First Day of Christmas
Dec. 25th, 2011 12:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aThe holidays fell in a very agreeable configuration this year, with Christmas Eve occurring on a Saturday, so Kimberly & I spent the day together & also did many of our standard Christmas activities, as we have other plans for tomorrow.
In the early afternoon we went to our yearly Christmas movie, and this year picked the American Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. We both thought it was an excellent movie that was quite well directed, and that beyond that it was a very good adaptation of the book. We were both impressed in particular by how much the movie showed rather than told, depending on an intelligent audience. It reminded me of what The Killing tried to do, and increasingly failed at week-by-week. Dragon Tattoo was also an appropriate Christmas movie, as it ends right on Christmas, with a rather dramatic attempt to give a gift.
(I later looked at some reviews of this Dragon Tattoo, and was bemused by the snobby professional critics, most of whom said, "Why would you ever want to go to this American movie when there's an excellent subtitled release?" I often think more film critics should be out of jobs, as they show such poor understanding of their audience.)
I'm now even more excited about the upcoming paperback release of the (sadly) last book in the Millennium trilogy.
After the movie, we went out for a slightly early dinner. We had a somewhat larger set of options than usual, since we were doing this on Christmas eve rather than day, and ended up getting to some Middle Eastern fast food on Center, which was generally tasty (but we only went there after our traditional walk to a great Vietnamese restaurant, which sadly was closed even on Christmas Eve).
We rested for a while in the early evening, and I think we each dozed for a bit, but afterward we went out for our annual tour of Christmas lights. Since a few years ago, we've been doing this on bike, which allows us to see a lot more lights. This year, we rode up to Elmwood, then from there to Rockridge, turned around, and ducked back into some of the slightly less savory areas of North Oakland and South Berkeley on our return trip.
This house was my favorite, primarily for the awesome rotating dradle:
Sadly, all the snowmen, ducks, and other stuff didn't show up well ...
This one was nice primarily for its comprehensiveness:
And this was part of a bizarre set of three houses many of which had identical or similar inflatable figures:
We finished off the evening with a second Christmas movie, Die Hard, a classic from my youth that one of my friends, Scott H., loved. It stands up well, and continues to be a fun movie with definite Christmas themings. The only point when I was knocked out of the movie was when John McClane drops explosives down to the ground floor of the building, causing a huge explosion. It gave me 9/11 flashbacks, as did the end, when bearer bonds are raining down from the ruined building. Still, as I said, fun, and amusing to see David Addison in an action role (before Bruce Willis got all muscular and bald).
Oh, and I forgot about early presents!
My friend Evan very sweetly (ha!) dropped by some Christmas cookies and a card while we were out today. I tried out the cookies while watching Die Hard (very tasty!), so they definitely added to my Christmas enjoyment. Kimberly had some too!
And I received some hardcover comic collections that I treated myself to thanks to money that my Dad and Mary kindly sent. I've already started reading The Secret Society of Super Villains Volume One, which I've been waiting to read in its complete form for decades. (I once had a smattering of individual issues.) I've also got Legion of Super Heroes: The Curse and X-Men: Marvel Mutant Massacre waiting to be read.
More Christmasy stuff tomorrow.
In the early afternoon we went to our yearly Christmas movie, and this year picked the American Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. We both thought it was an excellent movie that was quite well directed, and that beyond that it was a very good adaptation of the book. We were both impressed in particular by how much the movie showed rather than told, depending on an intelligent audience. It reminded me of what The Killing tried to do, and increasingly failed at week-by-week. Dragon Tattoo was also an appropriate Christmas movie, as it ends right on Christmas, with a rather dramatic attempt to give a gift.
(I later looked at some reviews of this Dragon Tattoo, and was bemused by the snobby professional critics, most of whom said, "Why would you ever want to go to this American movie when there's an excellent subtitled release?" I often think more film critics should be out of jobs, as they show such poor understanding of their audience.)
I'm now even more excited about the upcoming paperback release of the (sadly) last book in the Millennium trilogy.
After the movie, we went out for a slightly early dinner. We had a somewhat larger set of options than usual, since we were doing this on Christmas eve rather than day, and ended up getting to some Middle Eastern fast food on Center, which was generally tasty (but we only went there after our traditional walk to a great Vietnamese restaurant, which sadly was closed even on Christmas Eve).
We rested for a while in the early evening, and I think we each dozed for a bit, but afterward we went out for our annual tour of Christmas lights. Since a few years ago, we've been doing this on bike, which allows us to see a lot more lights. This year, we rode up to Elmwood, then from there to Rockridge, turned around, and ducked back into some of the slightly less savory areas of North Oakland and South Berkeley on our return trip.
This house was my favorite, primarily for the awesome rotating dradle:
Sadly, all the snowmen, ducks, and other stuff didn't show up well ...
This one was nice primarily for its comprehensiveness:
And this was part of a bizarre set of three houses many of which had identical or similar inflatable figures:
We finished off the evening with a second Christmas movie, Die Hard, a classic from my youth that one of my friends, Scott H., loved. It stands up well, and continues to be a fun movie with definite Christmas themings. The only point when I was knocked out of the movie was when John McClane drops explosives down to the ground floor of the building, causing a huge explosion. It gave me 9/11 flashbacks, as did the end, when bearer bonds are raining down from the ruined building. Still, as I said, fun, and amusing to see David Addison in an action role (before Bruce Willis got all muscular and bald).
Oh, and I forgot about early presents!
My friend Evan very sweetly (ha!) dropped by some Christmas cookies and a card while we were out today. I tried out the cookies while watching Die Hard (very tasty!), so they definitely added to my Christmas enjoyment. Kimberly had some too!
And I received some hardcover comic collections that I treated myself to thanks to money that my Dad and Mary kindly sent. I've already started reading The Secret Society of Super Villains Volume One, which I've been waiting to read in its complete form for decades. (I once had a smattering of individual issues.) I've also got Legion of Super Heroes: The Curse and X-Men: Marvel Mutant Massacre waiting to be read.
More Christmasy stuff tomorrow.