reviewed the first one a year ago, and I loved that one. If you look up “Target Audience for Hobbit Films” in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of me right next to the definition. I look forward to every extra second Peter Jackson has to give me. I just love how he’s created the visual world that’s a riff on Tolkien’s literary one. The films just ooze with creativity and craftsmanship.

And so of course I loved this second installment. I really can’t wait until I can play all three extended Hobbits back to back and then dive into all three extended Lord of the Rings back to back. That’s who I am. Deal with it.

What’s to love about this movie? Loads. The action sequences are flat out incredible. Dwarves in barrels, Smaug, orc/elf fights. Fantastic stuff. And Smaug? Jaw dropping awesome. Fantastically realized and acted. Setting details are superb still–the way Laketown is so different from Mirkwood, which is so different from the Elfhome, which is so different from Erebor. And then there’s all the dwarf stuff. I loved how . . . dwarfish the film was. How the dwarves show their own approach to solving problems. Fun stuff.

That said, there are some things some people are going to get upset about. Some things that aren’t “canon.” You’ve got Legolas playing a fairly significant role here. Much more than the cameo I first expected. You’ve got Tauriel, the hot redheaded elf who’s completely new. Dwarf/Elf love triangles. Erebor action sequences. Orc character development.

Did it bother me? No. I challenge any fantasy fan who claims to hate this movie to go watch all 107 minutes of Dungeons and Dragons, and then come tell me just how awful Desolation of Smaug was. It’s an adaptation, folks. Things have to change. Accept that. Embrace it. Peter Jackson knows that.

The weakest part of the film would probably be the insistence it has on trying to stick to the book, honestly. Beorn is cool and all, but he’s relegated to more of an afterthought–as are the spiders of Mirkwood. They’re there, they’re nifty, but then they’re gone. The first third of the film feels breathless, and I wonder if there’s a much better edit waiting for me to watch in the extended version.

That said, once the movie hits Elf prison, it slows down and settles in for much better pacing. Though I have to add that if you’re expecting to see a certain climactic battle with Smaug at the end of this film, you’re not going to get quite what you think you will. And that’s as close to spoilers as I want to come.

I loved the film. 9 out of 10 for me. Have you seen it? What did you think?

Why I Don’t Send Out Christmas Cards

It’s Christmastime, which means that it’s time to be sending out a slew of Christmas cards to all my friends and relations and . . . wait. I never do that. I do a family newsletter for a select few individuals, but other than that, I send out pretty much nothing. And each year, a part of me feels guilty. I enjoy getting other people’s cards–perhaps it’s hypocritical of me to not be sending the same in return. And no one likes to feel hypocritical, do they?

But I’m not going to send out cards this year, and I very much doubt I’ll do it in the future. Why not?

Because I’ve got this thing called a “blog” I update 5 days a week. Anyone who wants to know what I’m up to in my life has every opportunity to find out all that and more–at any time they want to. So why in the world would I send out cards, something which would just add to the overall “List o’ Crap Bryce Has to Do”?

I get it. Christmas/Holiday cards are nice. It gives you a chance to reconnect with people you hardly hear from at all anymore. But then again, isn’t that kind of what Facebook is all about? It’s true I have a very limited number of friends who are Facebook holdouts, and it’s nice to get a reminder from them once a year that they haven’t actually dropped off the face of the planet, but I’m not about to institute a Christmas card giving tradition just to sate the desire for some distant friends to be able to get a brief update about me delivered to their mailbox one day instead of their inbox.

I’ve been blogging daily for a long time now–at least, it feels like a long time to me. Something like six years. This is my 1,616th entry. And the quality of the blogging has steadily risen over the years, I’d like to think. Readership isn’t exactly through the roof, but that’s risen, too. I feel confident that anyone who wants to find out about me, can. (Probably find out far too much about me, really. But I try to keep the paranoia at a minimum.)

Still, I do my best to be an open-minded chap, and I realize that my Scrooginess might not make sense to some. I mean, I see some friends sending me cards each year who also do a great job keeping Facebook or blogs up to date. Surely they’ve thought of some good reasons for doing it. So let me put the question out to you, the general public: have blogs and Facebook (properly used) eliminated the need for Christmas cards? Why do you keep sending them? Inquiring minds want to know . . .

It’s Ice Fishing Time!

If someone had told me six and a half years ago that I’d be looking forward to ice fishing each year, I’d have thought they were crazy. Ice fishing seemed to be this exotic thing people did in exotic locations like Iceland or Greenland. Or Wisconsin. It was this complex thing where you needed a hut and a special kind of pole and who-knew-what for bait. And how would you know where to put the hole–and how to put it there? No–ice fishing was far too strange a beast for a novice fisherman like myself.

Boy, was I wrong.

Ice fishing has got to be one of the easiest ways to catch a fish I know of. With normal fishing, the problem is all about getting out to the fish. You need to either stand on the shore and hope you can cast far enough, or wade into the river, or get a boat and toodle around looking for the fish that way. With ice fishing, you’re walking on water. No need for a boat or a long cast. You drill a hole wherever you want to drill that hole–wherever you think the fish are. Drill that hole however you drill the hole. Most people have power drills. You can use a hand auger, too. Specialty pole? I don’t think so. You need a stick with about three feet of line on it. A stick that won’t break when a fish is tugging on the other end. Bait? Just your normal trolling spinner will work.  Once that’s all in place, you just stand there and jiggle the line some until something bites. When it does, no need to reel–just lift the fish out of the water.

The huts and everything else is all there for comfort. Who needs that? You can pack everything you need in a plastic sled, then walk it out on the water, set up in a few minutes, and then pack it all up when you leave.

It’s true there are some more advanced approaches: you can set traps in the holes, which basically let you fish in multiple holes at the same time. But the traps are simple affairs–wooden crosspieces with a reel and a line attached to them, and a flag that goes up when the reel starts moving. It really is that simple.

Better yet, there’s none of the other crud you sometimes get fishing. No jet skis, for one thing. It’s nice and peaceful and quiet the whole time. (Although I suppose it does get a bit noisy when people with power augers come set up. I’ve only ever used a hand auger.) You can move around as you want–not trapped on a boat (which I don’t mind, but still–it makes it easier for the kids you bring with you. If they get bored, they can run around some). You can ice skate while you’re out, or play on the ice some–until the snow comes, at least. Once the snow’s there, the ice gets really thick, and it can be more of a pain.

This year, it’s been really cold really early, so the ice is already in. Not much snow to worry about yet, and I’m heading out this afternoon for my first trip of the season. Wish me luck!

(The picture there at the top is of my ice fishing mentor-in-chief, Jeff Howatt–who’s one of the stars in the excellent documentary on ice fishing, Hardwater.)

About that Fake Sign Language Interpreter at Mandela’s Funeral

Just when I think the story can’t get any stranger, it manages to pull it off. Here are the details as I knew them yesterday: at Mandela’s funeral, they had a sign language interpreter on hand to . . . you know–interpret what was being said. Using sign language. (South African Sign Language, but you get the picture.) The only problem? The deaf community noticed that he couldn’t actually sign worth beans. He was just up there flailing his arms around in what sort of kind of looked like sign language if you had no clue what sign language really looked like.

Imagine if I wrote a blog post, and it read like this:

I muchead diential story got this storythime? I muche se thead int kint tiontionatsoever. Did hime? I muche diot makest wout mucheand of and nal a no on it wout up of an, a nals? I much bet up audiot this nal an, head no thing an, and it kind ing and grout the ch bet me? Did of tiredence? But of the it kin ent onal and do on ent what this no on a his staget ter. Whatimeand do tim audionals? I much bet this cred he in aboup about tired no this no stage. Did and heck hean, him aheck huge.

Some words are there. You can sort of kind of see some glimmers of meaning now and then, but most of it’s garbage. Having had some exposure to ASL (three semesters in college), I know enough to be able to at least tell when something seems off. Even I could see it didn’t look right. One clip I watched was of him interpreting a poem. He repeated essentially the same signs three times in a row–and that was supposedly supposed to mean three entirely different things? It was bad.

But then the guy explained what had really happened.

He’s schizophrenic, you see. And he was in the middle of a really bad attack–one where he thought angels were coming into the stadium. Sometimes his attacks become very violent. Sometimes he just sees things. And so when he started having one of these in the middle of this big event, he just had to call an audible and wing it.

Next to Obama and other world leaders. A violent schizophrenic?

Look–I’m not here to demean people with disabilities, be they physical or mental. But I will say that if the guy was really having an attack (which I personally doubt, judging from the other facts about him that are coming out), he needed help–not to keep interpreting. And what kind of background checks are they doing for people who end up being right next to the President for long periods of time? The guy’s close enough to throttle the president, and it takes everyone days to figure out he was a phony?

This seems like something that belongs in a television show plot–not in the middle of the actual news.

Maybe next time, the approach to handling interpretation for the deaf community shouldn’t be outsourced to some fly-by-night company that vanishes the next day. Maybe they should actually turn to the deaf community itself for help with these sorts of things.

Ridiculous.

New (to Me) Christmas Movie Review Roundup

It’s the holiday season again, which means I revisit some movies that I watch almost every year. But I’m not content to always just watch Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story. I like to break new ground. Explore new territory. And so I’ve already seen a few movies for the first time this year. Should you watch them, too? Read on and find out!

First up is a film that had been appearing on tons of “Best of Christmas” lists: Love Actually. It had gotten a lot of hype, and it has a great cast (Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Martin Freeman, etc.). So did it live up to its promise? Yes and no. It’s very much a vignette movie–tons of characters, tons of intersecting plot lines, all focused on love and relationships around Christmas. For the most part, it’s ooey-gooey fluff, and quite good fluff at that. I personally really enjoyed it–8 out of 10. Why does it feel like there’s a big “but” coming? Because there is. In the middle of all this fluff is a plot line that just makes it so most of you reading this likely won’t watch the movie at all: two of the characters meet by being stand ins for famous actors. What kind of stand ins? Sex stand ins. So they’re naked and simulating sex acts every time they appear. As I put it to a friend, imagine You’ve Got Mail, but add in Tom Hanks visiting a strip club a time or two. Then throw in 11 f-bombs, just for kicks. Yeah . . . So in the end, I’d have to say catch this one on television if it ever airs there. Sheesh.

Second was a new Christmas Carol adaptation: the 1938 version, which is actually one of the oldest, but I hadn’t seen it yet, so it was new-to-me. If I’ve already seen a ton of these, why do I keep watching them? Because I’m an adaptation junkie. I love seeing different approaches to making adaptations, and this one had some great things I’d never seen done before. First up, they spent a whole lot more time with the Cratchits. We saw Bob and Fred interact, Bob play around with kids, the family spending time together at home. It was a nice touch, because by knowing the Cratchits more, we sympathize with them that much more. It makes what Scrooge does and who he is that much more dreadful, which allows his redemption to be that much more sweet. The acting in the film bordered on manic at times, but it’s an early movie, and you get that sort of thing from time to time. This would be a 7.5 out of ten for me. Great production.

Next up? Rare Exports. It’s a Finnish film that asks the important question: what if Santa Claus were real–and really really ancient and evil. Some wicked archaeologists are doing their best to find Santa’s grave. When they do, they release the still-living Santa into the world today. He starts nabbing naughty children and killing off bad adults. It’s horror, fantasy, and Christmas in one tidy package. Kind of grisly in places. I enjoyed the movie, though I likely won’t be watching it again. 6.5 out of 10. The pacing and plot had some issues that got in the way for me, but I loved the premise.

Finally? Kon-Tiki. Yes, I realize this has almost nothing to do with Christmas (although it does have a conversation that occurs at Christmas . . . ), but Denisa and I watched it last night, and we both loved it. It’s a look at the Kon-Tiki voyage–the Norwegian expedition from Peru to Polynesia by 6 men on a balsa wood raft. 5,000 miles. Nothing but wind and currents to get them there. Really great movie: wonderfully filmed, intense action, great plot, and not that long. 8.5 out of 10. If you’re looking for a great movie to watch on Netflix, look no further. Highly recommended for all.