Creepy Christmas Stuff

Tell me if I'm just weird or what. Does anyone else out there find the movie "The Polar Express" a bit creepy?? I haven't read the book, so I can't judge that. But I genuinely don't enjoy the movie. It has nightmarish quality about it to me. I don't like the animation. All of Tom Hanks' characters freak me out. The scenes at the North Pole remind me of old Hitler/Nazi footage. Santa is more intimidating than warm and inviting. And it drags . . . heavens, that movie seemed to go on and on the first time I saw it. The music even annoys me for some reason.

And I get so tired of the trite message .. . "Just believe . . just believe . . " I have the same problem with "Any Dream Will Do" in Joseph/Dreamcoat. Any dream will NOT do. That's not the point of the story at all. The object of your belief is as important as the believing.

Frankly, I think I'd rather watch "The Nightmare Before Christmas". I haven't watched it for years, because it scares the girls, but I remember being impressed with it when I saw it. It's creepy in a good way, because it knows it's creepy, I guess. Tim Burton's a bizarre dude, but he knows how to tell a good story.

Nothing profound here. Just some holiday opining.

And while I'm gabbing and you're listening . . . let me share something cool we've discovered about our house. We have big windows facing out the back to the south. This means that, during the winter, when the sun is lower in the horizon to the south, it shines into our house all day. Which makes our house downright HOT. On a sunny day, our furnace hardly ever turns on on the main floor or upstairs, and the house is in the toasty mid-70s. Very nice! One of the things we liked about the house before we bought it was the LOW utility costs. Now we see why they're so low!

Let's hope we're not frying in here next July, though . .