Lori Falce: Christmas movies and the end of 2020

Let’s just move on.

It’s time. We have to put things behind us and get on with our lives. Some people are happy and some aren’t, but really, there are just two kinds of people in the world anymore.

People who are ready for Hallmark Christmas movies to be on 24/7 and people who aren’t.

Hey, you cope with the crushing despair of 2020 in your way. I’ve found mine.

What is important is finding a way to deal with things that works for you — regardless of what it is you are trying to push past.

Maybe you want to overcome the years of ugly, partisan division that have been the norm since the 2016 election. Maybe you are trying to push the 2020 election and its fallout out of your mind (and off your screens).

Are you trying to escape the coronavirus pandemic or the social distancing? Do you want to block out the economic instability? Get distance from the debates about vaccines? You just can’t hear about another natural disaster or killer insect or celebrity death?

Yeah, I get it. Lots of people get it. And that is why for a lot of us, we are embracing Christmas hard.

One of my friends has thrown herself manically into the construction of handmade holiday gifts for everyone in her family. And I mean everyone. Not just her kids and her husband and her dog. Third cousins once removed are on her list this year.

Several have already decorated for Christmas or Hanukkah or New Year’s or, heck, possibly Easter. I have not gone that far — yet — but I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that my ornaments have been surveyed and sorted and I’ve got a little list of what might need to be replaced.

I am not going all in on a festive Yuletide season because I want this 12-month-long exercise in catastrophic oneupsmanship to be over. Oh no. Because honestly, by the time we get to November every year, I have a lot of friends and family grumbling about what an awful year it has been and how they can’t wait for it to end.

But the thing is, 2021 isn’t coming with a guarantee. The pandemic is unlikely to be over by then, and some experts are predicting a peak in the middle of January. If that’s true, the economic situation won’t necessarily have improved. Weather and politics, wildlife and sinkholes, they will all still be around.

I’ve been a journalist for more than 30 years, and I can tell you that in that time, I’ve never known us to run out of bad things to put on the front page, so I’m under no illusion that 2021 will be utopian.

No, I’m ready for my annual Hallmark marathon because that’s what’s next.

The covid-19 responses have had the effect of freezing us in place. Our political smackdowns, medical issues, financial chaos, etc., are all little different today than they were in March. Eight months into a global state of emergency, everything seems to be replaying on a loop.

I want Christmas because it is both comfort and progress. The holidays are the finish line of the year, and I want to see it looming on the horizon.

So if you want to join me, pour some eggnog, grab a sugar cookie and pull up an afghan. But if you don’t, just leave me alone. I have a lot of Christmas movies to watch, and there are just seven weeks of 2020 left.