League Weekly Rewind 2025 (December 21, 2025)

Emmylou is worn out by holiday cheer

I'm Out of the Sandal/ Boot

So sometime in mid-October I was put into a surgical boot, even before I'd actually had surgery on my foot.  Well, on the morning of the 19th, I had a round of x-ray's, high-fived with my surgeon, who is a super cool guy, I might add - and was given the all-clear to put on a shoe instead of the boot.

I had my shoe in the car and was delighted to do so.  I can't say how freeing it felt to not hobble around with that clumsy thing on my foot.  I even took Emmylou for a little walk yesterday.  And will now do so every day as I rebuild confidence in the foot and the walks get longer.

Anyway - I was told "no running or jumping for a while", but I can go back to the gym in January.  Just in time for all the folks who made resolutions to swarm Planet Fitness.

I've gotten noticeably fatter during the past two months of couch-rotting, so getting back out there is a great turn of events.

Prepping for Christmas

We're more or less ready.  Saturday, Dug and K flew into Austin, took Jamie's car, and drove south to San Marcos to go stay with Jamie's dad, DocDik, for a couple of nights.   They'll be back and then the horror of the Christmas movie season really begins.

My shopping started in October, so I've been done for a while.  Due to the chaotic nature of December, for years now - especially now that Steanso and Cardboard Belts have kids, I try to get things early so we're coordinated and not double-buying or buying stuff the kids don't want.

Jamie has made Chex Mix, and KareBear sent us those big tins of flavored popcorn (which I love once a year).  

We're planning to host Christmas Eve for the family, so we're prepped with deli orders, etc...  I'll do a bit of shopping day-of as I realize what we're missing.  But I'm off til the 29th, which is nice.

I had a spot of cleaning to do, prepping beds, etc...  And I need to just keep the place relatively livable.  My usual habit of discarding layers wherever I'm standing is not going to fly.  I might have to use... hangers.

But we're in the endgame now!  Bring on the festiveness.

Basic Cable from 10 Years Ago is the New Christmas Canon

Thanks to my access to social media and mixing with generations who have no business dealing with each other socially, I'm now well aware of what the younger generation thinks are Christmas classics.  And, much in the same way I, as a younger Gen-X'er, had a selection put before me by cable showing a mix of weird reruns (I am still haunted by the Sanford and Son Christmas Episode based on how little effort went into it) - I'm now bombarded with what is a Christmas classic, and it's mostly middling movies of my youth.  

I am coming to the realization that a lot of what constitutes a classic movie is just repetition.  Which raises some key questions in the streaming era when basic cable will not be running Christmas Vacation on a loop for six weeks.  Sure, they can push some movies your way - but they can't offer it up as a "sure, this is fine" option in the same way.  

What Turner Classic would label as Classic movies largely have gone unseen by most people - which I guess I get. And frankly choose to be offended by everything that doesn't fit with how they wish things were 80 years ago, so maybe it's best they don't get to watch those movies.  

Anyway, rather than Christmas in Connecticut or It's a Wonderful Life, the preferred favorites now seem to be what you'd expect from cable - Die Hard, Gremlins, Christmas Vacation, with Elf as the most recent entry.  Muppet Christmas Carol is slowly getting beaten to death via hyperbole on social media.  And, look, I love the movie, but I think we can stop talking about it as the greatest movie ever made.  It's the second best Muppet movie and that's great.

All of these are good movies, and they wound up on cable on repeat for a reason.  But it is interesting to see how they've eclipsed "classics" as I knew them.  I think the odd thing about it is that minus Muppet Christmas Carol, two of these are movies that occur at Christmas, but are genre movies, and two are essentially about someone trying to have a good Christmas when the world is pretty cynical about the season.  It's a pretty far cry from It's a Wonderful Life or White Christmas that take the holiday as a setting and a given.

Kylie Wins Christmas

The UK's take on Christmas is different in some small ways than how we do it up in the US.  Not the least of which is that - while Americans bust out Bing Crosby and nostalgic tunes, the UK spends every year worrying about who has the new #1 Christmas song.  Many years ago, Simon explained to me that every year in the UK, artists record their Christmas song and see if they can't hit #1 on the chart.  How this works seems like a lot of promotion and participation by radio and other outlets.  But the UK tends to deal with "who is favourite?" in a different way than the US, like it's a zero-sum game.

It's not that we don't get new songs in the US, but if they break out, there's no open spirit of competition, which I'd argue would be seen as very much against the spirit of the season here.  And music snobs would probably point to songs that never are going to chart or get attention as superior holiday songs, anyway.  

But in the past few years, I've picked up *some* new Christmas music.  I confess to picking up the first Kelly Clarkson record and Cher's Christmas album.  But I also have the family vinyl we listened to while I was growing up - even if I had to replace the somehow-missing Christmas in the Stars Star Wars record.

But this year the Kylie Minogue machine went into overdrive to get a chart topper with XMAS.  It is, as the kids say, a bop.  It's a stadium song, and arguably took a note or two from Ms. Roan's Hot to Go and the Village People's YMCA, incorporating spelling and choreographed hand gestures for the letters right into the song and video.  Minogue went on a media blitz, appearing on British TV, radio, etc...  

Which worked.  Ms. Minogue scored the top single in the UK with her song, and the video has about two million hits as of this writing.  

Here she is on Strictly Come Dancing, making a powerful argument for the song/ herself.

and, I've seen some stuff on Instagram and elsewhere, but it's a thing this year

Oddly, this song does *not* appear on her Christmas record, Fully Wrapped, even as it is a mix of songs from Kylie Christmas and other tracks.  For XMAS and Office Party, you need to pick up the single.