Hello Posse!
I hope everyone is happy and healthy and looking forward to the holiday season. I know this year will be tough as many people choose to forego the family get togethers this year due to the current state of the pandemic. For us, things will not change much. Since 2014, we have not lived near any of our family. Holidays are spent with just me. P.R., our dog, Shaggy, and a lot of family video chats.
For those who know me personally, it is no secret that I do not like Christmas, never have. To me Christmas is just a time of stress and anxiety, I know I am not alone in that. Millions of people deal with holiday anxiety every year all around the global. Because of my stress, the holiday traditions I adopted over the years were a way to celebrate while trying to make it seem like it was not Christmas at the same time. Since I married someone who likes Christmas, I have tried to get more into the typical holiday traditions.
I think this year, it will be even more important to find ways to find joy and fun this holiday season. To that end, I actually put up our Christmas tree and decorated the house this weekend. Normally, P.R. and I are at odds on this. If I had my way, the tree would never go up before Thanksgiving and would only go up on Christmas Eve and come down promptly on New Years Day. If P.R. chose, it would go up before or at least by Thanksgiving Day and stay up until about the second week of January, so you can imagine that P.R. is pretty happy right now.
For the most part, I think this is actually helping my mood as well. No matter what the decorations symbolize, they are pretty and I like turning on the lights on the tree in the evening. I even plan to make some holiday cookies this week for us to have with tea in the evenings. It is all of these little things that make this time more bearable, being endlessly confined with someone I actually like being with helps too.
To try to share some of this holiday joy, I am going to start doing for Christmas what I did for Halloween. The coming weeks of blogs will have a decidedly holiday theme to them. The movies will be holiday movies with a connection to westerns in some manner and I will be adding in holiday recipes and crafts. I may even try to con my sister and my mother into helping with some recipes and craft ideas for the Wednesday blogs. They are both serious talent in those areas. I often use their ideas in my own home.
To start off the holiday momentum today, I am going to feature one of my favorite holiday films Die Hard. I know, many people do not consider this to be a "holiday" movie but there are just as many who do. Many people, myself included, have even gone so far as to make a Christmas Tree ornament of the air duct scene, which will be in this Whatever Wednesday blog.
To connect this movie to anything western is actually very easy. Alan Rickman stars as the villain, Hans Gruber. He also starred as the villain in Quigley Down Under with Tom Selleck.
Die Hard is an American action film directed by John McTiernan and written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. This film was released in 1988 and stars Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov, and Bonnie Bedelia. The story is based on a 1979 novel, Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp.
The story follows John McClane (Willis), New York City policeman, who is visiting his estranged wife (Bedelia) and their children on Christmas Eve. He visits her at her office and joins her for the company holiday party. Her office is in the headquarters of the Japanese-owned business for which she works. The party is interrupted by a group of terrorists who take over the entire building and hold everyone in it hostage. McClane soon realizes he is the only hope to free the hostages and save his wife.
Movie Snack
I wanted to come up with an easy themed movie snack that would be surprising and have a bit of a Japanese twist, just like the movie. I think Tablespoon.com's, Spicy Grilled Edamame Snack (<--- click here) is a great find.
This snack is easy to make and healthier than the typical western snacks like buttered popcorn and cheesy nachos, and while sometimes those classic snacks are still a favored movie treat, it never hurts to shake things up and try something new once in awhile.
So now you know what time it it, get your snacks and settle in, it's time for another great movie!
Take care, posse!
Comments