Tighten your sash and grunt like a big dumb ape, because this week we’re honoring the classic holiday tradition of identity theft! That’s right, we’re talking about ‘The Santa Clause,’ the 1994 family comedy that took Tim Allen from tool time to yule time. We talk about Bernard the sexy dreadlocked elf, casual Christmas falafel, toxic masculinity, and … QAnon? It’s all hot cocoa and body horror down at the Podcast For Christmas headquarters, so shove a kayak under the tree and let’s Krumholtz!
Tag Archives: movies
‘Four Christmases,’ Four Americas
This week, we venture into the dark heart of the American experiment with a nativity play, a bounce house, and some of your favorite distressingly right-wing actors. It’s ‘Four Christmases,’ a certifiable not-classic that nevertheless holds some highly specific value for our hosts. We talk about childlessness by choice, Peak Vince Vaughn Territory, singers who act in movies but don’t sing in them, and the undervalued comedy stylings of Reese Witherspoon. It’s a nightmare landscape peopled with backyard wrestlers and fat Jesus babies, so grab your Velveeta dip and your pregnancy test and let’s quadruple the Christmas!
‘Twas ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ – Season 3 Premiere!
Welcome to the third season of A Podcast For Christmas! And what better way to kick off the Christmas season than with a Halloween movie? In this season premiere episode, we talk about ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas,’ the classic Tim Burton film that is somehow not directed or even written by Tim Burton. There’s pumpkin kings and oogie boogie men and no small amount of cultural appropriation afoot, so grab your candy corn and your Jack Skellington hand puppets and let’s make Halloween a Christmas thing!
Hot Christmas (Bonus Episode)
It’s that time of year again (kind of)! Christmas in July is upon us, so take a break from the godawful heat and smothering humidity to enjoy some outtakes from Season One of A Podcast For Christmas. We’ll be back this fall with more weather-appropriate banter to put you in that cookie-baking, stocking-hanging, crippling-anxiety-at-the-thought-of-spending-hours-with-family-members-who-vote-wrong-and-don’t-mind-telling-you-why spirit!
‘She Wrote’ is Both Too Much and Too Little
***SPOILERS AHEAD*** Do you yearn for the days when print media was king, when intrepid newspaper editors-in-chiefs traversed the lower forty-eight just to win back estranged Dear Abbies? If so, you might just be the writer of Christmas She Wrote, in which New York therapist-turned-advice-columnist Kayleigh (Danica McKellar) is unceremoniously fired by Tripp (Dylan Neal), the handsome herald of the paper’s new draconian regime. And where do wounded Manhattanites run when their high-powered carpets are yanked out from under them? Back home, of course—in this case, to the snowy hamlet of Pineberry, California. And when the new publishers catch hell from Kayleigh’s devoted readership, what’s a handsome herald to do but fly across the country to win her back? Does he fall under the sugary spell of small town America? Find out on another rip-roaring hour of A Podcast For Christmas!
A ‘Timeless’ Tale of Fridge Logic
***SPOILERS AHEAD*** Nothing says Christmas quite like … time travel? In our latest yuletide adventure, we dive headfirst into quantum plot mechanics with A Timeless Christmas, in which a wealthy turn-of-the-century something-or-other (Ryan Paevey) stumbles a hundred-ish years into future and winds up in a very 2019 idea of what 2020 would have been like. Luckily, he’s still in his own home, which is now a museum kept up by the efforts of a newly-single historian (Erin Cahill). Will true love carry them through the awkwardness of navigating a 102-year age difference? Find out on another mindbending episode of A Podcast For Christmas!
This ‘Christmas Sweater’ Does Not Spark Joy
***SPOILERS AHEAD*** There’s an old saying: “Never kiss a man in a Christmas sweater.” Okay, maybe it’s not an old saying, or a saying at all, but Maggie (Ashley Williams) sure seems to think it is! She’s a schoolteacher on a snowy military base who “accidentally” beats a Christmas-sweater-wearing architect named Lucas (Niall Matter) nearly to death with the business end of a Douglas fir. Now Lucas is out of commission and Maggie is feeling guilty. Luckily, there’s only one way to rebalance the universe when you’ve broken a stranger’s ankle: Lock him up in your guest hose and force-feed him gingerbread Frank Lloyd Wrights until he falls in love with you! What could go Frank Lloyd Wrong? Find out on another death-defying hour of A Podcast For Christmas!
’12th Date’ Rolls Up a Buche de Noel Full of Charm
***SPOILERS AHEAD*** Next up in our yuletide safari through the jungle of jingle is On the 12th Date of Christmas, in which Iowa native Jennifer (Mallory Jansen) tries to make a name for herself as a game creator in cutthroat Chicago while butting heads with Aidan (Tyler Hynes), her reluctant and standoffish collaborator. As part of a Christmas-themed scavenger hunt game, they are all but forced to spend a romantic week together, even as they vie for the same promotion. Do sparks begin to fly? Is there baking involved? Are mulled spices on the menu? Find out on another thrilling hour of A Podcast For Christmas!
Love Grows Where ‘Jingle Bell Bride’ Goes
***SPOILERS AHEAD*** First up in our jaunt through this season’s quaint and cozy offerings is Jingle Bell Bride, in which an ambitious New York wedding planner (Julie Gonzalo) finds herself marooned in deepest Alaska. The chilly frontier is made warmer by the welcoming locals, one of whom is a handsome flower merchant (Ronnie Rowe Jr.) whose easygoing manner might be just what our misplaced Manhattanite needs. All this and an elephant dart full of Christmas cheer on this episode of A Podcast For Christmas!
Introducing: A Podcast For Christmas
It’s that time of year again! And what better way to close out one of the most surreal years in human memory than with a deep dive down some of the most wholesome rabbit holes basic cable has to offer? Join hosts Angela Harmon and Mike Fisher as they traverse the glittering, peppermint-scented landscape of late-capitalist Americana that is the Hallmark Christmas movie. Every week, we sample another of Hallmark Channel’s maddeningly approachable wares and weigh it on our very scientific scale to see just how snowy, small-towny, and downright Christmassy it is. So hop into your elfin jam-jams, pour yourself a cup of hot cocoa, pop a few Lexapro, and let’s jingle!
a podcast for christmas 