Ten of The Best... Things About Christmas

oh my god guys it's like 3 days until Christmas *squeals*
Now, I absolutely adore Christmas, I just love it so much. So I figured since it's nearly Christmas, why not do a Christmassy blog for a change and ramble on about why I love the 25th of December so much.
So here is my list of the Ten of the Best Things About Christmas.

1) Food

Is Christmas dinner ever not amazing? The answer to that is no, Christmas dinner is always amazing. There's just so much food that you don't tend to have throughout the year like turkey (sorry Rhona), and aaaall the puddings. To be honest I don't really eat much of the traditional dinner as I hate stuffing and vegetables, but my god do I eat a lot of turkey over the festive period.

2) Chocolate

Still technically food, but another thing that I consume in mightily unhealthy quantities is chocolate.Whether it's chocolate santas, coins or reindeer, chocolate is one thing that is always around at Christmas and always enjoyable.


3) Lights On Houses

I'll admit, there's a fine line between beautiful and tacky, and there's definitely a house in Crosswood that left tacky far behind and went straight for 'wtf?', but is there anything nicer than driving past a house that has amazing lights on it? Well yes, there are many things, but light displays are just a way of making even dark plain houses look all festive and jolly. Until you go to America and they have light/sound displays...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jWN5Myxtwg

Beautiful

4. Christmas Trees & Decorations

I love walking into people's houses and seeing them covered in Christmas decorations with a massive Christmas tree in one room. In our house, we have one big Christmas tree and 4 mini ones, because we're clearly cool people. There's just something about seeing how different people decorate trees,and all the different types of decorations that can make a house look magical. Plus my tree has this on it. Beat that...

I came in on a Christmas baaaall

5) Christmas Jumpers

Once a cheesy thing Toddler-You was forced into wearing by your parents, now the coolest things ever. Man I love Christmas jumpers. If it were socially acceptable I would wear Christmas jumpers all year round. Unfortunately though, it's not, so I can't. Maybe one day *sniffle*

Year-round equality for Xmas Jumpers

6. Christmas Clothes

Yes, I am counting this as a separate thing to jumpers. Personally, I own a Santa outfit style tshirt, and a Santa onesie, both of which will be getting worn in public on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day respectively and nothing anyone can say or do will make me change my mind about this.

7. Presents

Now, personally, I like buying presents as much as I like getting them. Call me selfish for saying I like getting presents, but I dare you to disagree. Except for that one year when I was 14 and all EVERYONE bought me was Soap And Glory. Not sure if they were giving me a hint, or if it was just popular. I'd prefer the latter.

I have a slight confession to make here. I saw something online which I thought would be the perfect Christmas present for a specific person. And so I came up with a plan. I offered to choose the names for Secret Santa which made it seem like I was just being nice when in actual fact I had the ulterior motive of manipulating the results so I was buying for the person I had seen the present for. I am a (not very) Evil Genius.


8. Hot Chocolateeee

There is nothing better after coming inside from the freezing cold, windy, wet and generally horrible Scottish weather than getting a nice warm (not too hot) mug of cocoa. Absolutely nothing. Add some whipped cream and you've got the best reason to go outside in your hands.

9. Christmas Music!

We own about 7 cds that my dad made from all different Christmas songs, and we didn't even use all the songs available. In short, Christmas music is amazing. Whether it's sad (Coldplay), happy (take your pick), childish (Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer) or by the Pogues, everyone has a Christmas song that they love and that makes them feel festive. Although I have about 25 personal favourites, Shakin Stevens' Merry Christmas Everyone and Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody have to be my two absolute favourite Christmas songs ever.


10. Family

Aww look, a cheesy one to end on. Personally, I view Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day as family days and I would never spend them with friends or out clubbing (future relationships may change that). But at the moment, I spend those three days with both close and extended family, with the exception of a tradition of a Chinese on Christmas Eve with the Hinds in one of our houses which isn't happening this year because they're flying over to sunny South Africa, the lucky buggers. But I will never understand people who go out clubbing on Christmas Eve. Are you crazy? You'll be all tired for Santa coming!



Picking 10 things was hard because there are so many great things about Christmas, but I had to narrow it down as otherwise you'd be here reading this blog until after Christmas and you'd even miss all the leftover turkey.
Other contenders for the list were; snow, Santa coming round the street, cards, making bets on whether Buble will suddenly reappear with a Christmas album after a year of being absent, anticipation and waking up to find a full stocking at the end of your bed (I swear I'm 19 not 5)

This blog was short for a few reasons: 1, I don't want to boring, 2, the dog jumped on my laptop and broke the spacebar and down arrow so typing this has been hell and 3, it's 3.41am and I'm starting to get tired.


So yeah, here are the reasons why I like Christmas. Leave a comment below giving your reasons for Christmas, whether there's 10 or just 1, I'd be interested to see what other people love about the most wonderful time of the year.


And last but not least:

Ten Of The Best... 2013 Films

So I realised the other day that I never finished my 2012 film list, and haven't actually gotten around to writing another blog since June. I don't even think that anyone this blog is intended for actually goes on Google Plus anymore, but I decided that the main reason we started doing these blogs was so it was a way to update the others on our lives etc, and since everyone's still away off doing university things, there was no reason for it to end. I mean, we're all still in different places and doing different things, so why not?

So since it's December I'm going to write my list of the top ten films that have been released this year (so far). The Hobbit 2 would probably be on this list, but I haven't seen it yet and there are already so many good films that I'm going to ignore it. Same for Thor 2, which I also haven't seen because my dad forgot I said I wanted to see it, and thought Lauren had said she wanted to see it, so took her instead. I may have shed a tear. Or a few hundred...

Moving on, to be eligible for this list, the film had to be released in 2013. And it had to be pretty damn good. Also you will probably notice that there is a general theme, and that these are mostly (if not all) action films and no arty farty films (sorry Rhona). Apparently I'm more of a "omg explosion boner!" than "omg deep thinking and beautiful cinema techinques!"

So here is my list (in no particular order) of my Top 10 of The Best 2013 Films: Enjoy!


1. IRON MAN THREE

First of, don't even start Melissa. You were wrong, this film *was* awesome. Guys, this film was soo awesome. It had RDJ being as brilliant as ever, it had looooads of Iron Man suits, and perhaps most importantly it had consequences. Far too rarely do we see a superhero physically affected by previous battles. I mean, sure, Bruce Wayne lost all his knee cartilage but a simple magical brace sorted that out (which is super stupid. Take it from someone who damaged their knee cartilage, it was stupid). Yet in this film, Iron Man stops being a brazen hero and becomes more human, and thus a much better character because of it. This was also my last ever 3D movie *cries :(
Also, omg explosion boner!




2. STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

I looove Star Trek. Loove it. I've seen all the episodes of all the various series more times than is socially acceptable, but this is one of my favourite ST films.
This can be summed up in 5 words: Chris Pine and Benedict Cumberbatch. Okay, they're not the only reasons, but they're both awesome (and hot, so what? I'm shallow) and make the film that much better. Also Karl Urban and Simon Pegg and everyone else. Plus I know that the storyline is Wrath Of Kahn with Kirk dying instead of Spock, but it was done differently and is just as good, if not slightly better. Man I love everything about this film. Everything.




3. THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE


My god that's a beautiful poster. If I had any wall space left whatsoever, this poster would be mine.

I'm not going to write much about this, because there's a large chance that not all of you guys have seen it, but I will say that I loved the book, and I absolutely loved the adaptation. It was well written, incredibly well acted (hey Jennifer) and was just absolutely superb.









4.  MONSTERS UNIVERSITY

I feel absolutely no shame about this being here. It was amazing. Monsters Inc was the first film I *ever* saw in the cinema, and I love it, so my expectations for MU were so super high I was expecting to be disappointed. Luckily for me, it was the exact opposite. It was so clever, with loads of nods to the original film, and lots of humour for the not-so-young viewers who were kids when the first one came out. My biggest fear during the film was that it was going to  have a 'disney' ending. When they broke all the scream jars, everyone would be all "omg wow, you've graduated early! you're so great! have a job as scarers!" so I was over the moon when this didn't happen. So so happy and impressed with this movie as a whole. Plus I want the baby Mike as a pet. Someone buy me baby Mike.



5. WARM BODIES

I so did not expect to like this movie. So much so that it was the first movie that I have ever watched online and not gone to the cinema to see. But holy zombies I loved it. I liked that it wasn't your typical romance story (boke), but it also wasn't your typical zombie story. I love both the lead actors for their previous work, and both were impressive in this, especially Teresa Palmer, who managed to make you believe that she was falling in love with a zombie. The film was subtle, and cute and not as Twilight-y as some of the trailers made it look. A genuinely cute wee film that I seriously fell in love with.





6. JACK THE GIANT SLAYER



Judge me all you want, this was actually a pretty good film. Except for the wee pigs getting skewered, and soldiers getting their heads non-grossly bitten off, I loved everything about it. It wasn't your standard crappy fantasy story remake, it had panache. It had Ewan McGregor being all Ewan McGregor-y (read: awesome) and it was funny. It was just a good, fun movie, it's as simple as that. Plus, more Nicholas Hoult, which is always good.









7. R.I.P.D

I'm not even going to go into this one too much. It got absolutely slaaated by the critics, but I actually really enjoyed it. Yes the acting wasn't amazing or anything, but it was just plain old simple fun. And isn't that what a movie is all about? Being entertained? Because I certainly was.
Even if it is basically Men In Black without a fresh prince (there, I said it).





8. THE WOLVERINE

 Okay, it's getting to the stage where my reason for liking every single film is "it was fun." Which is true, but also boring to read. I like anything Marvel, I like the X-Men, I like Hugh Jackman when he isn't lip synching along to hundreds of tiny kittens being strangled (a la Les Mis) and I like the character. Yes, this film did go on *slightly* too long, in that the first part of the film was awesome and epic and cool and the last half hour was like "oh yay, another baddie, another pointless fight scene. oh now he has a weird suit? yay.... another fight".
But still, a pretty great film.




9. PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS

Ha ha, did you actually get this far down the list and not think this would be on here? Well sorry, you were wrong, of course it's on here! You fool! God I love Percy Jackson. I love the story, the characters, the cast, the mythology, the action, Logan Lerman's face, the humour, everything. I am just an absolutely massive PJ fan. Absolutely. I feel that I should be able to fault this film (and I'm 100% defiante definite that pretty much everyone else can) but I just cannot. It's simply perfect.
(you may ask why this is so late in the list if I think it's perfect and the reason for that is that this list was created from firstly the posters on my wall, and then by reading Wikipedia to see which films were actually released this year, and this was released not too long ago)


10. CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2

Last, but by no means least is this little beauty of a film. Now don't get me wrong, this wasn't as epic and inventive and just pure genius as the first one, but I don't think anything good be. Give me colourful foodimals, and Neil Patrick Harris saying "Steeeeve" over and over again and I'm satisfied. The film was loud, bright, chaotic, and colourful and all the better for it. And seriously, you wouldn't think you'd laugh at "There's a leek in the boat!" *turn to leek who screams*, but you do. And then you laugh at it again the second time around. Yes it's not exactly realistic, (there is a giant Taco-dile), but this is what makes it great. It's for kids, but the jokes are actually funny and not stupid, and it's just an absolutely epic and fun film.




So this was my Top Ten list, which really taught me that I didn't go to the cinema a lot this year at all. So that will change next year.
To give you an idea of what the other contenders were, I also saw: Oz, The Great and Powerful (about 85% of the film was cgi, not good), GI Joe: Retaliation, Spring Breakers, The Host (not as terrible as I was expecting, but still pretty terrible) and The Hangover 3 (alright film, fantastic after credit scene).
So basically, I missed tons of films, oops.

The Worst Film(s) of The Year? Easy: Spring Breakers and Man Of Steel.
Spring Breakers was just too.. ugh. It was too many alcohol-being-poured-on-boobs-shots, Vanessa Hudgens trying to be a hardass slut, Selena Gomez preaching about the bible and sitting on buses and plain stupidness. The only saving grace was James Franco, but even this wasn't enough to stop me turning it off halfway through.
Man Of Steel. Oh boy, where do I start with MoS? The cast was good, the cinematography was good, the story *should* have been good, but it just wasn't. It was stupid. The whole point of Superman is that he is the opposite to Batman. He had a good childhood (except for his whole planet being destroyed), he grew up happy with his parents, he didn't leave his dad to die. And why would his dad prefer that he let/watched a group of his classmates and friends drown instead of helping them? Costner, you dick! And why would he hurl Zod at buildings, probably killing thousands upon thousands of people when he knows that it won't hurt him. Why did Zod say that Clark had his abilities because of years of being in the sun, yet after 5 minutes he was just as powerful? And why did Clark kill Zod at the end? Couldn't the family have moved out the way? They weren't in a corner. Couldn't he just have thrown Zod away? He was happy enough to chuck him at skyscrapers full of people, but oh no, he can't hurt a family of 4 people.
Ugh, I could go on and on, but I won't. Basically, if you know nothing about Superman, this was a good film. Otherwise it was absolutely and incredibly stupid and dire. Seriously, seriously stupid.


So I've both praised and ranted for long enough. (and said the word 'so' about a million times) so this seems as good a place as any to leave the blog. I'm going to get back into the habit of blogging more again, with this list becoming a regular feature again, and if anything exciting happens in my life I'll post about it too.

I hope to see you guys all blogging again, because I actually enjoy seeing your opinions on things that we probably wouldn't actually talk about in person, and learning new things about everyone :)

Byeeee


PS. Holy crap, my "Ten of the Best.. Looking TV Actors" has 650 pageviews. I knew other people were just as shallow as me!