Holiday spirit, where are you?

  I've been talking to people and it seems like 2012 is the year the holiday spirit went missing. I've heard it other years, but usually I can find someone brimming with Christmas glee so while it doesn't balance out, it does seem like that person just attracted everyone else's super happy yay for the season.

This year I have yet to find that person. I am not that person. Until this morning I wasn't all super mopey about it, it was just kind of abstractly sad, y'know? Then there was a dream that I woke up from all sad and WOE and I couldn't (can't?) really figure out why other than the entire point of dream love is that it's supposed to be happy. :P


Any way. I'm getting this out of the way before I begin my big list of things to do.

For those who are new here, my dad died last year. In our fairly small family (as in Mom/Dad/the boy/Widget/me), he was the one I was most similar in a lot of ways. Mums and the boy both are more dramatic (and I do have my fair share of drama queen genes, I just let them simmer until they go kerflooey) and while Dad had a temper that apparently no one seemed to realize outside the family (which sounds worse than it is, so don't take it that way) he'd mellowed considerably over the years.
  I have a mix of his sense of humor and Mom's and at times this means I'm the only person laughing at something, but hey.

And no matter how many people can tell I'm related to Mums, I take after Dad something crazy. It became really obvious after he died and Mums and the boy avoided me, citing the resemblance as the reason.

So. With this, and a million other reasons, I thought last Christmas would be horrible. The stuff of fictionalized drama! Or, y'know, crying jags.

And it wasn't. Maybe it was the fact that I expected it to be, so I worked hard to not let it be that kind of Christmas (at least for myself)?

Or maybe it just took time to hit me. Or, even more possible, it's not just the fact that we're coming up on the end of a year without Dad in it at all, but 2012 took my tiny black cat and our family's big orange terror as well.

I dunno. But I'm finding it hard to find my Christmas spirit this year. I haven't given up hope though, so let's go see what this Christmas Eve has to offer.

My internal monologue is now done in accents

I'm about to go nap for a bit before having my ritual cry over The Family Stone and the nomming of the jam thumbprints while I read my Sweet Valley goodness. I have to see if any of the batteries work for my AG army pics though.

Watched Brave. I... don't get why people were so snippy about it? Did I just read all the backlashy things? And were all those written by people whose parents never meddled? Because I'd lowered my expectations considerably given how many people would say "It's good but..."

So, I'll add my voice to the "good but" camp. The blasted movie is so dark that in the climactic scene at the end, you can't see a damn thing. I'd say it's our TV, only watching it on the computer has the same problem so... yeah. Really dark movies are getting to be impossible to see. At first I thought it was just me, but neither Mums nor Widget could see a thing either. :/


That aside, I really liked it. Loved, possibly. I was expecting Mérida to be some horrible snot and while she had her moments, she wasn't completely out of line. Her mother was very good at talking at her the way mothers get to be after awhile, both kind of ignoring the other one ignoring them.

If I had to nitpick something aside from the literally too dark to see anything problem, it'd be Mérida being foolish enough to ask for the spell to change her mother. Not her mind, or her view on marriage or any other thing, no, she asks for it to change her mum. Like that won't have serious consequences. :P

Otherwise, dude. Thumbs up. Now I need a Mérida to keep Punzie company as my chosen Disney princesses.