{"id":1567,"date":"2007-12-22T09:43:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-22T14:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=1567"},"modified":"2007-12-22T09:43:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-22T14:43:00","slug":"on-christmas-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=1567","title":{"rendered":"On Christmas Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many people have Christmas traditions.<\/p>\n

I don’t.<\/p>\n

It comes, I think, from having worked retail for so<\/i> many years. The “holiday season” was anything but<\/i> a holiday. And while I enjoyed certain things about the season, one thing I really<\/i> wanted was for it to be over<\/i>.<\/p>\n

A few years ago I started a tradition of sorts. On Christmas Eve, while wrapping those last few presents, I’ll watch Santa Claus Conquers the Martians<\/i><\/a>. It’s sometimes considered one of the worst films ever made, but there’s a goofy charm to the film and it was put together with some competance. Viewed as a piece of early 1960s science fiction, its production values aren’t far off from what Doctor Who<\/i> was doing at the same time. The polar bear of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians<\/i> looks about as authentic as the Slyther in “The Dalek Invasion of Earth.” :vogon:<\/p>\n

I used to watch — or in some cases listen<\/i> — to Doctor Who<\/i> on Christmas Day. One year I watched all fourteen episodes of “Trial of a Time Lord” in one go. Another year I got a serious chunk of “The Daleks’ Master-Plan” out of the way. (The goal there, of course, was to listen to “The Feast of Steven” on Christmas Day, just for the first Doctor’s Christmas wishes to the audience.) Lately I’ve made the time for BTR Productions’ fan audio, “The Monopoly Pub Crawl of Doom,” on Christmas Day — it’s a goofy little story about the Doctor and his companions going on a Monopoly pub crawl while in search of the TARDIS. I think this year I may get caught up on The Sarah Jane Adventures<\/i>.<\/p>\n

There’s no new Beatle-y goodness for Christmas this year. But I have three CDs worth of Beatles-inspired Christmas music<\/a> to keep me occupied, so all’s good there. The Fab Four two-disc set, in particular, I really like, and the track line-up (and the Beatles song their pilfered) is as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (I Saw Her Standing There)<\/li>\n
  2. Joy to the World (Please Please Me)<\/li>\n
  3. Feliz Navidad (And I Love Her)<\/li>\n
  4. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (Help!)<\/li>\n
  5. Away in a Manger (You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away)<\/li>\n
  6. Good King Wenceslas (Tell Me What You See)<\/li>\n
  7. It Came Upon the Midnight Clear (Baby’s In Black)<\/li>\n
  8. Winter Wonderland (Honey Don’t)<\/li>\n
  9. Frosty the Snowman (Mr. Moonlight)<\/li>\n
  10. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! (Eight Days a Week)<\/li>\n
  11. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (When I’m Sixty-Four)<\/li>\n
  12. Silent Night (Norwegian Wood)<\/li>\n
  13. The Christmas Song (Here, There, and Everywhere)<\/li>\n
  14. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Love You To)<\/li>\n
  15. The Little Drummer Boy (Sun King)<\/li>\n
  16. Dear Santa (Oh! Darling)<\/li>\n
  17. What Child Is This (While My Guitar Gently Weeps)<\/li>\n
  18. Blue Christmas (Revolution 1)<\/li>\n
  19. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (Got to Get You Into My Life)<\/li>\n
  20. Jingle Bells (Tomorrow Never Knows)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Sometimes I’ve gone to the movies on Christmas Day. There are some interesting choices this holiday season. There’s Atonement<\/i>, which looks interesting. And Aliens vs. Predator<\/i>, which will likely be stupid fun.<\/p>\n

    In short, I don’t have any real Christmas traditions. Such is life. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Many people have Christmas traditions. I don’t. It comes, I think, from having worked retail for so many years. The “holiday season” was anything but a holiday. And while I enjoyed certain things about the season, one thing I really wanted was for it to be over. A few years ago I started a traditionContinue reading “On Christmas Traditions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[64,507,508,509,98],"class_list":["post-1567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","tag-christmas","tag-fab-four","tag-martians","tag-santa-claus","tag-the-beatles","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}