So, as has become our yearly custom, Ken and I did our annual "Christmas Saturday", in which we bake a crapload of cookies and watch cheesy, made-for-TV holiday movies, just so we can rip on them. While this year's choice,
The 12 Dates of Christmas, was FAR more coherent than, say,
Christmas Cupid, and actually showcased the holiday in its title unlike, say,
The 12 Men of Christmas, it left me more than a little, uh, peeved.
Why? Because it's central message was pretty much "Be nice to people...and make sure everyone you know is paired up." At least that's what I took away from it. I mean, how could I not, when our heroine turns to her blind date at Midnight Mass (don't ask), points out her elderly neighbor sitting in a pew and says "I don't want to end up alone like her." Meanwhile, said neighbor is shown to be a jolly, friendly woman, who bakes lots of delicious fruitcakes and has a red Kitchen-Aid mixer - the mark of a truly hip and excellent old lady. She mentions she doesn't have a husband or kids to bake for, but it comes off matter-of-fact, and not feeling sorry for herself. Yet the main character cannot bear the thought of this horrendousness. Oh no, making it into her dotage with enough of her faculties that she can still live alone AND take herself to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve is just NOT a fate that should befall anyone, you guys. She later sets her up with an older guy she keeps running into, because playing cupid is what people should do when they're living a day over and over again, trying to get something right.
What's also curious is that the movie makes a point to show this girl's ex boyfriend, a nice guy who had planned on proposing to her until she got all obsessed with getting married. He didn't want to end up just some guy who was helping her meet a goal. So does she learn from this? You know, maybe take some time to get okay with herself? Nay, she decides to pair up every remaining single person she knows, give guys who were already pretty okay (in a hipsterly way) makeovers and not question what some kid did with a giant paper-bag-covered magnum of champagne that just happened to disappear from the time he left the liqour store to the time she runs into him in the alley. No, continuity is just beyond her because his plotline didn't involve meeting The One (instead it involved puppies). Oh, and she had to fall in love with her blind date over these 12 dates. So I can see how the movie might forget that little flaw of hers that led her to her current state to begin with, but what should we care? Her surface flaws were fixed! That's enough, right? SIGH.
Now, now, I know it's not a movie that's meant to be taken to heart so much, but I'm so tired of every TV movie pressing this whole "LIVING ALONE IS DEATH TO LIFE!" notion or whatever. It's bad enough that there's this message of "You must find a mate or your life means nothing" pushed on us by society or Hollywood or relatives (not mine, just to FYI - THANK GOD), that adding one more chip to that pile-on just vexes the hell out of me. Happiness doesn't come from other people. You gotta figure that shizz out for yourself or you aren't going to be an old lady who takes herself to midnight mass - you're going to be an old lady who's bitter and pissed that life didn't meet your expectations. And then you only have yourself to blame.
And I'm glad I don't need to relive Christmas Saturday 2011 12 times over to realize that.
