In an effort to get myself out of the dumps and into a mental pattern befitting of the Christmas holidays, I am going to live tweet a Christmas movie some time in the next week or so.

I requested some suggestions (via Twitter this time) and this is what was suggested:

• Die Hard 2
• Polar Express
• Batman Returns
• Home Alone
• Home Alone 2
• It's A Wonderful Life

Naturally, my instinct tells me to live tweet Die Hard 2 - but I do want to make sure that what happened last year doesn't happen again. When I live tweeted Die Hard there was a surprising backlash from a few of my followers. Some un-followed me, a few sent me random and lengthy e-mails about how I didn't treat Twitter seriously, and others thought I was "ballsy". It is their right to respond how they want but, honestly, I thought it was a little weird.

Anyway, this is your fair warning, I will be live tweeting again quotes from whatever film I am to watch. If you have any other suggestions, please send them my way, leave a comment below, or fire me a tweet. I wonder if this could be some kind of fundraiser and I could take donations. Let me think on that.

If you want to un-follow me, I encourage you not to because I would like you to get involved. Tweet with me, add a quote you think I should have tweeted. Let's start a movie twitter revolution and use this social media device for fun once in a while.

Besides, at the end of the day, it is only a couple of hours and a whole lot of tweets that you can ignore - and I could use a positive attitude injection this year.

Over the last couple of years, I have gained yet another level of nostalgia around the holidays. Today, I started thinking about where my nostalgia for the holidays comes from. Why do I feel this way? Is it the food? Is the the presents? Candy canes? It could be about the fact I am getting older and beginning to realize it. Perhaps it is something else entirely. The end of the decade has come and we're about to venture into 2011 - so, that may be it. I am not sold on any particular holiday experience being the catalyst. I don't think I ever will truly know as I stopped wondering how my brain worked many, many years ago. I just let it go crazy and do whatever it wants. You should try it some time. You might scare yourself into being happier or something, something, something.

Anyway, when started thinking about it, I came to the realization that I have formed a few rituals in recent years. For example, two years ago, I began listening to Dicken's A Christmas Carol as read by Patrick Stewart. This is not entirely unusual as many people most likely watch or read some form of the story. For me, I put it on my iPod (after a quick jaunt to the library a couple of years ago) and have made sure to listen to it either on the 23rd or the 24th. I can't seem to bring myself to read it after Christmas Day, it just isn't the same. Something else I noticed last year was I always watch Mickey's Christmas Carol even if it is by myself. It is quick and I like it. I am a Disney guy, after all.  I think this year, I will check out the 1938 movie. I saw it years and year ago. I suppose I am due for another viewing of the old black and white edition. I seem to be addicted to that one story. I did look for a collection of Dicken's other Christmas stories (they were quite short, if I recall) but have yet to find a copy. If you have a line on one, please let me know.

Another of my rituals is to lay down in the snow on a cold night and stare at the stars while watching my breath slowly curl into the dark. I find that this activity is required. There is something about taking a few minutes to just do nothing and let your mind wander the sky. I have done this for years. I recall, one Christmas Eve when I was maybe ten years old, going out into back yard (possibly the outside deck) and laying down in the snow with my Star Wars snowspeeder. I loved that thing. I always thought it was so cool that I could put a toy snow speeder in real snow. I think this was how I broke the two main guns off the toy by crashing it into the snow and then pretending an AT-AT was going to step on it.

One more ritual I have identified is also movie related. I like to watch Home For The Holidays and Home Alone. Home Alone is just a good film. Not amazing. It is just entertaining. Home For The Holidays is a Thanksgiving film but I find it astoundingly bizarre and hilarious. It is like someone tore a page out of my life (or how I perceived it at one time) and made it into a movie. I do recommend it because, no matter how many times I have watched it, I laugh out loud. The performances are great and it was directed by Jodie Foster who seems to touch anything and turn it to gold.

There you have it. Three rituals that I have identified. I think to qualify as a ritual it needs to be a very personal reaction. I find interactions with family don't count if they are just the traditional "jamming" everyone in as much as you can during a Christmas visit (that is assuming you don't live near your immediate family). I think of these rituals as quite personal and not necessarily something you share openly with others. With that in mind, do you have any worth sharing?

This past year has been great.  The year of 2009 was filled with ups and downs and all kinds of twists and turns.  But now, we are down to it.  The final hours are ticking away and, when we all wake up tomorrow morning, it will be 2010.  Are you excited? 

For us Vancouverites, it will be a bittersweet opening few months with the stress and jubulation that surrounds any city hosting the Olympics.  We love it and hate it all at the same time.  It is like the holidays.  When you first start shopping, all you can think of is the smiling faces of your family and friends.  The perfect gift will be opened and, without warning, their face will light up with joy.  They will (practically in slow motion) wrap their arms around you and plop a loving kiss on your cheek and whisper loving things in your ear.  Of course, reality will strike with a lightning bolt borrowed from Zeus. Imagine, for a moment, sitting down at your kitchen table, a fresh coffee steaming in the light of a January morning, and you open yor credit card bill.  All of the loving thoughts you've been harbouring for months will disappear into the morning air and you will wonder how in the Hell did you manage to spend so much money! 

That is what New Years Eve and Day are all about.  Two final days that we can use to live out a few additional fantasies.  We allow ourselves to forget that, within a few days time, we will be back to whatever activities dominate our "normal" lives.  We will be enjoying the sound of the office again or the classrooms of some foreign university or finding the perfect pitch in a remote recording studio.  Let's make this last bit of our 2009 something to remember.  What are your plans for this eve of the New Year?  I remember the last few have been quite tame in their execution.  Last year was hanging out and drinking heavily at a friend's place.  The transfer into 2008 was something I don't remember.  It must have been uber-tame. 

For 2009, this year is strange since we decided to fly on the cheapest days of the holiday season: Christmas Day and New Years Eve.  Christmas Day wasn't too bad since we arrived earlier in the evening and with plenty of time for gift openings on both ends but this New Years is going to be a little problematic.  We arrive after seven in the evening and, with the weather being what it is in the mountains and in Saskatchewan, we will most likely end up being late.  I hope not.  I believe my family isn't picking us up.  They are heading to their New Years events and dropping our car at the airport before we arrive.

And, yes, I think we all need to get together and view the movies 2001 and 2010 to see how much those fictional worlds are like our reality.  Didn't someone have a dolphin for a pet?  Where is my dolphin?  Happy New Year, everyone!