5 Christmas Specials that I'd like to See

I love Christmas TV specials. The Sad Sack and his pathetic tree, the miser's heart growing three sizes that day, and especially Granny Arbuckle rocking away many a lonely hour with her cats. (Charlie Brown, The Grinch, and Garfield specials respectively). So many wonderful specials, yet there always seem to be room for more. As a result, I thought I'd list my top five Christmas Specials that I want to see made.



5. How Santa Saved Christmas
Everyone has saved Christmas, and I mean everyone - Ernest P. Worrell (It's spelled right, trust me), Elmo, Inspector Gadget, Felix the Cat, Hanukkah Harry, Dogs, Elves, Bears, there's even a story of how a pimp saved Christmas (Thanks IMDB, I couldn't make that up if I tried). The one person that never saves Christmas is Santa. Come on! Is Santa Princess Peach from Super Mario Bros.? How many times does his kingdom need saving? Give me a Santa with a spine who runs into difficulty and doesn't need outside help to fix his problem. He has superpowers! Eternal life, a bag with an infinite number of presents, the ability to fly, and all the elf henchmen he could possibly need! COME ON SANTA MAN UP! If Ernest P. Worrell can save Christmas surely upi can as well!



4. The Christmas Eve Adventures of the South Pole Gnomes
I've always wondered why Christmas stories have no real bad guys. Sure, there's the Grinch, but he's redeemed. In A Christmas Carol, there's not a bad guy - Marley saves Scrooges eternal soul, Scrooge is redeemed, even the terrifying Ghost of Christmas Future is doing his task for the betterment of old Ebenezer. You could make an argument that the Magician in Frosty the Snowman who wants to take back his magic hat is not particularly pleasant, but Santa fixes Frosty and may even bring Hinkle a present if he writes that he's sorry a hundred zillion times. What the Christmas season needs is an all out war. Elves vs. Gnomes. Good vs. Evil. I'm imagining hand to hand combat, Rudolph yelling out, "Avenge me Blitzen," as he falls on the frozen tundra. The Gnomes want to destroy Santa's workshop, his workers, Christmas itself, and nothing will be safe until they are defeated once and for all. I'm thinking Dick Cheney could narrate.



3. Santa meets The Easter Bunny
These two fictional characters have been stealing Christian Holidays for decades so why not place them in a cheesy crossover special (ala The Jetsons meet the Flintstones). It could end with children that are not just entitled and greedy from Santa's presents, but also obese from the Easter Bunny's candy eggs. Best of all, when the children's teeth all fall out from soaking in their sugar bath, the Tooth Fairy could make a cameo and give the children cold hard cash. Also, there has to be a way to work a Leprechaun in there somehow.



2. The Ghost of Christmas Future
In this stunning documentary, Morgan Spurlock examines how Santa supports the West Virginia coal industry by requesting tons of the material every year to give to misbehaving children.* Santa's coal imports also mean excess CO2 emissions as children use said coal and thus: rising oceans, disappearing polar bears, and shifting temperature patterns. This tension between industry and environment has caused some to call for an end to the naughty list which would cause an increase in Santa importing Chinese toys and putting several thousand elves out of work. It could win an Emmy.


*Why does Santa bring coal to bad Children? Wouldn't that be a good thing when you're really cold? I think Santa should bring something useless like a random key that unlocks something in New Zealand. "You were a naughty child, here's a key. What for you ask? You'll never know Sisyphus, just keep trying different locks"



1. A Christian Christmas
Christian is a horrible adjective as it often means something that is inferior in quality that can't make it in the secular world. (My favorite "Christian" songs tend to come from secular artists Johnny Cash's "When the Man Comes Around" and The Dave Matthew's Band "Christmas Song" come to mind) With that in mind, I'd like to see a Christmas movie about the first Christmas (Jesus, manger, Mary, shepherds, angels, etc.) that doesn't look like it had a budget of $140, or sound like George Lucas wrote the dialogue. Garfield is great, but Jesus is better. It would be cool if a TV special came out that would demonstrate that fact.



MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Could Kermit win an Academy Award

I'm Muppet nut. Always have been and always will be. I enjoy Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, Emmit Otter's Jugband Christmas. If it has puppets and it originated in the mind of one James Maury Henson, I'm in (even if it is woefully age inappropriate). As a result, I'm outraged! Outraged I tell you that my beloved Muppets were snubbed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. (AKA the roughly 90 people who decide who is nominated and awarded Golden Globes - you read that right, 90)

A nomination in the "Best Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy" would have been nice. Ok HFPA, you went with a cancer comedy (50/50), the female version of The Hangover (Bridesmaids), Woody Allen's latest wonder (Midnight in Paris)*, a British biopic of an American icon (My Week with Marilyn), and the first black and white serious contender since Schindler's List, and the first silent film serious contender since???? The Gold Rush? (The Artist). I get it. Really, no matter that Jason Segal's screenplay is brilliant. No matter that the movie is everything a Muppet movie should be. It's still a Muppet movie. A nomination as Best Picture was a bit of a long shot.

That being said... would a Best Original Song nomination been too much to ask for? I know with heavy hitters like Elton John, Chris Cornell, Madonna, and Mary J. Blige its a crowded field. Still, show me a song as sorrowful as "Picture in my Head". Show me a song as exuberant as "Life's a Happy Song". Show me a song as ridiculously fun as "Man or Muppet". I dare you Hollywood Foreign Press. I would accuse you of being anti-felt, but you nominated the brilliant Rainbow Connection from the 1979 film, "The Muppet Movie". It may have been beat out by Bette Midler's The Rose, but at least it was nominated. No love this time? The Shame The Shame.

That being said, there is still a ray of hope - The Oscars. Not only did Rainbow Connection get a nomination, so too did The First Time it Happened, from "The Great Muppet Caper." But since that time, due largely to uneven outings from the Muppets, not a single glance from the Academy. Thirty years.

So will this be the year? I have to think a nomination is in the offing.

• The Oscars have a long history of awarding the work of artists on the strength of their past work rather than the current offering (how else could one explain Sandra Bullock beating Gabourey Sidibe in 2009?)
  
• "The Muppets" is almost certainly the strongest offering by creatures made of felt since "The Muppet Movie" and according to Rottentomatoes.com is even a better movie than that. (97% Fresh vs. 90% Fresh) The best Muppet Movie of all time and no nomination? I certainly hope not.
  
• The songwriter of many of the tunes is Bret McKenzie. Yep. That's Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords fame.
  

All I am saying Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is Give Felt a Chance!


* BTW Midnight in Paris is fantastic.

In my college diversity class, one of the things that we learned about was generational differences. It was one of the most interesting class periods of the semester. We broke down and analyzed the Veteran Generation (born between 1921 and 1943) the Boomer Generation (born between 1944 and 1961) the GenXers (born between 1962 and 1980) and the Millennials (aka Nexters, aka Generation Y - born between 1981 and 2000). It is important to note that we talked in generalities and one size does not fit all in a given generation (the same is true when dealing with religion, race, gender, etc.).

The thing in the class that intrigued me most was how the Gen Xers - in comparison to other generations - don't have heroes. None.


Veteran heroes were heroes molded by World War II and the Great Depression - Patton, Audie Murphy - . Gen Xers could have gone that route, that is if Vietnam hadn't been such a massive failure of foreign policy.

GenXer parent's (Boomers) heroes tended to be idealistic world leaders - JFK, Martin Luther King Jr. and the ilk -Gen Xers?- Come on! This is the generation that started coming of age in the mid 1970s. Watergate, Iran Contra, all the way up to Clinton and the infamous blue dress, scandal after scandal after scandal. Speckled into a grouping of generally untrustworthy politicians were Ford, and Carter. Both may have been options if Ford hadn't pardoned his predecessor and if Carter hadn't been too nice to be effective.

The Millennials - the generation after GenXers have gone a strange direction when it comes to their heroes. The generation that is about achievement have as hero figures like Michael Jordan and Bill Gates - self-made billionaires and those who achieved great things in sports and media. The GenXers had a chance in the world outside of politics and war. Why not John Lennon? A former Beatle who gave up a successful solo career for a number of years to focus on Yoko and Sean, he seems to exemplify much of what GenX stood for - balance in work and play. Lennon - shot dead the last year of Gen Xers being born. As a last gasp at a hero, maybe Gen Xers could have had as a hero the rock star that was the anti-rock star. Give up Kurt Cobain - collapsed under the weight of his own celebrity (not to mention a serious Heroin addiction) and killed himself when GenXers were between the ages of 14 and 32.

So where does that leave GenXers? Do heroes matter? I'm not sure... I'm a cusp species, stretched between GenX and the Millenials, apparently my heroes are super-achievers and/or nonexistent. Still trying to figure out what category heroic teachers, parents, and pastors fit in.

Loss and the Morning News

My local morning news anchor left for Milwaukee. I found out yesterday when she announced on air that it was her last day. I like to have as many things leave their mark on me as is possible - even morning news anchors - but it in this case, the effect is negligible. I will say that I will remember her piercing blue eyes, in much the same way I remember Jack Del Rio's eyes when he played for the Vikings as a Middle Linebacker. Beyond that nada (much like Del Rio).

Her leaving has me contemplating what I've left behind in my past. I've left jobs as a soccer referee, a dishwasher, a cashier, a concessionist, a camp counselor, a canoe guide, a meat and dairy stocker, and a youth director. I've left a High School, a college, and nine places of residence. There are people out there - friends that at one point in time were incredibly important to me - that I no longer know. I have lost an aunt, four grandparents, and my father to the ultimate equalizer - death. (Not to mention many other acquaintances, friends, and relations).

An ancient philosopher named Heraclitus once said, you can never step into the same stream twice. And while the stream is different - different water, different flow, different shoreline - so are we. There's sorrow there, because all change - good or bad - is loss. This loss is the recognition that our world is no longer the same, and never will be what it was before. Maybe I learned more than I thought from the dearly departed morning news anchor with the piercing blue eyes.

My Creed

The Balieyan Creed

I.
I believe in God - most of the time.
I believe in Jesus - most of the time.
I believe in the Holy Spirit - most of the time.
God believes in me - all of the time - at least I think God does.

II.
I believe faith is the constantly evolving state of affairs between me, God, and the community of faith.
My faith is not easily categorized.
I am a Lutheran, a Methodist, a Catholic, an Evangelical, a Charismatic, an Emergent, a Quaker, and a Liberationist.

I am not a mix and match Christian.
Not all religions say the same thing.
To believe this is intellectual laziness.
I am a Christian

Other faiths have something to teach me.
Buddhists - mediation
Muslims - the importance of prayer
Jews - a sense of history
Agnostics - a sense of honesty
I am a Christian
My faith has something to teach others.

III.
I don't always get God.
God always pursues me.
I don't always believe in God.
God always pursues me.

I have moments of supernatural clarity.
I have moments where I feel enclosed in a coffin of doubt.
Sometimes I think
This. is. all. there. is.
God always pursues me.

I believe in absolute truth.
I don't believe I know exactly what absolute truth looks like.
I do believe that I have had glimpses of the absolute truth - and not even known it.

I believe in heaven.
I believe in hell.
I don't know with certainty who goes where.
I anticipate being surprised with who is where.
I hope I am not surprised with where I am.

IV.
I believe we are blessed so as to bless others.
I believe we are generally selfish.
I believe the love of God supersedes any national boundary.
I believe God cares more about our hearts than our politics.

I believe the church has very little grace.
I believe there is more grace in the church than anywhere else.
I believe the church has enormous potential for good - and bad.

V.
I believe endless debates about evolution are not a good use of the church's time.
I do believe feeding the hungry is a good use of the church's time.
I believe endless debates about homosexuality are not a good use of the church's time.
I do believe making disciples is a good use of the church's time.

VI.
I believe in God the father - most of the time.

VII.
I believe in the sacrificial death of Jesus - most of the time.

VII.
I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit - most of the time.

IX.
God pursues me - all of the time. - I think.

Anyone who's a trivia buff may find it useful to know that Meet the Press is network television's longest running program. It started in November of 1947 which means it has been on almost twice as long as Saturday Night Live (the cultural benchmark of my parent's generation) and more than three times longer than The Simpsons (the cultural benchmark of my generation). What attracted me to it initially was that there was nothing else on at 1:00 am on Sunday mornings. You see, when the lobby is empty, your Facebook friends have gone to bed, and the thousands of pages you read last semester in your return to college have temporarily zapped your lifelong love of reading, television becomes your refuge. So I decided to turn on the cultural benchmark of my grandparent's generation - Meet the Press.

Almost immediately I was hooked. It was so informative. The moderator actually made politicians get off their talking points. I had long ago given up on the concept that there was such a thing as a balanced and honest newscast, and here it was, the grail that the nerd in me had been searching for without even knowing it. I likely have overstated how much I like this program, but it was refreshing to watch and made me think about the news from years past. Edward R. Murrow brought down Joseph McCarthy. Woodward and Bernstein brought down Nixon. Walter Cronkite helped bring an end to the Vietnam War. All of this was before I was born. Today news is, as Homer Simpson would say, "infotainment".

I can't help but wonder if this change is more in the American public than the news media itself. I think most people today prefer to be entertained than informed. I've heard that the U.S. media has a liberal bias. It may (that's a debate for another day), but my belief is that the bigger bias within our media is a bias towards sensationalism. What sells? Controversy. Heated arguments. Glenn Beck. Keith Olberman. Pit two contenders in a battle where there is no middle ground, and the result is polarization. Couple this with a public whose attention spans have been zapped by too much television, too much computer time, too many video games, and you are looking at a public debate that is a cliff notes version of reality.

The most famous political debate of U.S. history might have been those between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. I've been fascinated reading excerpts from these in my Civil War and Reconstruction class. The first candidate would get up and speak for an hour, the second candidate would get up and speak for an hour and a half, then the first candidate would speak to the assembled crowd another half hour. People would sit and listen to a three hour debate where a candidate at most spoke twice! It wouldn't work today. People crave simplicity.

To prove my point: the Republican Party recently released its "Pledge to America" basically a manifesto about what is wrong with America and what steps can be taken to fix the problems. I decided today to look it up. The document is 48 pages long. 24 of these are filled with the table of contents, pictures, and section headings with just a handful of words (one example: A plan to reform Congress and restore trust). The other 24 pages are pictures and text, text alone, and pages with graphs. This is AMAZING to me. One of our two political parties has a manifesto with as many pages devoted to pictures as to text. (Though to be fair the picture of Mount Rushmore is almost as beautiful as that of the cowboy roping steers). With as much money as our political parties do on polling and understanding the psychology of the American voter, I have to believe that the reason the conservative ideas in our country are best represented by using patriotic pictures rather than lengthy textual explanations of concepts such as limited government and lower taxes, is that is what works best with to garner votes from the American people. As for what the 24 pages of text said, I don't know...

I only read the cliff notes.