"This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife" isn't just a lyric from a Talking Heads song. It's what's going on in this picture. (Well, okay, except for the wife part.) This lights lollapalooza of a house isn't mine. But it was the most striking house I saw with the husband and my parents when we drove around looking at Christmas décor over the weekend. (My mom found it on a Facebook self-guided tour list, so hopefully the very talented homeowners won't mind that I posted a pic.) It's as dazzling as the Griswald residence. Only better, because it has a castle.
Speaking of Christmas Vacation, there's nothing that eases 'tis the season tension like a crazy Christmas comedy. So when I saw a commercial for the Comedy Central original movie A Clusterfunke Christmas, I had to check it out. Written by Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer, it's a rom com spoof of those so-bad-they're-good Hallmark holiday features. Holly Jenkins (Mr. Mayor's Vella Lovell) isn't looking for love when she descends upon a Christmas-themed village. She's looking to buy a heap of an inn run by eccentric spinster sisters Hildy (Gasteyer) and Marga (Dratch) Clusterfunke. What follows is a walking, talking Christmas card complete with all the, ahem, hallmarks of a made-for-TV-movie. You know. The struggling mom and pop (or should I say sister and sister?) business. The cookie cutter townspeople. And, of course, the sophisticated, stressed-out businesswoman and hunky local yokel (Call Me Kat's Cheyenne Jackson) who despise each other on sight but must-have-each-other-now although they barely lock lips.
It was fun to watch a Christmas movie that put a new (i.e. snarky) spin on things. Not that I don't enjoy the odd Hallmark flick while I'm crafting or wrapping a last-minute gift. But after stringing my third necklace, I sometimes find the stories too saccharine to keep my interest. No spurned suitor ever even so much as tosses a mug of hot chocolate in his lady love's Botoxed face. And that's just not normal.
Nevertheless, even as A Clusterfunke Christmas satirizes the genre of holiday romance, it's an (albeit tongue in cheek) homage to it. Which is to say that it takes the best parts of a merry meet cute and then -- bam! -- spikes that sugary eggnog. Because a little sarcasm never hurt anyone.
And you always hurt the ones you love.