Kranks and Dragons

My mom starts watching Christmas movies in August. One year, we badgered her about it so much that she waited all the way until December to begin her marathon; she said the Christmas season seemed too short and the next year went back to watching them in August. She had several favorites and we could probably recite most of them from memory.

Last night I watched “Christmas with the Kranks” with my daughter. (P.S. Spoiler alert.) We had seen it in previous years and when I first saw it in the movie theater, there were definitely some funny parts…specifically when the Kranks are tanning at the mall. However, this movie has always bothered me just a bit. Not because they plan to skip Christmas, but because everyone around them tries to force their own opinion on what they should or should not be doing. If they were Jewish or another religion that didn’t celebrate Christmas, would the neighbors have acted the same way toward them? What is it to them if someone chooses not to celebrate Christmas, whatever their reason? That reason is theirs and they have a right to it. Am I just being a Scrooge?

I happen to celebrate Christmas (although I definitely don’t leave a trail of sugarplums everywhere I go), so I usually wish most other people Merry Christmas, too. If I know they celebrate another holiday (like Hannukah), I will usually wish them a Happy Hannukah. If someone were to wish me a Happy Kwanzaa, I wouldn’t be offended; I would simply say “Thank you and Happy Kwanzaa to you, too.” But I digress.

Anyway, after Zoe and I watched “Christmas with the Kranks,” it was still relatively early, so we watched “The Santa Clause.” This one has to be one of my favorites. I love how they explain some of the magic of Christmas and I think it’s perfectly okay to believe in Santa Claus. It may be just a myth, but isn’t a myth a story (or belief) that hasn’t been proven to be true? For example, in Literature, all religion is considered myth.

Now, there are multiple meanings of the word “myth.” When I say “myth,” I don’t mean that it is untrue; I mean it in the scholarly sense as a story that explores the value systems of the human culture (which provide the basis of religions). “Greek Mythology” is considered a “mythology,” although at one point in time it was a religion. How is a belief in Santa Clause any different from Greek Mythology? And how is the belief in Greek Mythology any different from the belief of many other religions today? Why can’t they all be true?

Here’s another one for you. We have fossils of dinosaurs, correct? Some dinosaurs flew. There are ancient cave drawings of dragons all over the world – creatures with wings that could breathe (or, at least, blow) fire. What if one (or more) of them actually could create fire? Perhaps they are like the dragons in the movie “Reign of Fire” where the dragon produces two different chemicals that, when combined, ignite? Yes, I know the movie is fiction, and I’m obviously no scientist (stop laughing), but isn’t it possible? (I said possible, not probable.) So, if we can believe that dinosaurs existed, how do we know that dragons didn’t exist as well?

I know I’m sounding crazier by the minute, so I’ll end my hypotheticals here. Maybe tonight we’ll settle for a good, old-fashioned, Christmas movie where an eight-year-old kid sets up a house full of booby traps for his would-be burglars…and miraculously cleans up before everyone gets home.