By Dom Cioffi
So, here we are in the home stretch of the holiday season. With only days to go, the intensity of this glorious annual event is heating up.
As I mentioned a few columns ago, this is the part of the holiday rush that I love. Not because I inherently like chaos in my life, but rather, I love being calm while the world around me is frenetic.
I’m feeling calm because I worked tirelessly to get everything related to Christmas and New Year’s accomplished well before the actual days arrived. I had all my inside and outside decorations up right after Thanksgiving, all my presents purchased and wrapped by the first week of December, all my Christmas cards in the mail by the second week of December, and all my holiday party obligations well in order before they took place.
On top of that, I have enough vacation time saved up that I’m able to truly relax for the final two weeks of the year. Now I’ll just sit back and revel in not having to panic about anything.
One of the things I love to do at this point is go to the largest mall I can find to observe the mad rush of the season. I’ll grab a hot coffee and wander around, taking in the sights while watching the people as they frantically move about. Sometimes I’ll find a comfortable seat and just people watch for an hour or two.
Inevitably, I’ll close my eyes and just listen to the echoing voices as people move through the mall corridors. This usually causes me to doze off for a time (I’m always amazed at how easy I can fall asleep in the most populated places full of relentless noise).
Occasionally, I’ll also jump in my truck at night and drive around to look at the Christmas lights, using my artistic eye to analyze who bothered to think about their displays and who simply threw lights up with little concern.
But my absolute favorite moments surrounding Christmas happen when I’m sitting in front of my fireplace, scented candles burning, carols playing softly in the background, lights dimmed to a faint glow, and my Christmas tree fully lit up and glistening in the corner. Just sitting in my chair staring at this scene with nothing to worry about brings me immense joy.
I can honestly say that these peaceful evening moments far surpass the actual December 25th morning when really the celebration is supposed to occur.
Of course, navigating the holiday season in this way didn’t come naturally to me. In fact, it took years of getting frustrated from buying crappy presents at the last minute, putting up decorations with little time to enjoy them, and panicking at trying to get a Christmas card out so it would actually arrive before Christmas.
Year after year the holiday season would come and go and I’d be an anxious mess. And to make things worse, it seemed like I was starting to resent the whole experience.
I specifically remember a moment one year when I was at work complaining about the commercialism of Christmas when one of my coworkers called me out as being a total downer.
For some reason this struck a chord with me and made me realize I was the problem, not the holiday. After that, I made a concerted effort to better plan for the season.
It took me a few years, but eventually I learned to navigate the weeks leading up to Christmas and New Years in such a way that I was able to bring joy back into the experience.
Now I revel in the grandiose nature of it all, while trying to do my best to enjoy everything the season has to offer.
Grandiose would be a good work to describe some of the visuals in this week’s film, “Mortal Engines.” Set in an apocalyptic future, this picture imagines a world in which human survivors live and work on gigantic moving cities that traverse the landscape of the earth (you’ll have to see it to truly understand it).
Discovering that Peter Jackson (the mastermind behind “The Lord of the Rings” franchise) helped write this film had me thinking it was going to be an epic experience.
Unfortunately, while this movie did offer some stunning visuals and immense creative vision on the elemental structures, in the end it failed due to a ho-hum story arc.
Check this one out if you love creative science fiction experiences, just don’t plan on being wholly entertained by the people who inhabit this strange world.
A barren “C-” for “Mortal Engines.”
Got a question or comment for Dom? You can email him at moviediary@att.net.
