Christmas Links #8

2017 Christmas Chocolate Collection:
[Editor's note: Annual appeal to buy selection boxes for homeless children in Liverpool. The link gives some explanation. You can donate here.]

Why I’m not going to any Christmas parties this year:
"There’s a warm, festive glow in the air right now. End-of-year bonuses lie just around the corner while bosses take their feet ever so slightly off the pedal. Shops have their Yuletide tunes on loop, and there’s chocolate literally everywhere."

12 Docs of Christmas:
"Everyone has their favorite Christmas movies, but rarely are they of the documentary kind. Maybe that’s because most nonfiction films involving the holiday and its iconography are downright depressing. There’s not much of a story in real people having a merry Christmas. So, the interest is in unfortunate circumstances, like foreclosure and death. But there are a few feel-good and at least matter-of-fact docs about the holiday."

The Depressing Reality of Nonfiction Christmas Movies:
"There is a good reason why documentaries set at Christmas are so depressing. Not all, but many nonfiction films focus on problems, issues, tragedies, and unfortunate situations and circumstances that would be bad enough on their own but are heightened in devastation when the holidays are involved." [alternative take]

Holiday decorations gone wild: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer carcass?
"During the holidays you’re most likely to see cute Santa decorations or beautifully lit trees, but in the Bywater neighborhood in New Orleans there’s a home with something a little different."

Steven Moffat interviewed by Graham Kibble-White for TV Choice:
"It’s the end of an era. On Christmas Day, Peter Capaldi’s Doctor will regenerate into the character’s 13th incarnation, to be played by Jodie Whitaker. But he’s not the only person leaving the show. The story also marks the departure of showrunner Steven Moffat, who’s been in the role since 2009. TV Choice caught up with him to look ahead to the upcoming special, Twice Upon A Time, in which the Twelfth Doctor meets the First, and to look back at his time steering the Tardis..."

Gary Bainbridge explains why Die Hard is a Christmas film:
"A FEW years ago I wrote a column about the Christmas film Elf in which I explained in painstaking if compelling detail why I thought it wasn’t any good. That done, I gave it the inflammatory headline “Why You Are Wrong To Like The Film Elf”."