True story: I really enjoyed Christmas this year. I know, I’m not exactly sure why either. Maybe it’s because Whitney and Heidi regularly smelled like spun sugar and that one time shined like glitter.

But who knows, maybe it was re-adjusting my meds, or all the booze I drank, but anywho, it was really lovely. If you haven’t tried Christmas in a while, you should know, they’ve made it new and improved. And I mean that in a totally non-witnessing kind of way. Really, I’m sure Hanukkah, and everything else, is also quite lovely as well.

So, while enjoying a lovely holiday, and doing the things parents do thirty-six hours before attempting to pass off some cockamamie story about why Santa put bar codes on your three year old’s toy packaging, I watched the The Family Man. I’d set up a folding table two feet in front of our bedroom TV, then wrapped oddly shaped toys and watched the movie three and a half times. And while The Family Man may not be a holiday classic, it is the best holiday movie ever, especially if you like Ferrari’s and half-naked people.

(Side note here, I’ve been known to enjoy a big-budget Hollywood movie that excels at being unexceptional. One time, when I was at a corporate “get-to-know-your-co-worker”, a microphone was passed around so we could, loudly and clearly, inform seventy, or so, of our professional peers, the name of our favorite movie. I told them mine was Baby Boom. Evidently, I’m way past feeling awkward.)

The Family Man opens with Nicolas Cage’s character, Jack, prancing around in a pair of black briefs. I KNOW! I mean, can you think of a better way to start a holiday movie? Pure fucking genius. Although, I would’ve preferred he’d worn boxers and saved the brief wearing for those marble-bag-loving French Canadians on Ft. Lauderdale Beach. Anyway, Jack leads a life of power and privilege, until he’s ripped from Easy Street and forced to schlep around like the rest of us on Average Lane. There he must negotiate the world of settling for less and outlet malls. He’s like any average guy married to an average gal like Kate, played by Tea Leoni. And we know what a regular looking frump she can be.

It’s only after Jack loses the finer things in life, and learns how to smoke cheap cigars, that he realizes love conquers all. (What a shame that Bernie Madoff wasn’t able to take time out from pillaging his clients’ savings his busy schedule to have seen this movie.) Still, I couldn’t help but wondering when the last time Nicolas or Tea had trouble starting a seven year-old minivan. Did the director have to sit them down and explain slowly, and in a soothing voice, that some people don’t even have heated towel racks?

Anyway, the movie is filled with the typical ups and downs of life and reminded me of what my step-mother-in-law Sheila once told me, “Meredith, life is full of joy and sorrow.” And really, isn’t it? Pretty much sums it up neatly. You’re forced to sell your house because you can’t make the payments – that’s a sorrow. You spend six months in Mexico – that’s a joy. Also, this nugget of wisdom was delivered in her southern drawl, so it also sounded like a line from the movie Steal Magnolias, or like the customer service folks at the Georgia J.Crew call center.

I may date myself here, but I remember back before Al Gore invented the Internet that I had to call human beings in order to place an order for cable knit sweaters. I mean, I had to use the phone attached the kitchen wall, in our house. With the kind of phone that had a dial tone!

We used to live like animals.

Still – life was good on Average Lane.