Surviving Christmas (2004) and Family for the Holidays

When you get to the end of a year, a few things are certain. First, there will be a forced cheer pushed on the public. Decorations go up on trees, on houses, and in windows. Christmas lights twinkle. Christmas trees stand. Hanukkiah are lit over the course of eight nights. Christmas music plays on radio stations and in stores. Second, people get ready to drink and eat a lot. Christmas isn’t Christmas without some sort of a feast. New Year’s Eve isn’t a celebration without getting a little drunk. Work Christmas parties mix the two. Third, and most important to this post, people end up seeing their families.

Family is one of the most important parts of the holiday season. For many people in North America, it hasn’t been long since the whole family got together. Canada saw Thanksgiving in October and The United States saw Thanksgiving at the end of November. Thanksgiving is another holiday where entire families are willing to get together. The end of the year holidays, however, make family more important. Christmas or Hanukkah can see entire families coming together to share gifts and be with one another. New Year’s can bring about thoughts of family lost, family gained, fights, and make-ups from throughout the past year. Both holidays can involve family in major ways, though for some people, they don’t.

Surviving Christmas was a 2004 film all about family and what that means at Christmas. Drew Latham (Ben Affleck) was a ruthless advertising executive who didn’t care about celebrating Christmas with family. That was the complete opposite of his girlfriend, Missy Vangilder (Jennifer Morrison). She wanted to meet his family, but he refused. She broke up with him. In an attempt to find some sort of comfort in his life and feel less lonely, Drew took a trip back to his childhood home. He met the family that lived there. Drew made a deal with Tom Valco (James Gandolfini) that he would pay Tom $250,000 to rent the family for Christmas. Tom agreed to it and a wacky Christmas ensued.

Surviving Christmas was a fairly good example of family coming together at Christmas, though it mostly only looked at immediate family. The Valco family included Tom, his wife Christine (Catherine O’Hara), their son Brian (Josh Zuckerman), and their daughter Alicia (Christina Applegate). Drew became a surrogate second son to the family when he offered money to rent them for the holidays. It was a nuclear family with an extra son who bought his way in.

Things weren’t perfect for the Valco family, however. There was trouble brewing in their relationships that was only agitated by the addition of Drew. Tom and Christine were fighting a lot and didn’t get as physical as they used to. It was waring thin on both their parts. They were considering calling it quits after the Christmas holidays. Brian spent most of his time alone in his room with his computer. Jokes were made about how he was always masturbating up there. It was later revealed that those jokes were the truth when he stumbled upon some pornography that he never wanted to see. Then there was Alicia. She had moved out of the house. When she returned for the holidays, she didn’t like the addition of Drew. She wanted everything to be as it had always been and was opposed to any change. With the whole family dynamic changing around her, she was having a breakdown.

The holidays are supposed to be a happy time for the whole family. They come together to celebrate. They share their love and think back to all the good times they had. But underlying every family get together, there are troubling things. People may be fighting. There’s that one family member that nobody really likes. There are deaths, marriages, births, and people who just don’t show up. Families are complex and things are always in flux. If there’s one thing that Surviving Christmas did well, it was that it showed off how families try to be happy during the holidays even when things are falling apart.

Take my family for example. Everyone on my mom’s side gets together for Christmas dinner each year. It’s a whole extended family thing. People are happy to see each other. They greet each other, they listen to Christmas music, and they eat a whole lot of food. But there are always people who can’t make it. There was one time where my uncle had to work on Christmas, and the rest of the family was angry that he didn’t take the night off. Even amongst all the cheer, there was this anger that someone didn’t make it. This year will be clouded by the recent death of one of my aunts. She wasn’t always at the Christmas dinners, but it can’t be avoided that she passed away a month or so ago. It will still be a cheerful family dinner. It will just have that undercurrent of sombreness to it.

Other families straight up have some hate and detest bubbling under the surface. That’s what Surviving Christmas highlighted. Drew came into the family and demanded that they be cheerful until Christmas, when he would leave. The pending separation of Tom and Christine was put on hold as they tried to appear happy. They took the family to get a Christmas tree. They had dinner together and tried not to fight. Tom put on a Christmas hat even though he hated the idea of wearing it. They were trying to just make it through the holidays by playing into the cheer. It didn’t quite work, as it doesn’t always work in the real world.

Families always have their secrets, squabbles, and feuds. There are uncles on my dad’s side that don’t talk to each other. My dad didn’t talk to one of them for years before reconnecting and basically becoming best friends. He hasn’t talked to another one for years. That might be part of the reason that his side of the family hasn’t had much of anything for a Christmas party outside of a few people getting together for brunch the day after. People keep getting mad at each other and pushing each other away. The wedding we went to for my cousin a couple years ago had an awkward picture of all the uncles and none of them looked happy to be there with each other. It wouldn’t be a happy holiday season with all of them forced together.

Other movies have hit upon the family element of the holidays. Home Alone and Home Alone 2 were about the extended family getting together for a destination holiday, only to find out that poor Kevin was left on his own. The attempt at cheer was there, though the family never quite overcame the squabbles. Kevin got in fights with his brother Buzz. His uncle was an ass. Fuller wet the bed. They were together for the holidays, but things weren’t perfect. They never are.

One of the surest things during the holiday season is that family will come together. It could be the immediate family. It could be an extended family with a few branches coming together. It could be friends that are considered family. No matter the type of family, the holidays usually bring people together. For the most part. Movies show that. Real life shows that. Family is a holiday tradition.

Now let’s get some notes into this late by almost a week post:

• Surviving Christmas was directed by Mike Mitchell, who once directed Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (week 20).
• Phill Lewis showed up in Surviving Christmas for one scene. He also made appearances in Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 (week 70) and Aces: Iron Eagle III (week 90).
• Surviving Christmas was the third time Ben Affleck appeared in the Sunday “Bad” Movies, after showing up in 200 Cigarettes (week 161) and Gigli (week 225).
• The final three timer this week was Tom Kenny, who had previously been in Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 (week 70) and Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva La Fiesta! (week 70).
• Kacie Barrowman returned from Tiptoes (week 28) to make an appearance in Surviving Christmas.
• Two people from Baby Geniuses (week 50) were in Surviving Christmas. They were Amanda Fein and Caitlin Fein.
• This was the second time that Christina Applegate could be seen in the Sunday “Bad” Movies. She had been in View From the Top (week 83).
• Sonya Eddy was in Surviving Christmas and Leprechaun Back 2 Tha Hood (week 120).
• Mortal Kombat (week 140) featured Peter Jason, who was also in Surviving Christmas.
• Anika Noni Rose returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies this week. She was first featured in From Justin to Kelly (week 325).
• Two actors from On the Line (week 342) returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies this week. They were Denice Storey and John Thurner.
• Finally, Udo Kier was in Surviving Christmas. He was also in Far Cry (week 364).
• Have you seen Surviving Christmas? What were your thoughts? Is family an important part of your holiday season? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.
• You can also use Twitter and the comments to tell me what movies I should be watching for future installments of the Sunday “Bad” Movies. I’m always open to suggestions, though I might not always use them.
• Check out Sunday “Bad” Movies on Instagram. There’s some fun stuff going on there.
• The next movie will be continuing the Christmas season, though it’s taking a hard left turn from the semi-upbeat family comedy that this week had. It’s the yearly Christmas horror film.  And it ties into something being released this month. I’ll be watching the 2006 remake of Black Christmas, and you’ll see that post soon.