Ah, the age-old Naughty and Nice list. The bane of kids with poor behavioural karma the world over, Santa’s obsession with “making a list and checking it twice / Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice” forms the centrepiece of this year’s Christmas ad from Air New Zealand. Reflecting Continue Reading
Christmas 2018
On 2nd day of Christmas … I listened to Songs for the Season by Ingrid Michaelson
It’s a reasonably safe bet that anyone who records a Christmas album is in love with the festive season and all its multitudinous warm-and-fuzzy trappings. That’s certainly the case with indie pop artist Ingrid Michaelson whose holiday album Songs for the Season released on 26 October. In a recent Continue Reading
Dr. Tenth Christmas Surprise! Or how to deal with a man in red and white and a lively snowman
Let’s be fair – Santa, stripped of all his promise of toys and red-and-white clad jolliness is a bit weird. I say this as a man very much-enamoured of Christmas and its many and varied feel good trappings, who rightly regards Santa Claus as a fairly good guy who Continue Reading
On 1st day of Christmas … I decorated my tree with 11 new pop culture ornaments
I am not a Christmas traditionalist. Well, I am and I am not, said as I pivot, rather precariously on the fence of what sounds dangerously like festive decorating ambivalence. What I mean is that while I love all the warm-and-fuzzy, bright-and-shiny trappings of the season so much so that Continue Reading
Christmas movie review: The Holiday Calendar
If you are to believe Hallmark, and frankly who are we to disagree, Christmas is the ideal time to fall in love. Movie after movie – 33 this year in total, up from last year’s Grinch-ly paltry 28 – extols the wonder and magic of a time of year Continue Reading
Christmas movie review: Babes in Toyland (1961)
At first glance, Babes in Toyland, Disney’s 1961 aspirational attempt to create a movie as magically transportive and musically-rich as The Wizard of Oz – they didn’t but that was a pretty tall order anyway – doesn’t come across as a Christmas film of any stripe. (The festive angle Continue Reading
Happy Christmas from Gilmore Girls: “Santa’s Secret Stuff” (S7, E11)
Spending any kind of time with Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) is always, without exception, a delight. Even more so when it’s Christmas, a time so wonderfully magical, even when delayed (more on that later), that it transcends the fact that season 7 of Gilmore Girls Continue Reading
Christmas goes gritty again: Klaus and the Crying Snowman
Snow might be a bit thin on the ground (read: non-existent) in the sunny climes of Australia during the festive season but in far off Scandinavia from where Grant Morrison and Dan Mora’s vividly-gritty takes on the origins of good old Santa Claus takes place (now with visibly less jolly Continue Reading
Now this is music #119: Farao, DYAN, Mija, Madge, Brynn Elliott + festive Lindsey Stirling
Standing out from the crowd can be tough. It’s often not enough to look the part, especially these days; you also have to sound the part, live the part, and have something fresh and interesting to say. These five artists most definitely do, taking life events and observances about Continue Reading
Some gifts are more than just a gift: This year’s John Lewis Christmas ad
SNAPSHOT Titled The Boy & The Piano, the 12th version of the department store’s iconic ad … tells the true story of how a Christmas gift – a piano belonging to Elton’s grandmother – went on to inspire the music icon’s life, working backwards chronologically from the present day Continue Reading