- May 1, 2024
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An avid student of film and media (I watch a lot of “Frasier” reruns on Netflix), I took it upon myself to deepen a 6- and 9-year-old’s cinematic Christmas tradition this month with a screening of George C. Scott’s 1984 rendition of “A Christmas Carol.”
Neither had ever seen this classic before, and I was going to be the one to show it to them. Who knows, maybe I’d even spark in them a lifelong love of movies like mine, one that enriches their lives and helps mold their minds — one that puts them forever in my debt, which will be perfect for when they grow up and start making (and letting me borrow) unreasonable sums of money.
To butter them up, I went online and “built” a pizza for delivery on Dominos.com. Have you seen this tool? Step by step, the site walks you through your pie’s creation — foundation: crust type; formative: cheese type; and final: toppings — the Dominos version of the ghosts of your pizza past, present and future.
But what’s really cool is, every time you change a characteristic, the animated pie onscreen morphs to your specifications.
This is what your dinner would look like if you were a cartoon, the site forcefully whispers as you prep. And who’s to say you’re not a cartoon? Maybe this “real,” 3-D life you lead is actually just a dream — ever think of that, smarty pants? What is reality, anyway, but a projection of our own expectations?
This part of the process seemed preachy and a bit odd, I’ll admit. But then again, Dominos had always pushed the envelope when it came to existential philosophy, challenging traditional theories on human consciousness and the possibility of multidimensional cognitive realities.
“If you had some ranch, I would definitely have some!” 6-year-old Isaac said, super cutely to mask the fact that he was being a greedy, rotten, good-for-nothing.
Shaking copious amounts of crushed red pepper onto his slice, instead, I explained that, in my day, kids were happy with what they got; and they were seen and not heard; and they didn’t keep pressing me about salad dressings I obviously didn’t have just to make me look bad in front of their mother, who I was clearly trying to impress with this little pizza party of ours.
“Capiche?” I asked, handing over his plate, pepper flakes cascading off the sides.
And then he had the nerve to act like he didn’t know what “capiche” meant. The gall of this guy.
Not long into the movie, when Marley shows up, Isaac was already passed out, half-snoring under a blanket. And things onscreen got dark, moody. Marley was clanking up the stairs, and fog was rolling outside Scrooge’s window.
“I don’t like this part,” Gillian, the 9-year-old, whispered. And Molly played mom: “It’s only a movie, sweetie,” she said. “There’s no reason to be scared.”
Only, c'mon: There totally was.
I don’t know if you’ve watched this “Christmas Carol” in a while, but the thing is terrifying. Marley, basically decaying, keeps cloth wrapped around his skull, and when he unties it, his jaw drops open, hard.
That’s how dead he is: He can’t even keep his yap closed.
But it gets worse. Even the jolly Ghost of Christmas Present, shirtless underneath his Santa robe, flashes Ebenezer at one point to reveal two kid-zombies, Ignorance and Want, apparently living on his thighs.
“LOOK UPON ME!’ the ghost wailed. And ugh, none of us wanted to.
But then came the dreaded Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come — or as Gillian so racistly referred to him, “The Black One.”
When he showed up, everything turned to chaos.
“No,” Gillian mumbled, her head turned away from the TV, her shaky hands covering her eyes in panic. “No, no, no.”
And just like that, it was official: I had scared a little girl senseless on Christmas. But what could I do about it now? I had a kid on one side, passed out, dreaming about ranch-covered Godknows what; and on the other, Gillian was trembling, eyes smashed closed, paralyzed in fear.
Normally, you bet, I’d do something to help; but Scrooge was right in the middle of his revelation here — you don’t just stop a movie at that sort of climax!
Maybe it was hard to see now, but when the kids got a little older, and they inevitably became film connoisseurs, I was sure they'd thank me for this.
