Christmas has always been one of my favorite times of year.  I’m agnostic and not religious, but Christmas has a simple message that I can appreciate.  When it comes down to it, the point of Christmas is peace and goodwill.  How can you go wrong with that?  Yes, it is celebrating the birth of Jesus, but too many non-religious people interpret celebrating Jesus’ birth as a representation of Christians believing everyone else is going to burn in hell.  The holiday, to me anyway, is much less about celebrating the birth of a man than it is about celebrating the simple message the man represented: that we should strive to be good people and care about others.  That’s all.  Forget all that fire and brimstone crap, everyone should be on board with that sentiment.

And then there’s the nostalgia factor.  Remember how exciting and magical Christmas was as a child?  Sleepless nights thinking about Santa Claus, wondering whether or not it would snow (it did every once in a while for me growing up), listening to holiday music (the John Denver and the Muppets Christmas album was a staple in my household).  Family, friends, parties full of cheer and trees decked out with multicolored lights and clever ornaments.

Some of my most vivid memories are waking up early on Christmas morning while it was still dark and tiptoeing downstairs to see if Santa had come.  Then I’d grab my stocking and wait very impatiently for my parents to get out of bed.

I hope you create some lasting memories yourself this year and for years to come.

Merry Christmas!

1. A Charlie Brown Christmas
This is it: the special that epitomizes the Christmas season. A classic that children and adults alike still look forward to watching every year. Charlie Brown doesn’t understand why everyone is happy at Christmas except for him; he likes getting presents and everything, but he just can’t put his finger on what the whole thing is all about and why he should be so damn jolly like everyone else. Linus comes to the rescue by doing something you aren’t likely to find in most Christmas movies or specials: he recites a verse or two from, *gasp*, The Bible! (What were they thinking? How dare you remind anyone that this is a religious holiday???)

But then Charlie Brown gets it for the first time. It isn’t about lights displays or Christmas plays. It isn’t about ice skating or catching snowflakes on your tongue (even if they’re not quite ripe enough yet). It’s about a simple message of love, peace, and hope.

The immortal soundtrack of Vince Guaraldi added a new song or two to the seasonal canon, particularly with “Christmas Time Is Here.” And this is still the best Christmas special ever made.

Honorable Mentions
There are plenty of quality films and specials that didn’t make my top 10, and I’d like to reassure them that they haven’t been lumped in the same category as “Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey.” Because that’s a special that makes me want coal in my stocking. And by that I mean hot coals in stockings that are actually on my feet.

Elf (Because smiling’s my favorite, too)
A Garfield Christmas (There are some amazingly cheesy moments, but it’s good)
South Park (Any X-mas episode is good. Mr. Hanky is the perfect mix of holiday cheer and shit)
The Muppet Christmas Carol
The Santa Clause
Bad Santa (Thurman Merman fills my heart with cheer)
Christmas Vacation
Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas
Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Die Hard (It counts. It’s also the best action movie ever)
Beavis and Butthead Do Christmas (Seriously, it’s actually pretty funny)

4. Home Alone
I’m pretty sure one of the first VHS tapes I ever owned was Home Alone. As much as I loved the movie when I was little, I can say with quite a bit of confidence that I love it just as much as an adult. The perfect cast and a great score definitely help it stand the test of time. So many memorable lines are delivered throughout. “Don’t you know how to knock, phlegm-wad?”

3. A Christmas Story
Another great example of how the right cast can take a good movie to the next level, A Christmas Story is not as goofy as Home Alone, but instead goes straight for the nostalgia jugular. I’ve found that some people can’t really get on board with this movie unless they grew up watching it, and that’s always a little sad. If you can fully appreciate this film, you know exactly why it is such a holiday essential for so many people. You also know that “fra-gee-lay” must be Italian.

2. A Claymation Christmas
This is probably the most obscure selection on my list, particularly for being placed all the way up at #2. It used to air on the Disney Channel every year when I was a kid, and I’m not sure if it still gets played anymore (I have it on DVD so I don’t have to worry about it). But for all the specials I looked forward to, this one might have been the most anticipated of all of them by my family and me. The concept is pretty simple: claymation characters (created by Will Vinton) provide visual interpretations of various Christmas carols, with commentary provided in between by our two talking dinosaur hosts. But the result is almost my favorite Christmas special of all time.

Most of the songs are pretty goofy and funny, but “Joy to the World” is one of the more serious ones. It’s also one of my favorites because of how cool the visuals are:

Here I am in my first appearance in a real, genuine music video for “Turn the Other Way” by Shaimus. You can download the song for free currently from our website (shaimus.com). My brother Spencer also makes a brief appearance as a fellow office worker. If you’d like to send him some fan mail, I will forward it to him.

If you’ve ever worked in an office, you’ll appreciate this video. Let the catharsis begin:

7. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
I’m not gonna lie, I can more or less recite this entire special line for line. I’ve seen it so many times, but I still love it… The main reason: the majority of the characters act like complete douchebags throughout the entire thing. I’m talking about the head Elf, Rudolph’s father Donner, and old Kris Kringle himself. Complete assholes. And I will admit that when I was very little I used to cry when the Abominable Snow Monster came on screen. But I grew out of that a couple years ago.

Anyway, here’s proof that Santa acts like a jerk:

6. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Talk about a timeless classic… I still get so wrapped up in this when I watch that I am genuinely excited when his heart finally grows at the end. Great music of course, but my favorite part is when the circle of Whos swings open like a gate at the end when the Grinch “whizzes” with his load to give all the toys back. Also, I can’t help but think of Monty Python when I hear the music play as he lifts the sleigh above his head.

5. Rocko’s Modern Christmas
I always felt like this show was overlooked and underrated. The Christmas episode, also titled “Can’t Squeeze Cheer from a Cheeselog,” finds our wallaby protagonist searching for a little Christmas cheer in a world seemingly gone mad. This fits in very well with the show, which was often about Rocko looking for a little sanity in a crazy world anyway. But it especially fits in with the spirit of the holiday season, so this episode ends up being one of my favorite X-mas moments.

It seems pretty much impossible to find a good clip online, so this is all you get:

Every year, TV shows give us an attempt at a heartwarming holiday episode. Every year, movie studios crank out countless Christmas-themed movies, hoping to stumble upon another classic. We, their audience, have to endure the sappiness, the stupidity, and the embarrassments that are the vast majority of them. Luckily, every once in a while someone really does manage to squeeze a little Christmas cheer into a TV special or film, and I appreciate these moments by celebrating them annually. Here’s a list of some of these instances: ten Christmas specials and movies that don’t suck.

10. The Snowman
No dialog in this one, just beautiful colored pencil-style animation, a great soundtrack, and the story of a boy and his snowman. Sure, the snowman comes to life, but this is no Frosty. The whole thing feels like the kind of vivid dream you’d have as a child, and the ending will stick with you long after its 25-minute run time.

9. Merry Christmas Mr. Bean
I’m a big fan of the whole Mr. Bean series, but this is one of the finest episodes. I always loved the scene where he conducts the brass quartet playing Christmas carols in a variety of styles (all depending on how he swings the conducting baton, of course). Later, Bean gets his head stuck in a turkey so big that it could feed the entire country of Turkey for a day, and he has one final mishap that drives his “girlfriend” away, despite the fact that it was a rare display of good intentions on his part.

8. A Muppet Family Christmas
This one used to play on TV when I was a kid. It features the whole Muppet gang shacking up at Fozzy’s mother’s house for a big family-style Christmas. It’s hard not to get caught up in their puppety good will, and the hour-long special is topped off with a singing snowman, the Swedish chef trying to cook Big Bird, and appearances from the Fraggles and Jim Henson himself.

The Daily Show does such a great job of providing comedy yet remaining sensitive while covering international tragedies. Last night’s reaction to the Mumbai attacks was a perfect example because it also contained a hefty dose of profane catharsis, making for a very satisfying bit.

Every year of my life, I learn a little bit about myself (I really can say the alphabet backwards while intoxicated). Every year, I marvel at how my life has developed over the past 365 days, how I’ve changed, the people I’ve met, the experiences I’ve had, and how life never ceases to fascinate me. This year was all that, plus a little more. I think I may have grown up more in the past year of my life than in the rest of my 20s combined, for a number of reasons.

As a disclaimer, I still enjoy many childish, stupid things. But much of my life so far has been wallowing in a tepid pool of immaturity, one that I’ve seemingly started to climb out of at least a little during the ripe old age of 25. I grew out of a few behaviors that I never pictured myself growing out of. I finally had some tangible realization that I am, in fact, not invincible—something that just about every guy has to discover, I think, but no less grounding of an experience even when you know it’s coming.

I started occasionally feeling like an adult for the first time in my life, too. After a few years of watching many of my friends and former classmates getting married, I thought I must be way behind in thinking marriage sounded like the most insane idea in the world to me right now. It still does, of course, but it was just that feeling that came along with it, the feeling that I’d never start feeling “grown up,” that I started shedding a bit recently. One weird moment was the day I finally realized that I can literally do anything I want, any time I want. Wanna go to Hawaii for a week? I can do that. Want to drive to San Francisco just to look at seals on the wharf for a weekend? No one will stop me. It seems such a stupid thing that I should have known all along, but it just never even occurred to me until now. Those seem to be the things that made me start becoming a little more self-aware and grown up—things that I felt like I should have known all along, but were inexplicably foreign to me.

But I think the biggest step in this latest chapter’s awkward stumble into adulthood was the shocking (and slightly horrifying) epiphany that the mindset of feeling young never really does change too much. Sure, you may feel a little older and a little wiser, but there’s not going to be a magic switch at age 40 that makes me feel like a responsible grown up. I’m still probably going to feel more or less how I feel now in another 20 years. It makes sense, of course. How many 50 year olds have made stupid, childish decisions? Plenty. Remember thinking how old a 45 year old seemed when you were a kid, but you couldn’t understand why they always insisted, “Hey, I’m not old yet!”

And along with that bit of knowledge comes the slightly more disturbing part: it never is going to get any easier. In fact, all the easiest stuff is behind me. Being a kid and wanting so hard to be “grown up” was the easiest time I’ll ever have for the rest of my life. But you’d never understand that as a child.

So here’s to another year of learning, another year of exploring, another year of living. I have a long way to go (hopefully), so I’d better roll up my sleeves and prepare for the road ahead. And when anyone asks me if I feel older today, my answer will be simple: no! Now that I’m starting to feel like an adult, 26 seems pretty damn young, indeed!

Here in LA, I’m very pleasantly surprised by a recent development in local radio: a newer station called The Sound at 100.3 FM.  With props to 98.7 for playing Shaimus a couple months ago, in my mind The Sound is without a doubt the best station in Southern California right now.

Finally a station has emerged that recognizes that there is a ton of great music out there, from the hits we all know and love to indispensable album tracks and songs from lesser-played artists.  It’s better than the all-indie stations because it will still bust out “Living on a Prayer” just when you need it; it’s better than the commercial stations, because you’ll hear “Subterranean Homesick Alien” by Radiohead instead of “Creep” and “Karma Police” over and over again.  They play brand new songs, and they play songs from 1967.  They play artists that other stations won’t even touch.  And they even have good taste—the 100.3 website says their only goal is to play the best rock music made to date.  Pure and simple.  They don’t even play very many commercials.

If you’re not in SoCal, I’d recommend streaming The Sound via their website and giving them a try. I’ve never heard a music station that “got it” quite like they seem to, and I really hope it sticks around.

Update (April, 2010): While I still enjoy this station, it seems to me that they have been shifting slowly into becoming a much more typical and predictable classic rock station these days, which is disappointing.  I am rarely surprised at the songs I hear anymore.  Hopefully they can get back to form!

Unbelievable. Unforgettable. Unreal. Indescribable. And now, completely undeniable. I didn’t know what to do with myself today. I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t calm down. I couldn’t think about anything but how great yesterday was, and what a rollercoaster of emotion this whole thing has been. What a way to end such an incredible season. There were flashbacks to key moments this year; to recent disappointments; to Joe Carter; to watching a team for my whole life and just wondering what it would be like if they won it all. The feeling of loving this particular cast of characters, and knowing I’d feel devastated if they didn’t get what I truly felt like they deserved.

The 1993 Phillies were a colorful bunch, for sure. But this Phillies team was just as special, and the gift they gave me of watching my team in a World Series for the first time since I was 10 years old made me appreciate them even more. Chase Utley, a cornerstone of the team, a still seemingly unsung player with the best stats of any second baseman in baseball for the past few years. He made the team a force to be reckoned with by storming out of the gates with an MVP first-half performance. He is the very essence of a great all around player that can lead by example.

Ryan Howard can bring some mixed reactions from some people, but the fact still stands: even when he slumps, a pitcher must fear him. You never know when he will bust out of that slump with a home run binge that will make everyone else look like they belong in little league. For every defensive error, he provided a genuinely impressive play at first base. Don’t criticize how often he strikes out; recognize that he gets more RBIs in a year than most players can even dream of. Oh, and we share a birthday, so he must be cool.

Jimmy Rollins had an unusually mediocre year. But the fact is, the 2007 NL MVP is a born leader and part of the heart and soul of the Phillies. Pat “The Bat” Burrell may be gone soon, but I’m glad he was a part of this win. I don’t care about all the times he under performed, and I don’t care that he’s slow. He played a huge role in the Championship season.

What more can one say about Victorino? An amazing player with versatility and drive. Aaron who? Shane is our center fielder. Werth stepped up big time and filled in for a disappointing Jenkins (who had one hell of a big hit in Game 5). Feliz had some clutch hits (including the game winner for the Series) and was an obvious step up from Wes Helms. Ruiz showed me that he is one of the smartest and most patient batters on the team, despite his modest batting average. Coste has heart and can swing a bat. Bruntlett proved to be an indespensible utility man. Dobbs and Stairs (or Stairmaster as I call him) are clutch pinch hitters.

And how about that pitching staff? Cole the 24 year old ace, Myers the minor league comeback story of the year, old man Moyer and his bafflingly slow but well-placed pitches, Blanton and his World Series home run, Romero, Madson (bridge to Lidge), the whole rest of the bullpen, and let’s not forget Lights Out Lidge. How often do you get to see perfection?  Not very often.

This is a team that, when firing on all cylinders, is literally unstoppable. Most of these players are streaky, so the end result was very truly a team effort and a result of everyone’s contributions and Charlie Manuel’s superb managing (never really thought I’d ever say that).

And then there’s the city. The city of Philadelphia. The forgotten town that’s near New York. The birthplace of America. The home of some of the most passionate and interesting people in the country, who reflect the character and attitude of this very team. Starved for an opportunity to celebrate. Jaded by constant disappointment. Constantly haunted by feelings that everything is about to go downhill. I had ‘em right up to the last pitch. But they didn’t go downhill at all this time. Was it because William Penn is finally resting peacefully after his (small) statue was placed atop the Comcast building? Or was it just that we played good enough baseball this year, plain and simple?

Long waits have been a theme for this town. Long waits for a major Championship team. A long wait for the end of a sometimes-excruciatingly-long baseball season filled with so many ups and downs, hopes and doubts. And, in true “that would totally happen to us” Philadelphia fashion, a two day wait to even finish the final game of the World Series. Tuesday morning couldn’t have been worse for so many of us. Left to wonder what would happen while recovering from the emotional crash that followed a rain-suspended game. I was afraid I had lost the enthusiasm I had the night before because it came to such a screetching halt.

Those fears were unfounded, of course. I couldn’t have been more excited yesterday. I was shaking, scared shitless watching one of the most exciting games (er, half-games) of my entire life. Scratch that… the most exciting game of my life. I was in a Philly bar, surrounded by friends, friends-in-spirit, and even family. It erupted in joy; I always wanted to know what it would feel like if we won. I don’t have to wonder anymore. And I couldn’t be happier. Chugging champagne, not caring about the inevitable hangover that would follow. Driving home way too fast, blasting music (”Glory Days” by Bruce Springsteen appropriately graced the airwaves that night). Happily tearing my “tortured Philly fan” t-shirt in half (pictured below). Happily dropping way too much money for all the merch I can handle. This is something I have been waiting for my entire life. And you know what? It wasn’t the least bit disappointing.

I’m sure Philly was insane. In fact, I know it was; I saw photos and videos. It looked awesome. I got a taste of that when I was in Boston when the Red Sox won (and the Patriots, three damn times). But deep down my heart was not at all into those. My heart sure was in Philly last night and all of today. Of course there are a few bad seeds — I heard about the 76 people getting arrested and couldn’t help but wonder if they did that on purpose, such an appropriate number. But for the rest of you, that must have been a lot of fun. And going to those games must have been incredible, though I was lucky enough to get to an NLCS game between the Phils and the Dodgers here in LA.

I considered flying home for the parade, but tickets were way too expensive. In the end, all I can really say is this: Philly, I wish I could have been there to share this moment with you. But you can rest assured I am there in spirit, along with every Philly fan around the world. A part of us was completed this week. PHILLIES WORLD SERIES CHAMPS 2008!!!