House Of Boyd » Holiday

Our Christmas Countdown

John Boyd — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:44:32 +0000

Our favorite movies of the holiday season. A movie a day until December 25th!

Dec. 1: Christmas Vacation (1989) – The Griswold family’s plans for a big family Christmas predictably turn into a big disaster.
Our rating: *********½ (9.5/10)

Dec. 2: It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) – An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.
Our rating: *********½ (9.5/10)

Dec. 3: A Christmas Story (1983) – Ralphie has to convince his parents, teachers, and Santa that a Red Ryder BB gun really is the perfect gift for the 1940′s.
Our rating: *********½ (9.5/10)

Dec. 4: Elf (2003) – After inadvertently wreaking havoc on the elf community due to his ungainly size, a man raised as an elf at the North Pole is sent to the U.S. in search of his true identity.
Our rating: *********~ (9/10)

Dec. 5: Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (1977) – A poor otter family risks everything for the chance to win the cash prize of a talent contest for Christmas.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Dec. 6: You’ve Got Mail (1998) – Two business rivals hate each other at the office but fall in love over the internet.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Dec. 7: The Polar Express (2004) – On Christmas Eve, a doubting boy boards a magical train that’s headed to the North Pole and Santa Claus’s home.
Our rating: *********~ (9/10)

Dec. 8: The Santa Clause (1994) – When a man inadvertantly kills Santa on Christmas Eve, he finds himself magically recruited to take his place.
Our rating: *********~ (9/10)

Dec. 9: A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) – Repelled by the commercialism he sees around him, Charlie Brown tries to find the true meaning of Christmas.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Dec. 10: Gremlins (1984) – A boy inadvertantly breaks 3 important rules concerning his new pet and unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Dec. 11: Home Alone (1990) – An eight year-old, who is accidentally left behind while his family flies to France for Christmas, has to defend his home against idiotic burglars.
Our rating: ********½~ (8.5/10)

Dec. 12: The Year Without A Santa Claus (1974) – Mrs. Claus tells us about the time Santa had a bad cold and decided to take a vacation from Christmas.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Dec. 13: Jingle All The Way (1996) – A harried father decides to dream the impossible dream, to get that year’s hot toy for his son just before Christmas Day.
Our rating: ********½~ (8.5/10)

Dec. 14: Deck The Halls (2006) – Two neighbors have it out after one of them decorates his house for the holidays so brightly that it can be seen from space.
Our rating: *******½~~ (7.5/10)

Dec. 15: Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) – A misfit reindeer and his friends look for a place that will accept them.
Our rating: *********½ (9.5/10)

Dec. 16: Reindeer Games (2000) – After assuming his dead cellmate’s identity to get with his girlfriend, an ex-con finds himself the reluctant participant in a casino heist.
Our rating: *******~~~ (7/10)

Dec. 17: Jack Frost (1998) – A father, who can’t keep his promises, dies in a car accident. One year later, he returns as a snowman, who has the final chance to put things right with his son before he is gone forever.
Our rating: *******~~~ (7/10)

Dec. 18: Scrooged (1988) – A cynically selfish TV executive gets haunted by three spirits bearing lessons on Christmas Eve.
Our rating: ******~~~~ (6/10)

Dec. 19: Frosty The Snowman (1969) – A living snowman and a little girl struggle to elude a greedy magician who is after the snowman’s magic hat.
Our rating: *******~~~ (7/10)

Dec. 20: The Family Man (2000) – A fast-lane investment broker, offered the opportunity to see how the other half lives, wakes up to find that his sports car and girlfriend have become a mini-van and wife.
Our rating: *********½ (9.5/10)

Dec. 21: Serendipity (2001) – A couple reunite years after the night they first met, fell in love, and separated, convinced that one day they’d end up together.
Our rating: *********½ (9.5/10)

Dec. 22: The Santa Clause 2 (2002) – Scott Calvin has been a humble Santa Claus for nearly ten years, but it might come to an end if he doesn’t find a Mrs. Claus.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Dec. 23: A Christmas Carol (1984) – An old miser who makes excuses for his uncaring nature learns real compassion when 3 ghosts visit him on Christmas Eve.
Our rating: *********½ (9.5/10)

The Fantasy And Folklore Of All Hallows

John Boyd — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:56:06 +0000

Halloween had its beginnings in an ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of the dead. The Celtic peoples, who were once found all over Europe, divided the year by four major holidays. According to their calendar, the year began on a day corresponding to November 1st on our present calendar. The date marked the beginning of winter. Since they were pastoral people, it was a time when cattle and sheep had to be moved to closer pastures and all livestock had to be secured for the winter months. Crops were harvested and stored. The date marked both an ending and a beginning in an eternal cycle.
The festival observed at this time was called Samhain (pronounced Sah-ween). It was the biggest and most significant holiday of the Celtic year. The Celts believed that at the time of Samhain, more so than any other time of the year, the ghosts of the dead were able to mingle with the living, because at Samhain the souls of those who had died during the year traveled into the otherworld. People gathered to sacrifice animals, fruits, and vegetables. They also lit bonfires in honor of the dead, to aid them on their journey, and to keep them away from the living. On that day all manner of beings were abroad: ghosts, fairies, and demons–all part of the dark and dread.

Samhain became the Halloween we are familiar with when Christian missionaries attempted to change the religious practices of the Celtic people. In the early centuries of the first millennium A.D., before missionaries such as St. Patrick and St. Columcille converted them to Christianity, the Celts practiced an elaborate religion through their priestly caste, the Druids, who were priests, poets, scientists and scholars all at once. As religious leaders, ritual specialists, and bearers of learning, the Druids were not unlike the very missionaries and monks who were to Christianize their people and brand them evil devil worshippers.
As a result of their efforts to wipe out “pagan” holidays, such as Samhain, the Christians succeeded in effecting major transformations in it. In 601 A.D. Pope Gregory the First issued a now famous edict to his missionaries concerning the native beliefs and customs of the peoples he hoped to convert. Rather than try to obliterate native peoples’ customs and beliefs, the pope instructed his missionaries to use them: if a group of people worshipped a tree, rather than cut it down, he advised them to consecrate it to Christ and allow its continued worship.
In terms of spreading Christianity, this was a brilliant concept and it became a basic approach used in Catholic missionary work. Church holy days were purposely set to coincide with native holy days. Christmas, for instance, was assigned the arbitrary date of December 25th because it corresponded with the mid-winter celebration of many peoples. Likewise, St. John’s Day was set on the summer solstice.
Samhain, with its emphasis on the supernatural, was decidedly pagan. While missionaries identified their holy days with those observed by the Celts, they branded the earlier religion’s supernatural deities as evil, and associated them with the devil. As representatives of the rival religion, Druids were considered evil worshippers of devilish or demonic gods and spirits. The Celtic underworld inevitably became identified with the Christian Hell.
The effects of this policy were to diminish but not totally eradicate the beliefs in the traditional gods. Celtic belief in supernatural creatures persisted, while the church made deliberate attempts to define them as being not merely dangerous, but malicious. Followers of the old religion went into hiding and were branded as witches.
The Christian feast of All Saints was assigned to November 1st. The day honored every Christian saint, especially those that did not otherwise have a special day devoted to them. This feast day was meant to substitute for Samhain, to draw the devotion of the Celtic peoples, and, finally, to replace it forever. That did not happen, but the traditional Celtic deities diminished in status, becoming fairies or leprechauns of more recent traditions.
The old beliefs associated with Samhain never died out entirely. The powerful symbolism of the traveling dead was too strong, and perhaps too basic to the human psyche, to be satisfied with the new, more abstract Catholic feast honoring saints. Recognizing that something that would subsume the original energy of Samhain was necessary, the church tried again to supplant it with a Christian feast day in the 9th century. This time it established November 2nd as All Souls Day–a day when the living prayed for the souls of all the dead. But, once again, the practice of retaining traditional customs while attempting to redefine them had a sustaining effect: the traditional beliefs and customs lived on, in new guises.
All Saints Day, otherwise known as All Hallows (hallowed means sanctified or holy), continued the ancient Celtic traditions. The evening prior to the day was the time of the most intense activity, both human and supernatural. People continued to celebrate All Hallows Eve as a time of the wandering dead, but the supernatural beings were now thought to be evil. The folk continued to propitiate those spirits (and their masked impersonators) by setting out gifts of food and drink. Subsequently, All Hallows Eve became Hallow Evening, which became Hallowe’en–an ancient Celtic, pre-Christian New Year’s Day in contemporary dress.
Many supernatural creatures became associated with All Hallows. In Ireland fairies were numbered among the legendary creatures who roamed on Halloween. An old folk ballad called “Allison Gross” tells the story of how the fairy queen saved a man from a witch’s spell on Halloween.
In old England cakes were made for the wandering souls, and people went “a’ soulin’” for these “soul cakes.” Halloween, a time of magic, also became a day of divination, with a host of magical beliefs: for instance, if persons hold a mirror on Halloween and walk backwards down the stairs to the basement, the face that appears in the mirror will be their next lover.
Virtually all present Halloween traditions can be traced to the ancient Celtic day of the dead. Halloween is a holiday of many mysterious customs, but each one has a history, or at least a story behind it. The wearing of costumes, for instance, and roaming from door to door demanding treats can be traced to the Celtic period and the first few centuries of the Christian era, when it was thought that the souls of the dead were out and around, along with fairies, witches, and demons. Offerings of food and drink were left out to placate them. As the centuries wore on, people began dressing like these dreadful creatures, performing antics in exchange for food and drink. This practice is called mumming, from which the practice of trick-or-treating evolved. To this day, witches, ghosts, and skeleton figures of the dead are among the favorite disguises. Halloween also retains some features that harken back to the original harvest holiday of Samhain, such as the customs of bobbing for apples and carving vegetables, as well as the fruits, nuts, and spices cider associated with the day.
Today Halloween is becoming once again and adult holiday or masquerade, like mardi Gras. Men and women in every disguise imaginable are taking to the streets of big American cities and parading past grinningly carved, candlelit jack o’lanterns, re- enacting customs with a lengthy pedigree. Their masked antics challenge, mock, tease, and appease the dread forces of the night, of the soul, and of the otherworld that becomes our world on this night of reversible possibilities, inverted roles, and transcendency. In so doing, they are reaffirming death and its place as a part of life in an exhilarating celebration of a holy and magic evening.

Jester Cheap And The Flatwoods Witch

John Boyd — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:55:22 +0000

A new video for the Halloween season.

Click here to view the embedded video.

31 Days Of Halloween Movies

John Boyd — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:09:20 +0000

Every year, we try to watch one horror movie a day leading up to Halloween. Each year we try to mix it up a little and watch something that we may have missed the previous year. So, since today officially kicks off our 31 days of Halloween movies, it’s time to dust off some dvd’s or make a trip to the movie rental store. And since Roman Polanski has been in the news a lot lately, we’ll start off with my all time favorite Roman Polanski flick:

Oct. 1st: Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – A young couple move into a new apartment, only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences. When the wife becomes mysteriously pregnant, paranoia over the safety of her unborn child begins controlling her life.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Oct. 2nd: It’s Alive (1974) – The Davies expect a baby, which turns out to be a monster with a nasty habit of killing when it’s scared. And it’s easily scared. Unfortunately, this was a great candidate for a remake and even more unfortunately, it was remade in 2008. This movie scared the piss out of me as a kid. The remake was a horrible disaster, not worth mentioning.
Our rating: ******½~~~ (6.5/10)

Oct. 3rd: The Exorcist (1973) – Something beyond comprehension is happening to a little girl on this street, in this house. A man has been called for as a last resort to try and save her. That man is The Exorcist. Can’t deny this as one of the best horror films of all time. The anniversary release a couple of years ago is the one to watch. It includes the staircase scene that we didn’t get to see for over 30 years.
Our rating: *********~ (9/10)

Oct. 4th: Helter Skelter (1976) – The investigation of two horrific mass murders leads to the capture and trial of the psychotic pseudo-hippie Charles Manson and his “family”.
Our rating: ******½~~~ (6.5/10)

Oct. 5th: The Silence Of The Lambs (1991) – A young FBI cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims. One of our all time favorites!
Our rating: ********** (10/10)

Oct. 6th: The Shining (1989) – A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.
Our rating: ********½~ (8.5/10)

Oct. 7th: The Blair Witch Project (1999) – In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary…A year later their footage was found.
Our rating: *********~ (9/10)

Oct. 8th: Christine (1983) – A nerdish boy buys a strange car with a evil mind of its own and his nature starts to change to reflect it.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Oct. 9th: It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) – Now here’s one for the kids! The Peanuts gang celebrates Halloween while Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin.
Our rating: *******~~~ (7/10)

Oct. 10th: Friday The 13th (1980) – Just the first one, the original. NO SEQUELS! Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to re-open a summer camp that was the site of a child’s drowning.
Our rating: *******~~~ (7/10)

Oct. 11th: The Amityville Horror (1979) – Newlyweds move into a house where a murder was committed, and experience strange manifestations which drive them away.
Our rating: ******½~~~ (6.5/10)

Oct. 12th: Frailty (2001) – A man confesses to an FBI agent his family’s story of how his religious fanatic father’s visions lead to a series of murders to destroy supposed “demons.” A lot of people have let this little gem slide under the radar. Really a good movie.
Our rating: *******~~~ (7/10)

Oct. 13th: Salem’s Lot (1979) – Vampires are invading a small New England town. It’s up to a novelist and a young horror fan to save it.
Our rating: ******½~~~ (6.5/10)

Oct. 14th: An American Werewolf In London (1981) – Two American tourists in England are attacked by a werewolf that none of the locals will admit exists.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Oct. 15th: The Grudge (2004) – An American nurse living and working in Tokyo is exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse, one that locks a person in a powerful rage before claiming their life and spreading to another victim.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Oct. 16th: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) – Five friends visiting their grandpa’s old house are hunted down and terrorized by a chainsaw wielding killer and his family of grave-robbing cannibals.
Our rating: *******~~~ (7/10)

Oct. 17th: The Omen (1976) – An American ambassador learns to his horror that his son is actually the literal Antichrist.
Our rating: *******~~~ (7/10)

Oct. 18th: Night of The Living Dead (1968) – A group of people hide from bloodthirsty zombies in a farmhouse.
Our rating: *******½~~ (7.5/10)

Oct. 19th: The Mothman Prophecies (2002) – A reporter is drawn to a small West Virginia town to investigate a series of strange events, including psychic visions and the appearance of bizarre entities.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Oct. 20th: The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) – A lawyer takes on a negligent homicide case involving a priest who performed an exorcism on a young girl.
Our rating: *******½~~ (7.5/10)

Oct. 21st: Jaws (1975) – When a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island community of Amity, a police chief, a marine scientist and grizzled fisherman set out to stop it.
Our rating: ********** (10/10)

Oct. 22nd: Pet Sematary (1989) – The Creeds have just moved to a new house in the countryside. Their house is perfect, except for two things: the semi-trailers that roar past on the narrow road, and the mysterious cemetary in the woods behind the house.
Our rating: *******½~~ (7.5/10)

Oct. 23rd: Se7en (1995) – Police drama about two cops, one new and one about to retire, after a serial killer using the seven deadly sins as his MO.
Our rating: ********½~ (8.5/10)

Oct. 24th: Halloween (1978) – A psychotic murderer institutionalized since childhood escapes on a mindless rampage while his doctor chases him through the streets.
Our rating: ********½~ (8.5/10)

Oct. 25th: Paranormal Activity (2007) – After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence.
Our rating: ********½~ (8.5/10)

Oct. 26th: White Noise (2005) – An architect’s desire to speak with his wife from beyond the grave, becomes an obsession with supernatural repercussions.
Our rating: *******½~~ (7.5/10)

Oct. 27th: Children Of The Corn (1984) – A boy preacher named Isaac goes to a town in Nebraska called Gatlin and gets all the children to murder every adult in town.
Our rating: *******½~~ (7.5/10)

Oct. 28th: Saw (2004) – With a dead body laying between them, two men wake up in the secure lair of a serial killer who’s been nicknamed “Jigsaw” by the police because of his unusual calling card.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Oct. 29th: The Howling (1981) – After a bizarre and near fatal encounter with a serial killer, a newswoman is sent to a rehabilitation center whose inhabitants may not be what they seem.
Our rating: *******½~~ (7.5/10)

Oct. 30th: Hocus Pocus (1993) – Another for the kids. More than 300 years ago, 3 witches were sentenced to die in Salem.
Our rating: ********~~ (8/10)

Oct. 31st: Rob Zombies “Halloween” (2007) – **Unrated Version** After being committed for 17 years, Michael Myers, now a grown man and still very dangerous, escapes from the mental institution (where he was committed as a 10 year old) and he immediately returns to Haddonfield, where he wants to find his baby sister, Laurie. Anyone who crosses his path is in mortal danger.
Our rating: *********½ (9.5/10)

Fun Fathers Day

John Boyd — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:00:41 +0000

Fathers Day is supposed to be spent resting and relaxing. Sorry, resting and relaxing just isn’t in my blood. I did try to kick back and relax today, but that only lasted for about an hour. Instead, we took advantage of the awesome weather to do some things around the house. We cut and trimmed the grass, bathed all 8 dogs and still managed to get the HHR and the Solstice washed as well. The outside dogs were in dire need of a good scrubbing and that’s exactly what they got. I know that they had to feel better in the heat of the day, especially Nellie who is due to deliver some basset hound puppies within the next two weeks. As a matter of fact, if any of you know anybody who’s looking for a great breed of dog, be sure to send them our way. We’ll have lots of puppies very soon!

Happy Fathers Day

John Boyd — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:41:42 +0000

Father’s Day is a day of commemoration and celebration of Dad. It is a day to not only honor your father, but all men who have acted as a father figure in your life – whether as Stepfathers, Uncles, Grandfathers, or “Big Brothers.”

The idea for creating a day for children to honor their fathers began in Spokane, Washington. A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of the idea for Father’s Day while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909.
Having been raised by her father, William Jackson Smart, after her mother died, Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora’s father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father’s Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.
In 1926, a National Father’s Day Committee was formed in New York City. Father’s Day was recognized by a Joint Resolution of Congress in 1956. In 1972, President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father’s Day to be held on the third Sunday of June. So Father’s Day was born in memory and gratitude by a daughter who thought that her father and all good fathers should be honored with a special day just like we honor our mothers on Mother’s Day.

What Makes A Dad
God took the strength of a mountain,
The majesty of a tree,
The warmth of a summer sun,
The calm of a quiet sea,
The generous soul of nature,
The comforting arm of night,
The wisdom of the ages,
The power of the eagle’s flight,
The joy of a morning in spring,
The faith of a mustard seed,
The patience of eternity,
The depth of a family need,
Then God combined these qualities,
When there was nothing more to add,
He knew His masterpiece was complete,
And so, He called it … Dad

Early Fathers Day Gift

John Boyd — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:56:29 +0000

For an early Fathers Day gift, this past Saturday, Lenora took our Solstice and had the windows tinted. I’ve been wanting them tinted since we purchased the car, but never really had a chance to get around to it. It really added a new level of detail and gives the car a different look. I love tinted windows on red, black or white cars!