Peloton, Station Eleven, Royal Watch, & Your Worst Christmas Opinions!

What I'm Watching, Reading, & Listening To This Week

Greetings, Christmas Elves! It’s time to check the pulse on Christmas Movie Season™!! Ben and I watched the Netflix Christmas movie Love Hard, and I’d like to state for the record: It did NOT jingle MY bells!

Pretty certain the script was a word scramble of the Internet’s most rehashed [and heteronormative] Christmas tropes that were then spat out of a broken printer in a grubby back office in whatever LA’s version of Midtown West is—producing a dialogue so lifeless I was continually checking it for a pulse. The woman in the film definitely thought she was playing Sandra Bullock in While You Were Sleeping, but she was actually playing the class bully in a 1990s teen sitcom.

Ben liked it, though! Plus, I love Bad Moms Christmas in all its “Bad Moms?? More like bad movie!!” glory so I’m in no position to judge anything. Kathryn Hahn can spank that jackass from This is Us all she wants in my book.

Anyhoo, this week, drop a comment and tell me your family-favorite Christmas movies OR your absolute WORST—most cursed—Christmas opinions! Do you hate Christmas? Do you think George Bailey was just bad at his job and kind of an asshole? Or maybe your favorite Christmas Carol is the one about the Hippopotamus.

Drop a comment! You seriously don’t know how much I love answers from the void!

On to this week’s topics!

In the News

• The Home Alone house is now available on Airbnb! Four lucky guests will be hosted by the actor who played Buzz (which makes me both anxious and depressed) and there will be pizza, booby traps, a live tarantula, and a screening of the new movie Home Sweet Home Alone. So that’s gonna be a “No” from me.

• Tom Holland is going to play Fred Astaire! (?!) Apparently he is “quite a good tap dancer”! What!? Honestly, we get it now, Zendaya!

• The Golden Globe nominations came out and this Blog is here to remind you that the Globes are so problematic that even Tom “Problematic is My Middle Name” Cruise came out against them. The only good thing about them before was that everyone got drunk and sloppy in their fancy clothes, but now they aren’t broadcasting the event so what’s honestly the point.

• Peloton is in a feud with Sex and the City and at first it was fun and then it got weird. Here’s the brief: In the first episode of the new Sex and the City, And Just Like That, Mr. Big died of a heart attack while riding a Peloton. [Spoiler alert.] Cue Peloton’s stock plummeting and Peloton being like “Uh bro, when you asked to use a Peloton you didn’t mention someone would DIE ON IT!??” But instead of throwing a fit or a lawsuit, they made a viral ad narrated by Blog Favorite Ryan Reynolds, resurrecting Mr. Big and saving Christmas. But THEN it came out that the guy who plays Mr. Big might possibly have done some sexual assault? So Peloton pulled the ad a couple days later. Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night.

• Gift! Guides! I liked!

• Gift Guides I Didn’t! (Kim Kardashian’s contribution is an $80 jump rope that counts your jumps (!?). I can count jumps for free, KIM! This gift was both MORE expensive than a jump rope has any right to be, and LESS expensive than what I hoped from one of the richest women in the world! Where’s her jade egg?? Disappointing on all fronts, ugh.)

Royal Watch

A new segment because a lot is happening in the World’s Costliest Family!

• Meghan Markle beat The Daily Mail in a lawsuit for violating her privacy. We love this for her! The Daily Mail is a trash fire! Oprah is smiling down on us all!

• IS THE QUEEN OKAY!???! I’m worried. She was born in 1926 (!) and has ruled England since before Liam Neeson was BORN (no shade, but he is not young!!) and now she is “canceling all engagements” and, uh, hasn’t been seen since November 17th (!?!??!).

• The Kate Middleton Family is giving CRINGE in their annual Christmas Card. Every year, we, the Royal Watchers, await the family Christmas Card with breathless excitement. What will they wear? Where will they be? What glossy shade of brown will Kate’s hair be? Usually, it’s all sepia-toned British jumpers romping around the family garden as if they’re Normals but with stolen generational wealth. THIS year, however, they used a photo from a family trip to Jordan that clearly stated, “YOUR COLONIZERS ARE HERE!” Please just make it stop.
  [Although we love Will showing his ACTUAL KNEE and skin-to-skin contact with KATE’S HAND!!! It’s against the RULES! What cheek!]

• Tune in to Royal Carols: Together at Christmas on Christmas Eve! The legitimate criticisms above notwithstanding, I WILL be watching this magical Christmas show, hosted by Kate HERSELF in a red Christmas sweater!! [I realize that I AM the problem.] Highlights: Leona Lewis and Ellie Goulding will sing! Lowlights: Certainly the part where Prince William, Child of Colonizers, reads from the Gospel of our Lord will be super icky! Don’t miss it! [We’ll have to figure out how to watch illegally since we’re not ~“in the UK”~ but you did not hear that on This Blog.]

Saturday Night Live Highlights - Billie Eilish

I’m a week behind, sorry.

My highlight of this show was Billie Eilish performing live and nailing every note and reminding us why she is continuing to sweep every awards season.

Controversial Question: Do you think she was lip-syncing?? I’ve never heard ANYONE sound that good on the SNL stage! Respectful opinions welcome!

It was also a pretty good skit roundup — here are my faves, but all were pretty good:

• Highlights: (1) “Hotel Ad” was definitely my favorite, (2) “TikTok,” just an incredibly accurate sendup of every TikTok trend, (3) “Lonely Christmas Ad” nailed scary movies and I was actually kind of scared?!

Watching - Station Eleven on HBO Max

Okay, you’re gonna have to trust me on this. You might think you’re not ready to watch a TV show about an airborne, flu-like virus that sweeps across the world as a deadly pandemic that wipes out civilization in the Year of Our Lord 2020. But isn’t this what the Greeks meant by catharsis?!?

The book that the series is based on was published in 2014 and made all the Best-Of lists. I didn’t read it until the Real Pandemic hit in 2020 because somehow that was my coping mechanism? [That and 40-minute-long BTS dance practice vids.]

I was honestly unsure about how the world of Station Eleven would translate to TV, but three episodes of 10 are out now and I was FLOORED. Mackenzie Davis (underrated actress, and Kristen Stewart’s snooty girlfriend in that Christmas movie where Aubrey Plaza should’ve been the one Kristen ended up with) and Himesh Patel are SO good. And Danielle Deadwyler, who I was introduced to in The Harder They Fall (!), is doing her own one-woman tragedy play and I am here 👏🏼 for 👏🏼 it 👏🏼 .

I will give a trigger warning that some scenes in the first episode were tough to see. One scene at the hospital, in particular, overwhelmed me. First responders beware. That said, the show is gorgeous, warm, funny, gripping, fresh. It has something to say about us — that people CAN be dark and selfish but they also are built for love, and to take care of each other. That survival is not sufficient.

Or you could (re)watch — The Derry Girls cast on GBBO

If you’re like, “Hannah, I love you, but you can f*** right off if you think I’m going to watch an apocalypse show at Christmas when Omicron is taking over NYC”—then I highly recommend rewatching last year’s holiday episode of The Great British Baking Show with the cast of Derry Girls!

I have watched it countless times, whenever I am sad, happy, bored, stressed, or just simply breathing. This year, I rewatched it with my mom and sister and we laughed so hard we were crying on the floor. Then we took turns trying to read my grandma’s book of devotions in an Irish accent.

To find it, click the link above in the heading, find Season 3 of the Great British Baking Show Holidays, and choose the one with the Derry Girls cast.

Forget a Peloton and give yourself the gift of laughter this holiday season. Laughter never killed anyone. 👀

Listening - All the Christmas Playlists

I am currently rocking out to Santa Tell Me by Ariana Grande and wishing Christmas joy and a load of vacuum-resistant glitter to all the haters!!

[I also just spent the last five minutes trying to hold my jaw at the exact 135-degree angle Ariana has achieved in that music video but to no avail. Yes, a part of me still believes that if I could but simply tilt my head like this permanently, I would be *literally* *ravishing*. Jimin of BTS also does this to great effect.]

I thought this week I could just share a few Christmas playlists I love! [Am I flying too close to the sun?? Probably!] I should warn you at the outset that my most-listened-to Justin Bieber song OF ALL TIME is “Home This Christmas” featuring country music artists The Band Perry. It is not “good,” per say.

But anyway, here are a few of the Christmas playlists I’m listening to:

• Pop music all the way! If you love “Step Into Christmas” by Sir Elton, and Ed Sheeran doesn’t make you vomit, this playlist is for you (and me!)!

• Choral Christmas music. If sacred cathedral vibes are more your thing, try out this playlist put together by my BFF and choral expert, Laura Childers.

• Christmas Classics by Spotify.

• The definitive list of the best Christmas songs of all time. SIKE, these are just my personal faves, and yeah the Muppets are heavily featured. Welcome to my weird, tinsel-filled brain!

Reading

• Keanu Reeves Knows the Secrets of the Universe - Esquire

• Draco Malfoy’s College Recommendation Letter That I Totally Don’t Feel Conflicted About Writing Whatsoever - McSweeney’s

• Help! I’m Watching a Christopher Nolan Movie Without Subtitles! - The New Yorker
  (Thanks to Collette for sending me this delightfully hilarious and relatable read!)

That’s all for this week, folks! I’d love to hear from you in the comments! Don’t forget to drop your most controversial Christmas opinion, or share a great Christmas recommendation. I’ll see y’all after the holiday — have the absolute best Christmas available to you!