I really loved this movie. It’s not a new idea to take a mythical creature and put them fish-out-of-water in modern day society, but I really liked how this one came together. All the odd decisions Noelle made actually made sense in her world, and the whole time there was an undercurrent of saving Christmas whilst simultaneously breaking down the patriarchy which I wholeheartedly support.

If ever there was a film of two halves, it’s this. You start out with a reasonably cute rom-com, Kate dealing with her difficult family, recovery from a serious condition, a job that only seems relevant for maybe one month of the year, and aspirations to just be a better human without making any effort… she meets a guy who is too-good-to-be-true and their relationship develops. Then, oh my, you’re slapped with the cold, heard, truth and it turns the movie completely on its head!

It’s a good collection and very moving, but if I’m honest I think there are only so many things to say about the festive season so by the end I felt it was lacking a bit of variety. Still, it’s always interesting to read essays from different viewpoints, so it’s worth a look whether or not you’ve seen the film.

This was better than I thought it was going to be. The concept isn’t exactly a new one - parent going crazy trying to find a toy that is completely out of reach - but it’s good. The adventure he goes on has some wacky moments and you have to suspend your disbelief a bit, but I think up to the point of the parade, it’s pretty good.

Hmm. If I remember rightly, I was really keen on the first movie, expecting it to be pretty rubbish and it being a pleasant surprise. This was kinda the opposite. I wasn’t anticipating great things, if I’m honest, but it didn’t even meet those expectations! Fundamentally, it’s an ok film, has a good structure, a good guy, a bad guy, etc, etc. But the pace of it, the flow, the glaring errors in the script… it was so weird.

Really loved this. It’s a Christmas film that starts with the first words being ‘Eff holidays’ so you know you’re off to a good start. But it’s fun, Emma Roberts is great as a sort of selfish but messed up woman trying to get over what was clearly the wrong guy for her. And the connection between the two leads is nice, too, very believable as friends both with and without benefits.

Whipped through this in super quick time after loving the first book. It was odd reading this directly after the other one, as we went back to the start of Dr Kay’s career when he was a lowly SHO and then rose through the ranks again. Just as always, the writing is humorous but hearty and I thought it really interesting how it only takes a couple of years to become institutionalised to working every Christmas Day.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but Christmas television this year hasn’t felt as special or as inspiring as it sometimes does. There’s no Christmas Doctor Who special, and no superb films finally showing on TV, so that the only thing to look forward to seemed to be Gavin & Stacey. Wait a minute, Gavin and Stacey returning after a decade?? Yes! Many, many, many of us were looking forward to this welcome return to the twin worlds of Billericay and Barry Island, and thank goodness it was a perfect episode that wasn’t ruining anything that went before.

I wouldn’t have heard of this book if it hadn’t been for the Netflix adaptation, that we enjoyed as part of our festive film roundup. It was billed as a teenage Love Actually, featuring all these intertwining stories and on screen that worked really well.

This film was entertaining enough and certainly fit the bill when it comes to cheesy Netflix Christmas rom-coms but it doesn’t really stand up to a lot of scrutiny. Firstly, the title calendar is barely featured in the second half of the movie. Secondly, I can’t help but think the story suffers from that Indiana Jones effect of everything happening anyway even if the calendar hadn’t have been there.

Was a bit nervous going into this one because the first movie, whilst fun wasn’t exactly a classic. And it’s about parenting which is probably one of my least favourite subjects. But it’s a Christmas movie, and we’re on a roll, so hey!

I had heard that a new version of Baby It’s Cold Outside was going to be released, with updated lyrics, but I hadn’t heard it until recently. Kelly Clarkson and John Legend have rewritten the old classic which has come under fire for some difficult lyrics that could be considered to fall on the wrong side of consent. I do get why the old song is problematic for some people. That line “what’s in this drink” can absolutely be taken out of context and if you read the lyrics at face value, it does sound like a guy trying to coerce his date to stay longer than she really wants to. But that’s only if you want to read those things into it, because the other view to take is that it’s a song from 70 years ago and it doesn’t actually mean any harm. Of all the songs in the world, this one wouldn’t be my first choice to cancel.

Thank goodness, this movie is a return to form - well the form applicable to the Nativity movies anyway. It was really quite enjoyable, and moving in places, and actually has a timely story about immigrants and just treating people as human beings even in times of trouble.

What a terrible movie. Honestly, the Nativity series has so far been in the so bad it’s good category of brilliant Christmas movies, but this one does not stand up to the rest of them. For a start, the plot makes no sense, it’s far-fetched and contrived and the sequence of events is utterly ridiculous. I know you’re supposed to suspend your disbelief, but hey, I haven’t even started talking about the fact that Mr Poppy takes a bunch of kids to New York without permission or enough supervision.

I saw this promoted as a teen movie version of Love Actually, and although skeptical, I was pleasantly surprised that it lived up to that reputation. Perhaps the connections are slightly less tenuous, because this is about a group of teenagers from the same town who all end up at the same waffle house, but still, how they get there is the real meat of the story.

This is a really lovely Sunday afternoon movie - gentle but emotional, with a good story but no crazy heart-wrenching moments. I dreaded that third act twist that would ruin everything before the happy ending but thankfully it wasn’t bad at all.

We watched the third movie in Netflix’s Christmas Prince franchise this week and… huh. It was an experience. I’ve obviously reviewed the film itself in the proper place but I wanted to expand upon this with a note about the fiasco that is the credits. The normal movie credits roll, that’s fine. Cast, crew, music and location credits. Then we get to the geographic specific stuff, the dubbing and additional voice credits.

For a sequel, this movie stands up really well. I think there was some concern in our household about how exactly a kid would get stranded in a completely different state, but actually the circumstances made sense. They wouldn’t happen these days, obviously, and there’s no doubt that the mother really needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror, but as setups go, it worked.

This is such a terrible movie. Not even the normal fun but stupid holiday adventure. It’s badly written with terrible dialogue and goofy acting, and it really, genuinely feels like it was made by young movie students.

So… the first of December rolled around and immediately I re-subscribed for Netflix, and got watching their latest Christmas movie offerings. This one, it was fun in the moment with a glass of wine and getting that early festive spirit on but oh no, it wasn’t a good movie. You sort of know it’s not going to be groundbreaking with the concept - a knight time travels and something about Christmas? Oh-kay.

This was an Apple Books offer and I fancied reading something quite frothy and light. This was the perfect choice. A mother and her two daughters guide us through the story of a hastily organised wedding in Aspen at Christmas. All three women have secrets they are hiding from each other, and have quite a lot of soul-searching to do if the festive nuptials are to go ahead without a hitch.

I don’t always like comedy fiction because it can be quite hard to get the right tone coming across in the written word. This book, though, grabbed me straight away with relatable and funny characters getting themselves into all kinds of mishaps. Quite quickly, you realise that someone has been shot with an arrow at a holiday park, and then we spend a lot of time seeing how events led up to that, whilst also keeping an eye on the police investigation into what happened.

The BBC aired a one-off hour-long comedy this Christmas, starring Stephen Merchant and Asim Choudry as an unlikely duo travelling hundreds of miles to find a sought-after toy for the former’s kid, and featuring plenty of humour and emotional moments along the way. I loved it so much, I wished I was Film Watching it as I went along - then I realised, I can sort of do that anyway! Ah, having a blog is excellent.

Really loved this! It’s one of those adorable but quirky rom-coms, where you can’t quite believe what is happening but are completely swept along for the ride. I fell in love with Jude Law a little bit, but was bowled over by the concept of Jack Black as a romantic lead - and he pulled it off!

Well, yea, this one wasn’t as good as the first one. We watched them back-to-back on Christmas Day, and that probably didn’t help because we liked the first one so much (rubbish but great!) that the second one just didn’t live up to its predecessor.

Was absolutely expecting this to be one of the rubbish but brilliant Christmas movies and that’s exactly what it was. The story was far-fetched, but kinda fun, and it was a laugh to guess the twists and turns and how the story might unfold (we also managed to write a better twist ourselves as we went along, but hey, simpler is probably better).

So, I’ve never cooked Christmas dinner before. To be honest, my experience of cooking roast meat of any kind is limited. A chicken or two, maybe a ham at some point, and that’s the limit. I’ve really tried to up my cooking game this year, though, as we start to focus on our health a bit more than we have previously. With that in mind, when HelloFresh started advertising their Christmas box, I was keen to get involved. Family logistics meant it would have to be devoured before Christmas Day rather than on the big day itself, but I was still up for the challenge. The benefits of getting the box are everything you normally get with HelloFresh but amped up for Christmas:

We’re totally on board with the Netflix Christmas Universe and were happy to settle in for another relatively cheesy movie about kids and Santa and Christmas. This was a complete revelation - it was brilliant! I knew we were in for a better than expected time when it became clear these were two child actors who could actually act and weren’t going to be annoying.

Aww, a nice Christmas story to read over the festive build-up, only actually there’s quite a lot of darkness in this one. A war reporter is travelling long distance by train across America, and finds himself not only finding interesting characters that he can make a story out of but becoming part of the story himself. Long-lost faces, surprise visits, a thief, and some severe weather all play a part in the narrative.

When I read Not Going Out were doing a Christmas Special episode, I was very happy. Love this show, and any excuse for some more of Lee Mack’s fun wordplay is good enough for me. When I read on to see it would be a live show, then I was in two minds. Live shows are good, the additional adrenaline of ‘will they, won’t they mess up’ is an intriguing extra element, and it’s something to talk about whether it goes well or not.

Let’s start at the beginning, Mr C is absolutely fuming at the title and it’s fair to say that the movie is mis-named. Charlie didn’t invent Christmas, more like brought it back into fashion.

I desperately didn’t want to give up on this one because I gave up on Blues Brothers early too, but unfortunately it seems John Landis just isn’t for me. The story is so slow, it took ten minutes for three characters to get up and say good morning to all their people.

This was good, we’ve waited a whole year to be able to watch it so thankfully it wasn’t a disappointment. It was funny in places but it wasn’t perfect. I don’t remember if I thought this during the first film, but Mila’s character really was the weakest one. And has anyone counted the number of times she said ‘guys’ in this?

This wasn’t quite as good as I hoped it was going to be, but it was entertaining enough and certainly one of those schmaltzy Christmas films that we were looking for.

We watched this film last year, one of those that we put on the TV as background noise and ended up for the most part just sitting and watching. So this Christmas, we made it an official Film Watch entry, and loved it all over again!

I previously wrote about potential Christmas jumpers for those not looking for mainstream products, but this is the one I opted for: Most Wonderful HAIM of the Year. Naturally, I wanted to show this off with a photo, but it’s harder than you think when you’re in a particularly good mood at Christmas. Eventually, after too many photos where I obscure the genius of the shirt, it was demanded that I sit up straight and behave myself. So I sulked, of course.

It became startlingly apparent last year that we were missing out not having seen Elf. It came in second place on Richard Osmond’s World Cup of Christmas Films, and there was even an elf-based dance on the Strictly Christmas special. So, this year, it was high up on the festive to-watch list.

It’s been a bit of a busy year, so expeditions and adventures have been few and far between, but every December we are obliged to leave the house. The brilliant Giggles Advent calendar features jokes from many contributors of which I’m honoured to be one, and to make a fun and interesting video, Mr C and I look for new places to explore. This year, it was Drayton Manor - the medium sized theme park that features a large section of ground designated to Thomas the Tank Engine, otherwise known as Thomas Land. They were turning Thomas Land festive, and we thought what better place to capture a Christmas joke.

We’ve been working on a Christmas playlist for a Sidepodcast friend, and finally have come up with the goods. As I say over there: During the past week, I listened to Apple Music’s attempt at a Christmas playlist that had one or two classics but for the most part featured party songs, tangential festive tunes, and those slowed down advert covers that are so very popular these days. That didn’t impress me too much, so I set about making a better playlist, published on Apple Music and fabulously called: How a Christmas playlist should be done.

I really thought this film wasn’t going to be that good - another of those predictable comedies with a few jokes, some good one-liners and not much else to think about. But it wasn’t. It was actually really, really funny with characters that were interesting and, whilst a little stereotypical, at least had more depth than your average comedy character does.

It’s that time of year, when offices start going a bit crazy with decorations, Christmas lunches, office parties and goodness knows what else. A trend I have noticed is the Christmas jumper competition, and whilst your snowmen and santas are all well and good, I’ve found a couple of Christmas jumpers that might be slightly more fun to wear. There are loads of good Star Wars ones out there. “I find your lack of cheer disturbing,” is a good one, but I’ve picked the Yoda one, because you know, Yoda knows best. This one is kinda subtle in the sense that you have to have seen Stranger Things and know what it’s all about to get it. It’d be a good way to find your fellow Stranger Things fans at a party where you don’t know anyone. Wibbly wobbly timey wimey. There’s not much else to add. The design of Christmas jumpers to have a lot of lines of various patterns lends itself very well to platform gaming, so you have to go to the master: Mario. And of course, where would we be if we didn’t have a Back to the Future jumper?

One thing that had never really occurred to me about streaming music services until the last couple of weeks, is the access you have to things that you don’t need all the time. Sure, you want to create playlists of your favourite songs and you want to listen to the best band albums over and over again, but sometimes there is music you only require for a specific period of time - and Christmas is that time.

This appeared in an iTunes collection of Christmas films, and I couldn’t really remember it being particularly Christmassy. Of course after the first scene you see it’s snowing and it definitely is the festive period, so that goes to show how good my memory is. I had seen it before, but not for a while, and couldn’t really remember what occurred - aside from the general chaos.

Actually a bit of a disappointment. Considering we only watched Nativity so we could get to this one, the first film was leaps and bounds better. There wasn’t the same sort of story here, rather than a nice somewhat simple tale of a lie spinning out of control, instead we have David Tennant chasing kids across the hills and valleys of rural Wales. Very odd. The danger levels were much higher, and there was far more yelling and screaming.

It was actually a lot better than I’d expected it was going to be. The trailer for this one hadn’t looked all that good but the film delivered. Sweet and saccharine, with an overemphasis on the cuteness of children, but with plenty of heart and an actually interesting story. They also played out most of the nativity at the end which I thought was good - usually, films gloss over the end performance of a story like this.

Despite this being an advert (although it’s for free popcorn so who can argue?), it’s worth sharing because the minions get all Christmassy and start singing carols. If you watched their last attempt at singing and were put off, understandably, then do give them a second chance. I’m so glad the minions have their own film coming out, although do wonder if they will be required to communicate better and thus lose just a little bit of their charm.

It’s fair to say that if Anna Kendrick hadn’t been in this, we wouldn’t have watched it. She tweeted that the film was available on iTunes, so we clicked a look and got watching. It was good, and I’m glad we did click the link, but I did feel it didn’t quite go anywhere.

This year, I was quite excited to see the Top of the Pops Christmas special, because it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t seen much, if any, of the TOTP brand through the year. I used to watch the 1970s editions that were showing on BBC Four but soon bored of that. I remember last year, there was a festive edition on both Christmas Day and New Year’s, and although there were some acts who couldn’t even be bothered to change between programmes, it was still brilliant.

I used to be a total Grinch about Christmas. The entire concept offended me and I wanted nothing to do with it. I’d link to the many posts I wrote about boycotting the festive season, but really, I’m over it. I’ve mellowed in my old age. In reality, I’ve realised that my issue with Christmas is the same as the issue I have with most things - the pressure from society to do things you don’t want to do.

Overall this still holds up really well, a great story and pretty well acted throughout. I read or heard someone talking about re-watching this as an adult and how it just wasn’t as good because the scenes with the burglars were just too painful. It definitely was more difficult to watch but I still enjoyed it - even if I did have to cover my eyes on occasion.