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Take one look at this blog and you realise I love pop culture.
LOVE IT!
So while the first ornaments I bought for my own grown-up tree in 1992 were relatively standard baubles and department store trinkets, soon followed by Hallmark ornaments by the metric ton, I soon starting collecting pop culture ornaments en masse, an obsession which continues to this day in an apartment which is fast running out of places to put them.
Does this stop me collecting new ones each year? Of course not as this post clearly shows, with all kinds of new pop culture ornaments, 60 or so at last count in 2023, alone joining the tree which ends up full of all of the characters who have enriched me so much and entertained to such an enduring degree.
Adding new ornaments every year might seem excessive but they make the tree feel like home, a distillation of all the shows and movies and comic books I have ever loved, and something special to adorn my room in a season which is my absolute favourite of the year.
Ted Lasso
I was rather late to the Ted Lasso party as it turns out. Weighed down by a busy work schedule, too much streaming content to get to in a lifetime and an unwillingness to subscribe to yet another platform when my digital viewing dance card was already quite full to bursting, thank you, I read about the show, thought it sounded lovely but decided that, regrettably, I’d have to let this one go. Then, for reasons I can’t recall but likely spurred by something else wonderful that was on AppleTV+, I took the plunge, subscribed and promptly fall madly and completely in love with a warmhearted, funny and thoughtfully insightful show that tells the story of a lost sports coach from the U.S., played by Jason Sudeikis, who ends up at failing soccer aka football club in the U.K. and finds not just a purpose but a home with a similarly lost but caring souls. It is a DELIGHT and it made my year/s and reminded how good and transformative TV can be.
Schitt’s Creek
For reasons that have a lot to do with life being endlessly frantic and the show being hard to find there for a while on streaming, I have yet to finish this sublimely silly and wonderful show wit so much heart it makes you feel better for having watched it (all that laughing out loud likely helps a ton too). Schitt’s Creek is one of those shows that starts out as a relatively simply fish-out-of-water tale of rich people ending up in the only place to call home they have left, a strange little town in the middle of nowhere, and ends up, at least as far as I’ve got anyway – I have the boxset now so there’s no excuse not to watch the rest! – with some very sage life lessons learnt by Johnny (Eugene Levy), wife Moira (Catherine O’Hara), and adult children David (Dan Levy) and Alexis (Annie Murphy). It’s likely David, featured in the ornament, who grows the most of all them, his journey full of hilarity and meaning filling this superlatively good sitcom to bursting in ways that stay with you long after the last laughs have faded.
Shazam!
While I was never a hardcore superhero nerd growing up, I did have my favourites and they weren’t the usual, more high profile candidates. I loved Aquaman, The Flash (see below) and Shazam!, and to be honest, I can’t tell why the people from the goofier end of the superhero spectrum grabbed my attention but they did and I remember cutting out images of them, putting them on cardboard and playacting all kinds of stories of my own making (once a writer, always a writer I guess). Shazam!, who emerged from the DC Comics stable in 1939, I liked I think because for all strength and capability, there was also a groundedness and sense of fun, at least in the iterations I was exposed to including of course, the recent Shazam! films. Whatever appealed, he’s remained one of my favourites and so having him join my tree at least feels perfect in ways that my comic book-loving inner child knows all too well.
Peter Pan
Created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan is one of those characters who comes across initially, especially if you’ve only been exposed to the Disney version of him, as a light and silly character who simply doesn’t want to grow up. Spending his eternal childhood in Neverland with pirates and fairies, and some impressionable middle class kids from Victorian London, Peter Pan is mischievous and rebellious but not all that deep? Ah, but when you grow up and read the books and delve in further, you realise how much melancholy and sadness there is there, but overwhelmingly still the escapism and innocence remains and having this ornament, drawn from the 1953 Disney adaptation, on the tree reminds me to never let go of the childlike part of me which can’t have full rein in adulthood but which must be allowed freedom to express and be or life becomes very tiny and unimaginative indeed.
Peanuts – Franklin + Saturday Morning Funnies
I have talked long and with much passion and love on this blog about how much Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz means to me. I collected the collected comic strips as a kid in paperbacks I got at the local secondhand store for 10 and 20 cents each, laughed at Snoopy, adored the forthrightness of Lucy and found a lot to identify with in Charlie Brown who was me in so many ways it hurt (I was bullied and friendless in lots of ways growing up and he felt like a kindred spirit with whom I could well and truly identify). I have never lost my love of the comic strip or the characters and so there are LOTS of Peanuts ornaments on my tree and I’m thrilled to add two more this year. Franklin, who made his debut on 31 July, 1968, and who, going to school with Peppermint Patty and Marcie, was the first Black character in the strip, is a particular favourite of mine and I love that the other ornament celebrates the simple pleasure of reading the comic strips from the Sunday papers, a lost ritual in this digital age, that made the second day of the weekend such a magically escapist time for me.
Dr Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker
One of my favourite shows in the ’70s was The Muppet Show in which I first met the oblivious Dr Bunsen Honeydew, a character so devoted to science and the experiments he liked to under take that he failed to realise how much of a deleterious impact it was having on his assistant, the meek but vocal Beaker. A comedy act par excellence that’s routed in some very grounded and slightly dark humanity, Dr Bunson Honeydew and Beaker are a delight to watch because they empty gloriously good physical comedy, and while it’s essentially the same schtick over and over, watching them feels like being home with some very klutzy and very funny old friends and having them on the tree together feels right in ways that my sentimentally nostalgic heart is very happy to indulge.
Legolas (The Lord of the Rings)
One tradition that developed very quickly at the start of the Noughties was heading to the cinema on Boxing Day (26 December) to see the latest The Lord of the Rings film. From 2001 to 2003, my post-Christmas bliss was to be found in the fantastical realms dreamt up by J. R. R. Tolkien, and while the tradition was somewhat revived from 2012 to 2014 when The Hobbit trilogy was released, the height of my Tolkien fixation was during the Noughties when characters like Legolas completely entranced me. What really made Legolas (played bu Orlando Bloom), who was fairly serious in the way of almost Elves – guessing not a lot of Elven stand up comedy out there? – such a treat to watch was how he interacted with the Dwarf warrior Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) as the two became friends and close fighting companions and while the novelty of their blossoming friendship, and the films themselves can’t be remade, having the ornament on the tree reminds how good richly-wrought escapism can be.
Star Wars – A curious encounter on Endor
A pillar of my childhood from the moment I saw A New Hope at a small one-screen cinema in Ballina, NSW in 1977 with my mum, Star Wars is one of those magical trilogies – it’s moved waaaaay beyond that now, of course, but in my heart, it’s the first three films released (which now form the middle trilogy of the nine-part Skywalker saga) that really matter, despite my love for subsequent shows like The Mandalorian and Ahsoka – that embodies how thoughtfully escapist sci-fi can be. I still remember being blown away by how otherworldly it all felt to fly from planet to planet, to see aliens and humans interacting as one and to have a story writ large that showed the eternal battle between good and evil in such an entertaining way. The trilogy, of course, comes to a climactic head in Return of the Jedi where the Ewoks of Endor help the rebels including Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) take down the evil Empire once and for all. While the battle is serious, the final film in the trilogy still have lots of humour, evidenced by this ornament which shows a whimsical interaction between Leia and the Ewok named Wicket when they first meet.
Winnie the Pooh – A Happy Holiday Hug
Oh Winnie the Pooh! I have loved you ever since I discovered my mother’s childhood books and you continue to delight and to make very dark places not seem quite so dark after all. The creation of English writer A. A. Milne, who debuted the character in 1924 in When We Were Very Young as Edward Bear before giving him his own book, Winnie-the-Pooh in 1926 under the name we now know and love, Winnie the Pooh is a joy because while he might, self-admittedly, be a bear of little brain, he is also of very big heart, something on gloriously heartfelt display in this ornament where Pooh, sweet Piglet and Tigger, who’s boundlessly energetic and very me, are making sure a snowperson knows how much they love it. Winnie is joy-producing and so is this ornament which makes me happy simply because it encapsulates everything good and wonderful about these most lovely of characters.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – A lotta lights
It’s funny how a movie can go from fun festive diversion to something vitally and emotionally important but that’s just what happened when my dad died in June 2016, and his favourite film of the season, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation suddenly became a vital way of staying connected to how much Dad loved Christmas. The 1989 film is inspired, clever comedy that brings home how much family matters at Christmas, and while it’s full of frothy, silly comedy moments that lean heavily on inspired slapstick and character-rich brilliance, it’s also got a ton of heart too. One key thing that Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) loves, just as my Dad did but not to even remotely the same extent (he stuck to lights on the tree), are his lights on the house, all of which is captured on this musical ugly Christmas sweater which, like all my National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation ornaments will have pride of place on my tree.
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Data’s ode to Spot
I never really got into what’s become known as The Original Series of Star Trek – blame the one commercial channel in country NSW to which we had access and which did not screen anything sci-fi at all, at least that I can recall – but when The Next Generation came onto TV, this then-twentysomething was rapt, his love of sci-fi, which got a hefty kickstart back in 1977 with Star Wars – the two are seen are rival franchises but honestly I love them equally – keeping him glued to the tele for all seven seasons. One of the key characters, and our window into humanity all the way through, was synthetic lifeform Data whose pet, Spot, was a love of unending fascination and companion to him, so much so that he wrote and performed a poem to him which is captured in this wonderfully fun ornament.
The Golden Girls: Dorothy Zbornak
I’m not sure you have to be gay to love The Golden Girls, in fact I know you don’t, but good lord do gays like me LOVE the show. All four of the central characters shone, and in this story of four women of a certain age thrown together into a sprawlingly sunny bungalow in Miami, we find pretty much everything worth exploring about ageing, love, being a woman (especially in a male-centred society) and friendship. The theme song itself, “Thank You for Being a Friend” (performed by Cynthia Fee), cuts right to the heart of the show, and while Dorothy was known for her scornfully savage, very funny and usually on-point putdowns in the show which ran from 1985 to 1992, she was as connected to the others as they were to her, and the message was always about the rich value of friendship and found family in a world where you most definitely need someone by your side.
The Flash
Whoosh! Good lord but The Flash is fast, and while I never ever reached the rapid rate at which he could move – not even remarkably when walking from the bus stop at the bottom of the hill on which my high school sat which required great speed to out walk the bullies – I always thought it’d be fun if I could. Making his first appearance in 1940 (technically November 1939; the cover date was January 1940) in Flash Comics #1, the creation of writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert, The Flash intrigued me as a kid and as an adult with comics and a TV series grabbing and keeping my attention. True, he’s down in the middle rungs of the superhero pantheon but then I seem to like characters who don’t quite rise to the top and The Flash was no different.
Scooby-Doo! – Frightened friends
It’s not even remotely a secret that I love Scooby-Doo! LOVE HIM. He’s my favourite Hanna-Barbera character, he’s goofy and silly and very funny and when I was kid in the school holidays, sprawled out on the day/night couch watching Scooby-Doo!, I was as happy and content as it’s possible to be. Created in 1969 writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears through their animated series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (thank you Wikipedia!), he’s been all through all kinds of iterations since and while some have fared better than others, its classic Scooby which makes it into ornaments like this that I truly love and adore because they channel his inherent goofiness and adorability and who can’t love that?
Grover goes a-carolling
Ever since I laid my eyes on Sesame Street when I was five, newly returned from growing up in Bangladesh in the early 1970s, I have adored one Muppet above all – Grover. After making his first appearance in 1967 as Gleep on the Ed Sullivan Show, Grover made his first appearance on Sesame Street on 1 May 1970 and honestly I was hooked, absolutely in love with his sweetness, bravery, sense of adventure and just plain silliness. He was, and remains, Sesame Street to me, and to this day one of my most treasured possessions is a Grover hand puppet I got one Christmas in the pillow at the end of the bed where the pre-Christmas tree presents we could open before going to church were. Along with Bugs Bunny, Snoopy and Charlie Brown, and Scooby above, Grover is one of those favourites I will always LOVE and finding this vintage ornament of him carolling was one of the best discoveries I’ve made all year with his purchase something I didn’t hesitate to execute.