Dec. 22: A Die Hard Christmas

 Christmas Day of 2023 and girlfriend and me is sittin around the apartment, trying to think of something to do. We ate our dinner, swapped presents, and were trying to find something to watch on TV. Nothing.

"Let's go see a movie," girlfriend says.

"Okay," says I, and on go the coats and downstairs we go and into the car. Not sure what's playing but we know it's late in the year and that's when the good movies come out.

Well, that's the way it used to be anyway.

Get to the cinema and we see it's all a bunch of Marvel stuff and Disney stuff and movies with roman numerals in 'em. No good movies. No real movies. We're all depressed now and then girlfriend asks me if we still got that time machine at the university."

"Sure do," I say. "Why?"

"I was just thinking that maybe we could travel back in time to when they had real good movies on Christmas. You know? See a good classic in the theatre."

"Great idea," I say. "Let's go."

At the university, I fired up the time machine.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked, strapping her in.

"1988," she says. "We should go see Die Hard. This journalist I know named Grant says it's the best Christmas movie ever and since Grant is the smartest person I know, then he's bound to be right."

"Okay," I said, and programmed the machine to take us to Christmas Day of 1988.

Up we go to the cinema and tell the ticket man we want to see Die Hard.

"You can't," ticket man says. "That movie's been out of theatres for months. We started showing it in the summer."

"Are you serious?" I asked. 

"Yes sir, I am. It debuted on July 22 of this year and it had a healthy run, but it's gone now. If you really want to see it, I recommend visiting a video store."

"What kind of Christmas movie comes out in July?" I asked girlfriend. 

"None do," she said. "It's an oxymoron. If it's a Christmas movie, it's only logical that it be released at Christmastime."

Everyone agreed. Just then, a whole bunch of people from Mensa and Muhammed Ali and the Montreal Canadiens and Bob Woodward and Car Bernstein walked by and they all agreed with us that if a movie comes out in July, it can't be considered a Christmas movie.

Walking back to the time machine, girlfriend was all depressed.

"Phooey," she said. "I really wanted to go see a Christmas movie on Christmas Day. And not a sappy Christmas movie either. Something exciting. Something with bite."

"I have an idea," I said.

We got back into the time machine and I had it send us to Christmas Day of 1969. We went up to the ticket man and I bought two tickets for On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

"THAT WAS AMAZING!" girlfriend said when it was all over. "That movie took place in Portugal, England, and Switzerland. James Bond had to stop Blofeld from exacting chemical warfare on the world. And the ending, when poor Tracy got killed on her wedding day, has got to be one of the most shocking endings in all of cinema."

"I agree," I said, and then we were surrounded by Christmas carollers because it was, you know, Christmas.