Nothing Like The Holidays

While my daughter and her friend were watching Twilight, I went to see Nothing Like The Holidays. I had expected it to be similar to Four Christmases, but it was actually quite different. There were some funny moments, but it was definitely a drama, not a comedy. And I actually liked it even better than Four Christmases! Of course, that's just my opinion--I like movies that make me cry a lot more than movies that make me laugh! :) And I did find myself wiping tears away a bit during this movie--to me, that is the measure of a good film: if it makes me cry! :)

Earlier, I had written about family traditions and the holidays. I am ready to leave most of the old traditions behind and begin new and very different ones. A challenging holiday, to me, is one where I am having to stand up to outdated traditions and explain my reasons for not wanting to do things "the way we used to do them." This movie was all about traditions, and many family members were upset about the possibility of changing them. It was an interesting perspective to see the views expressed in this film. For the most part, tradition and roots won out and the family in the film was happy about it. It made me think about my own family--we are very different from the family in the film, but my older family members are steeped in tradition as this family was. Their family was large and of Puerto Rican descent--my family is small and Anglo. I imagined what my family would be like if there were more of us--maybe family traditions would mean more, or maybe not. But the overriding theme of the movie seemed to be about family, tradition, roots, home, etc.--the very things that I am kind of rebelling from and moving away from lately. Even though this movie was essentially pulling the audience in a different direction than I wanted to go, I still really enjoyed it. It was interesting to see a very different kind of family portrayed, and it was a nice change from the typical "traditional" family seen in most holiday movies. I really like the movie even though I don't want to continue the old family traditions as they did! :)