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A friend and I recently chatted about this year’s holiday season. She speculated that the parties would be wild and plentiful after the minimal gatherings COVID-19 required. We wondered if it would be similar to the rowdiness of the Roaring ’20s that came on the heels of the pall of World War I.
In some ways, we’re out of practice for holiday gatherings, aren’t we? Things seem to be sneaking up on us all. While my dance card has a little breathing room, at this point in life, I like it that way.
Sometimes, especially when it’s cold, snuggling up on the sofa with a warm blanket and watching a movie is the best way to spend an evening. The problem at our house, when we contemplate having a movie night, is the endless realm of possibilities. We are all so frustrated by the time we find one we agree upon (if we ever do) that the mood has passed.
Bob and Tiffany Borel, newlyweds in Lafayette, have what could be a fun solution. They’ve built a game from Movies with Mikey’s YouTube Channel that asked the question, “Is Diehard a Christmas movie?”
They’ve upped the ante and decided to have a Christmas Movie-Off (my name, not theirs). They each pick a movie and try to determine the level of Christmas each movie is. They have rules and an elaborate but easy to follow point system, inspired by Movies with Mikey.
“We looked at their rules — what they were weighing. We wanted to do our own,” Bob Borel said. “There are 10 things we rated them on. Each is one point.”
The 10 aspects for points the Borels are using are as follows:
- Does the movie take place during Christmas? (one point)
- Does a Christmas party happen? (one point)
- The number of Christmas songs (one point per song)
- Which movie does their 11-year-old son prefer? (one point)
- Which movie has a higher score on Rotten Tomatoes? (one point)
- Is there a family tragedy? (one point)
- Is there a Gift-of-the-Magi or some other gift giving crisis? (one point)
- Are there talking animals or objects? (one point)
- Is there some sort of Christmas existential dread? (one point)
- Does someone have too much Christmas cheer? (one point)
The Borels are each picking a movie per weekend. They watch it as a family and score them accordingly. So far, Bob is winning “because I picked National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” he said.
Two movies in, Bob Borel has some alternative categories others might want to consider:
- Is there a Christmas movie within the Christmas movie?
- Is there Christmas shopping scene?
- Is there Christmas decorating going on?
- Is there a surprise family visit?
- Does someone say, “It’s a Christmas miracle!”?
The Borels play rock, paper, scissors to see who announces his or her movie first.
“So if she picks something like ‘Love Actually,’ I’ll pick one of my lower-scoring movies,” he said. “I love the gamification of stuff.”
As do I. I also appreciate that this would require advance planning and there would be no endless scrolling looking for the best thing to watch.
For the record, Bob Borel picked first with “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” which got 14 points while Tiffany Borel’s choice of “Edward Scissorhands” got 7 points.
“That might have been her playing the defensive move — picking Edward Scissorhands after I picked mine,” he said. “She’s pretty smart too.”
One weekend in, Bob Borel is wondering if they need to modify their rules and only give one point in general if there are any Christmas songs.
“That’s kind of the fun of this,” he said. “We start with one set of rules and tweak as necessary to make it better.”
Either way we go, I believe it’s a fun way to watch some holiday movies with the family. No doubt, we will settle on our own rules after some hearty conversation and then settle in to enjoy the show (and keep points while we go, as I’m pretty sure I’ve got the winning movie in mind).
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