December 24th (Christmas Eve)

Blast this Christmas music. It's joyful and triumphant.

Today’s Quote:

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling. ‘How could it be so? It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!’ And he puzzled and puzzled, till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! ‘Maybe Christmas,’ he thought, ‘doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more.

Dr. Seuss, How The Grinch Stole Christmas!

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Reviews:

• Hot Chocolate Review: My twenty-fourth and FINAL hot chocolate of the year is……Classic Cocoa! It’s a classic and lovely cup. Is it my favorite? No, it does not have the fruits and/or spices I would like to have seen but it holds up. I ALSO purchased a Hot Chocolate cereal, because I wasn’t sure yet if I had diabetes so wanted to be extra safe. Its from the brand Three Wishes, and I was turned onto it by longtime reader Scabby M. It was quite good! I had it for breakfast this morning and I think its a real fun holiday treat.

Streaming Services and Their Yule Logs to Watch on Christmas Day/Christmas Eve:

1. Netflix: The options on Netflix include the classic Fireplace For Your Home series, including the Original, Beechwood, Classic versions. My family trends towards these because they are about 60 mins with three episodes, so it lasts most of the gift-opening time.

   1. Netflix also offers a Bridgerton Yule Log, and while I like the idea, the fireplace is too far away from the camera! You mostly just look at the ROOM, which is boring.

2. Hulu: Disappointingly most of Hulu’s fireplaces are only available if you have the premium version with Live TV, and I am not a billionaire so I do not have that. However if you have children, they do have a free How To Train Your Dragon version, which I’m sure is fun.

   1. If you are looking for something more unique than a classic yule log, Hulu has their puppy and kitten scenes (e.g. A Very Kitty Cocktail Party), which is around 30 mins of watching very cute puppies/kittens play around a tree with presents. They also have one of my personal favorites A Sap Story, which is a tree that is slowly leaking sap for an hour. I love it.

3. Peacock: I have the ads version of Peacock so be warned that if you do as well, you will have to watch about 5 mins of ads before any Yule Log. Peacock doesn’t offer a lot of variety but they do make up for it in story. There are two yule logs, one is The Grinch - which is only 30 mins but is fun, where you watch a classic fireplace and then the Grinch (after a period of time) comes and steals everything. It’s very cute. The other offer is a Chucky one and it is far creepier, you just watch Chucky sitting in a chair by the fire, interspersed with scenes of him chainsawing someone’s head off.

4. Prime Video: Prime Video has the largest supply of Yule Logs but the quality is…not standard. There are also a HUGE volume of ads (classic) and if you switch logs then you have to rewatch all the ads, truly a subpar customer experience. But they do have a lot, and one of them goes on for eight solid hours - so if you want to just set it and forget it, Prime Video is probably your best bet.

5. Max: My parents don’t have Max on their TV so I have nothing to say on this front, besides that googling it indicates that they might have some Adult Swim logs and Rick & Morty logs, if that’s your style.

• Movie Review: Christmas on Call (2024, Hallmark)

My final movie review of the year is fittingly one that I don’t love, because life is pain. However, my dearest sister told me to watch this movie, and I am nothing if not a devoted sister. Christmas on Call is set in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia, which is NOT a city that one thinks about with Christmas, unless you consider that one time that Eagles fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus in a 1998 game literally referred to as “The Santa Claus Game”. The movie is set in a hospital in Philly, where a busy ER doctor is lonely and sad because she is new to town. She meets an attractive EMT and they hit it off! What joy! There are also two cops who I suppose are connected to this story, and they dated once but didn’t get a second date so we also get to follow them finding love again, or for the first time?

This movie lasted eighty-five straight hours, which is perhaps an exaggeration but I truly kept checking the run-time because I was certain it was already Christmas Day and I was still watching. There is NO overarching plot for this movie, the characters just live their lives and travel around Philly finding Donna Kelce being a waitress at another bar. Yep that’s right, this is the companion Philly movie to Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story (Extended Cut), and Donna Kelce is so talented that they had her play the exact same character in both - a waitress that just pops in to say random facts about the city they are presently in.

I think this movie could be fun if you are from Philly and love the vibe, but if you are just a regular person who has regular feelings about that particular city, then I don’t think it’s for you. It does NOT have any magic quests, no Lacey Chabert, and literally zero snowmen turning into real men. It has some firemen fighting fire, but I’ve been so desensitized by Grey’s Anatomy that at the very end (when there is a big fire) I just assumed someone would die, because that’s what happens at hospitals!

This is my twenty-first review of the year (good god), so I also just might be all out of patience, and so I will acknowledge that, if I watched this on December 5th, we might be having a very different conversation. But we are NOT, so I would recommend you all spend time with your families, watching the classics, or drinking heavily instead of watching this film.

FINAL Christmas Movie Ranking 2024:

1. The Christmas Quest

2. Meet Me Next Christmas

3. That Christmas

4. Sugarplummed

5. Hot Frosty

6. The Santa Class

7. The Family Man

8. Our Little Secret

9. Red One

10. Clusterfunke Christmas

11. Hanukkah on the Rocks

12. An Almost Christmas Story

13. Nutcrackers

14. To Have and To Holiday

15. The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland

16. The Merry Gentleman

17. Enchanting Christmas

18. Dear Santa

19. Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story (Extended Cut)

20. Christmas on Call

21. Feather Christmas

FINAL Hot Chocolate Advent Calendar 2024:

1. Chilly Willy

2. Enchanted Forest

3. Chocolate Banana

4. Chocolate Orange

5. Mince Pie

6. Dark Raspberry

7. Candy Cane

8. Winter Cranberry

9. Winter Spice

10. Sticky Toffee

11. Bora Bora Coconut

12. Pumpkin Spice

13. Irish Cream

14. Dark 71

15. Salted Caramel

16. Choco Mocha

17. Dark

18. Gingerbread

19. Classic Cocoa

20. Marshmallow

21. Caramel Rum PUD

22. Christmas Carrot

23. Chocolate Biscuit

24. Cinnamon Roll

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Musings: