November 24
Well, today is Black Friday, and I think it's the first time I've gone shopping on Black Friday in a few years, though I may be overestimating how long it's been. Anyway, that's not important. The reason I'm starting this year's journal today is because I watched the new Trolls Holiday special. Also today I watched a DC Kids Show episode in which Jett and Analei shared their DC Christmas Wish List (and recited an amusing DC-themed version of "The Night Before Christmas"). And that's all I have to say for now.
Nov. 25
Today Mom and I went to Grandma's house to string up the Christmas lights on her porch columns. (One string wasn't working, so we'll have to try to get the last column done another time.)
Nov. 29
I started a new section for my Christmas music reviews. It was in 2014 that I started a new page to review Christmas CDs, which I might have done a bit of that year, and a bit more in 2015, but I don't think I did any in 2016. And not nearly as many as I'd hoped to, those first two years. But anyway, the section I've started today uses a navframe just like for my reviews of TV, movies, books, comics... whatever. So over the course of December, I'm hoping to listen to and review all my Christmas CDs, and each will get its own page, instead of listing them all on just one page.
On a sadder note, I want to mention that sometime earlier this year, my NeoPets account was frozen. At the time, I decided not to bother looking into seeing why that happened or if it could get unfrozen. But the other day I finally sent an e-mail to NeoPets support about it, because I had started thinking about the annual Advent Calendar, and I didn't want to miss out on that. Today I got a reply, which said they can't help me because I apparently didn't provide an e-mail address when I started the account, so they can't verify that I'm the real owner. I mean... I don't remember anything that far back (I started doing Neopets in 2001), but it's hard for me to imagine it even would've been possible for someone to open an account without e-mail. But even assuming I had done, it's surely an address I wouldn't have access to now. So I suppose it's irrelevant. Anyway, I considered starting a brand new account, but at this point I don't plan to. Maybe I'll change my mind sometime, I don't know. It just feels like it would be wrong to have new pets and never see my old ones again. I know they're not real, but still....
Nov. 30
Today "DC Super Hero Girls" uploaded a holiday episode called It's a Superful Life. Also today, my sister set up her fake Christmas tree in the living room.
December 3
Today I started working on a page I've been wanting to start for... I dunno, at least a year, maybe a few years. A page to list Holiday Parody Episodes. My original idea was to focus on spoofs of "A Christmas Carol" and "It's a Wonderful Life," but thanks to TV Tropes, I think I'll do at least one other variety of Christmas episode trope. Anyway, for now I just listed things I had previously put at the bottom of a little something that I always add to the end of any review I do of works based on A Christmas Carol. I'm sure there are other spoofs of that that I'll have to add later, before moving on to the Wonderful Life stuff. But now I'm done with that particular project, for the night. And then I watched Scrooged.
Dec. 4
More work on the Holiday Parodies page.
Dec. 5
More work on the Holiday Parodies page. Plus, in honor of Krampusnacht, I watched Gremlins.
Dec. 7
Last night was the premiere of a new series on Syfy, called "Happy!" It's pretty dark, but it's set around Christmas time, I guess. Anyway, I don't get Syfy, but I did manage to watch the premiere today on Syfy.com. Hopefully I'll get to see the rest of the series there, too. (At the moment I'm only aware of there being four episodes scheduled, and I expect it to be a limited series... which I could sort of think of as one of Syfy's December miniseries events, though that's kind of a stretch.)
Dec. 8
Incidentally, I've done a bit of work on my Holiday Parodies page every day since I started, even if I don't always mention it. And I wouldn't have mentioned it today, but since I was making this entry for another reason, I thought I might as well. Anyway... today DC Kids Show did an episode called DIY Super Hero Snow Globes and Ornaments, and that's the reason I made an entry here today.
Dec. 9
A friend shared a link on facebook, to something from 2014 that I think I probably first saw today. José y Maria
Dec. 10
Read an article called There Is A War On Spirit Of Christmas, which is basically about how... there isn't really a war on Christmas, but things conservative politicians are doing are definitely against the spirit of Christmas (and Christianity in general). Also, when we went to Grandma's house for Sunday dinner, Beth and I put up some of Grandma's Christmas decorations. And later, when we got home, I did something I've been considering for the past few days: split up my holiday parodies page into separate pages for A Christmas Carol parodies and It's a Wonderful Life parodies, because the list was getting kind of long. (And I haven't even finished yet.) Later still, I watched the new Christmas episode of "Bob's Burgers," which was an hour long and was a musical. And it involved a search for a Krampus-like creature called the Bleaken. So that was fun. And then I watched the new Christmas episode of "Family Guy," even though I haven't watched that series for awhile now.
Dec. 12
I've been adding some old things to my regular Christmas episode pages, as a change of pace from working on my Holiday Parodies pages. And tonight I watched new Christmas episodes of "Fresh off the Boat" and "The Mayor," which I reckon I'll add to my site tomorrow... and The Mayor wasn't just a Christmas ep, it was also an "It's a Wonderful Life" ep. So it'll go on two pages. Um... also tonight there was a new Gwen Stefani Christmas special, but unfortunately I didn't get to record that. I mean, I chose to record "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" instead, while watching the other shows I mentioned.
Dec. 14
I made my Gift of the Magi parodies page today. It was a lot less work than the first two pages in the "holiday parody episodes" section, because it's not as commonly parodied, I guess. (Though I still fear I may be forgetting parodies I've seen.) Also today I watched the second episode of "Happy!" on Syfy.com, and later I watched the third annual Taraji's White Hot Holidays on FOX.
Dec. 15
Christmas stuff started happening on Cookie Clicker, so that was fun.
Dec. 16
Well, it's Saturday, and I just got around to watching Wednesday's Christmas episodes of "Speechless" and "American Housewife." They were both decent. Another thing I watched on the DVR today was Olaf's Frozen Adventure, which had aired on Thursday.
Dec. 17
Tonight was "A Christmas Story Live" on FOX, but I didn't watch it. I wasn't sure if I wanted to, since I'm not really a fan of the original movie. But I do like the cast they've put together. Still, by the time it came on (or really probably to some extent for much of the day) I was feeling too depressed to watch it. (I'm depressed a lot of the time, anyway, and the past couple of days have been tough because I'm concerned about problems with my computer. And of course the internet has been poor lately.) But anyway, my sister recorded it, maybe I'll watch it another time. Meanwhile, I did watch a DVD of The Grinch. (I'm not ready to write a review yet. It's late and I'm tired and I've been trying more stuff to hopefully deal with my computer issues, to little avail. Hopefully I'll write a review of the movie tomorrow. But another thing I did today was finish reading a book that I also didn't feel like writing a review of today. So I should try to do that tomorrow, too. And there are always all sorts of things I want to do on my website, right now especially things concerning Christmas. So I'm constantly feeling overwhelmed and about thisclose to possibly having a panic attack, or at least greater than usual depression. Sigh.)
Dec. 18
Added some new ads to my Christmas commercials playlist, as well as looking for replacements for some ads that had disappeared.
Dec. 19
Added more new ads to the playlist, as well as some from last year that I hadn't seen before. I have more work to do on this, but I really must break for the day.
Dec. 20
More work on the commercial playlist. Also started eating a package of holiday mint M+M's.
Dec. 21
Added one thing, possibly the last for the year, to my Christmas commercials playlist. Also added some things to my Christmas music YouTube playlist.
Dec. 22
Today's xkcd is about The True Meaning of Christmas. Also today I watched Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas, which I recorded a few days ago. It came out six years ago, but this is the first time I've seen it.
Dec. 23
Today I tried one of the Mountain Dew "Holiday Brew" sodas I bought back on Black Friday. It's really nothing special, just a mix of regular Mountain Dew and Code Red. I suppose the point is that it's red and green, which is ridiculous. But whatever. Also today I have made my Grinch Parodies page, which for now will be the last part of my Holiday Parody Episodes. I'm really annoyed how much time it took to do this just because my internet service is so bad. This means I have far less time than I should have for doing anything else today, which is frustrating. But whatever.
Then I watched a DVD called "A Snow White Christmas." The only reason I even have it is that it's part of a set of three movies, only one of which I really wanted. But I figured I might as well watch the others. This is the second one I've watched from the set, and I'm not even going to bother writing a review, because it was pretty terrible. Also, Christmas played almost no part in the story at all.
Dec. 24
Well, Christmas Eve is usually a big deal, for my extended family. But this year I had no part in it. I just couldn't get out of bed for a long time, because I was paralyzed by depression. Eventually I did get up, and I was home alone for most of the day, but while I was able to eat a bit and do a bit online, I was still not feeling up to doing any of the things I had hoped to do. Except, finally, at night, I forced myself to do one of the the things I had planned for today: I watched a DVD of the 1999 TV movie A Christmas Carol. It was pretty decent. And now... despite having been in bed all day pretty much, I am totally drained and ready for sleep. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. (Oh, I should say my sister brought home a couple of envelopes for me, from a couple of different relatives, each of which had some money for me. So that was nice.)
Dec. 25
It's Monday. We went to Grandma's house for Christmas dinner, and opened some presents. Not a very big deal this year, but still it was nice. (And I'm glad my depression didn't preclude me from joining in to some degree, as it did yesterday.) Finally we came home. I watched The Year Without a Santa Claus (which I had originally hoped to watch Saturday, but ran out of time, then Sunday, but didn't because I was all depressed). Then I watched Itsudatte My Santa!, which I've been wanting to see for a few years now. And while watching these things, I've been drinking some beers from a Sam Adams Winter Classics mixpack. That's very nice, especially since I've my alcoholic consumption has been greatly reduced, lately. So it really feels more like a special occasion to have some. Also, I recently obtained the "Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection." I watched a couple of things on it tonight: "Prep & Landing - Operation: Secret Santa" (which I'd seen before) and more importantly (because I hadn't seen it before), I also watched The Little Matchgirl.
Dec. 26
Mom, Dad, Beth, and I opened more presents today, at home. I got new slippers and a bunch of DVDs I had picked out on Black Friday, and a bunch of chocolate, and a few other little things. Also today I wrote a review of a short children's book called Holidays in Scandinavia, which I finished reading last night. It took me three days to read, but it could be easily read in one day, if you wanted to (and still have plenty of time left to do other things that day).
Dec. 27
This evening, I went to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi with Steve, Matt, and Rachel Burden. That was fun. And seeing a Star Wars movie with one or another (or several) Burdens is starting to feel like a holiday tradition, to me. Later, I finally managed to watch episode 3 of "Happy!" (I've tried several times over the past week, but my internet has always been too slow.)
Dec. 30
Late last night, so late that it was technically this morning, I discovered that I can no longer watch episodes of "Happy!" on Syfy.com without logging in. Which means I have no idea if or when I'll ever get a chance to finish watching the series. So that's kind of annoying, but not really surprising. Another annoying and unsurprising thing is that I never got around to listening to any Christmas CDs this month. But whatever. It's not important.