Holiday Antidotes

So, it's Monday, and it's less than two weeks until Christmas. Ack! I did finally put up some decorations, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to skip the tree this year, unless maybe I put up the little one in my office.

I did try to watch the Sci Fi channel's version of a Christmas movie, Ice Quake, Saturday night, but I only made it about half an hour into it because it contained two of my pet peeves. One was a whiny, entitled teenage girl of the type who would probably get her whole family killed while in witness protection because she'd call all her friends and tell them where they were and invite them to come over, since it's all so UNFAIR that she can't hang out with her friends even though the Russian mob, the Mafia and a Colombian drug cartel are all out to kill her. Not that this happened in this movie (that I know of), but it was that type of character. A major natural disaster is happening, and all she can think of is what it means for her social life. "Like, omigod, the world is coming to an end? But I wanted to go to that party this weekend! It's so unfair! Why do these things happen to me?" Second was the wife who doesn't seem to grasp what her husband does for a living and how that might affect her plans. If your husband is a geologist who works with the Army Corps of Engineers and several severe and unexplained tremors have happened, along with a major event on the polar ice cap, and you're in Alaska, then yes, your husband might have to go to the office, even though it's Christmas Eve. The earth isn't going to stop shaking, regardless of what day the calendar says it is. Which is worse, your husband going to the office on Christmas Eve, or your husband staying home and your whole family getting killed because no one figured out what was going on and how to stop it? Okay, so he did end up going to the office briefly before spending that quality time with the family, but then it turned into a "disaster as family bonding experience" movie. I'd have far preferred it if he'd been single and had to work with another scientist or Corps of Engineers soldier type and they'd bickered about what to do before bonding and falling in love during the disaster, but I guess you don't get that in the Christmas disaster movie.

So, to get my dose of people falling in love at Christmas, I ended up with Lifetime movies on Sunday, but learned that it is possible to overdose on that kind of thing, so I had to balance it with a CSI marathon. Switching back and forth between the two could be rather disconcerting. "I love you! And look! It's snowing!" Click. "I've found a rare insect larva inside this wound in the corpse."

And now I have a reading dilemma. I had All Clear by Connie Willis on hold at the library, and I had bought a paperback copy of Blackout to re-read in preparation. My grand plan was to read them back to back as one book, playing all my big band music in the background to create the mood. But I'd hoped to get the book from the library in November. Instead, I just got it this weekend. But those books don't really fit the holiday mood. I'm already uncharacteristically moody, so I'm not sure I can deal with the Blitz right now. I'm more likely to want to curl up with a Christmas-set romance/chick lit kind of book, listen to Christmas music in the background and drink hot cocoa. I have All Clear until January 2, so maybe that will be my week-between-holidays indulgence. Or I could find myself not in the mood for the Christmas stuff and this will be my literary equivalent of the CSI marathon.