Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Ho! Ho! Ho! This week on Off the Chain Dave and Steel are joined by their old friend Jordan to discuss all things Christmas. The three of them share Christmas memories, cover their gift giving guide (with lots of help from Oprah), give a quick run down of the best/worst Christmas movies ever made, share great Holiday music from the Jenson Family, Neil Diamond, Eef Barzelay, and the Jackson 5, and drop some Seussian book wisdom.
Links
Gift Giving Guide
- This year’s edition of Oprah’s Favorite Things is off the chain, as always.
- Jordan recommends a toilet light for the considerate men in your life.
- Dave recommends sky lanterns, this T-Rex Showerhead, and a periodic Table of Elements shower curtain.
- Steel recommends using AMAZON SMILE to give a small percentage of your Amazon purchases back to charitable causes. If you’re looking for a worthy recipient, he suggests either the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council or the Friends of Lorine Niedecker.
- Steel also suggests pledging to give a percentage of your lifetime earnings to effective charitable causes this year. Learn more at Giving What We Can or The Live You Can Save.
Christmas Movies Appraised [by Jordan, mostly]
BEST
- Die Hard
- Home Alone
- A Christmas Story
- The Original Grinch [animated]
- White Christmas
- Jingle All the Way
- Elf
- Rare Exports (Finnish movie)
- Saint Nick (Sint)
- Scrooged
- Nightmare Before Christmas
- Muppet Christmas Carol
- Joyeux Noel (WWII Christmas)
- Rocky IV (Rocky fights Drago on Christmas day)
WORST
- It’s a Wonderful Life
- Jingle All the Way
- Silent Night, Deadly Night
- Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
- Gremlins
- The Home Alone sequels
- Jack Frost
- Fred Claus (Vince Vaughn is Santa’s older, loser brother, Fred)
DISPUTED [BEST & WORST]
- Hook
- Jingle All the Way
OTC Festivities & Feasts
Recommended Eats & Drinks
- Darigold Eggnog. It’s the best there is. Available in both original and old-fashioned varieties. [Dave]
- North African Christmas! Don’t eat the same old doldrums. Try making and enjoying something from North African this year, like this spiced pie dish. [Steel]
-
Turon “We always eat food white people don’t eat or even know what it is. Things like lumpia, pancit, ginataan, polvo, puto, pan de sal, leche flan, sinigang, champurrado, etc. Oh and turon! Oh my gosh turon. You guys would like turon. It’s a big chunk of plantain wrapped in a flaky pastry, coated with sugar syrup and then fried in butter. It’s so sticky and gooey sweet delicious. So good! Reminds me of Christmas! Also ube cake, white rabbits, chocnut.” [Jordan]
Unchained Melodies
Book Wisdom
Dave shared the final lines of Dr. Seuss’s immortal “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!“