It’s that time of year again – the Holiday Movie season.  I’ve written before about how I’m a sucker for Christmas movies, but I should clarify that I’m not a fan of every Christmas movie.  Some years have produced classic holiday films – A Christmas Story, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, etc – while others have produced stinkers like Jingle All The Way (notwithstanding Phil Hartman’s outstanding role) and Christmas With The Kranks.

This year’s offering from Hollywood, Deck The Halls, appears destined for the DVD Bargain Bin based on the trailers.  It appears they’ve included every cliché possible, tried to add elements from previously successful holiday films, and turned it into one giant unfunny movie.  I rarely comment on movies before I’ve seen them but this one screams “Bomb”.  Usually, even with a bad movie, they’ll at least include the one or two laughs that are actually in the movie.  The trailers I’ve seen so far have done nothing but make me wish they wouldn’t even release it.

********** 

I’ve caught myself doing this several times now and there’s no logical explanation for it.  Most everyone on earth has Caller ID now, so it’s not like you don’t know who is calling.  Back when we actually had a land line, we ignored anything that said (Unknown Name, Unknown Number) along with any other phone number we didn’t recognize.

With a cell phone, I have a lot of people’s numbers in it and those aliases display when they call.  So why is it, when my phone rings and the display reads something like “Mom”, do I answer the phone in a question-like manner, as if I don’t know who is calling?  “Hello?”  “Hi James, it’s Mom.”

Most of the time I will answer a recognizable phone number with a “Hey, how’s it going?”, thus freeing up the caller from having to identify themselves.  Then the same person will call the next time and I’ll answer it as if I have no idea who is calling.  I truly have no idea why I do this.