The Condition of Being Single at the Holidays... (Home for Christmas/Hjem til Jul REVIEW)

If there’s one thing every unattached person, everywhere, dreads around the holidays, it’s being grilled by one’s family (friends, coworkers, nosy gas-meter readers, etc.) about Why Aren’t You in a Relationship… and schooled in What You Need to Do to Get in One (because everyone who's in a relationship thinks they're experts on that, of course). 

[Oh, and if you, dear reader, are one of those happily—or even not-so-happily—married, partnered, or otherwise-coupled folks, engaged in the relentless hounding of all the singletons you know, listen up: No matter if still-single, newly-single, or single-by-choice, we're well aware of the fact that we’re alone; many of us would really like to find The One; and all the pressure you’re putting on us? Not. Helping.]


At least now, though, all those single-(and-not-lovin’-it) people have two brilliant seasons of Home for Christmas (or Hjem Til Jul, in its native Norwegian), now streaming on Netflix, to take away some of the sting… and to make anyone who’s been there, at some point (erm, feeling awkwardly-single around the holidays, not Norway, although that's def on my bucket list), feel good. 

The premise of Season One is easily-relatable: Johanne, a young(ish, at 30) woman has a lot going for her… a steady job, parents and siblings she gets along (well enough) with, a small network of good friends, and a nice flat to live in. The only thing that’s missing—especially around the holidays, and most-especially, at the big family Jul dinner? A boyfriend.


So, encouraged by her delightfully-eccentric (and genuinely good-hearted) roomie, Jørgunn, Johanne sets out to find herself that missing piece (a man) by Christmas (in 24 days). 


Does she succeed? C’mon, you know I’m not about to tell. But, I will say that the end of the first season ends on a lovely cliffhanger… which then leads directly into the beginning of the equally-enchanting Season Two, when Johanne has a whole new set of problems to deal with (and no, they’re probably not exactly what you might be thinking, so stop feeling like you’ve figured it all out, already).


As you would both expect and sorta hope (Home for Christmas is a show, after all), much awkwardness, some disappointments, and a good deal of hilarity run through all twelve episodes (each season is six eps in length), without ever—hallelujah!—crossing over into the dreaded realms of disbelief, silliness, or triteness. Johanne’s situation (predicament?) always rings completely true; I can either identify with whatever’s happening, or I’ve been in a nearly-identical spot. 


It’s also cool, to me, that this oh-so-relatable series comes from somewhere distinctly not the U.S. (since—let’s be honest—something like ninety-nine percent of holiday rom-coms are set here, which is all sorts of been there, done that). The scenery is gorgeous (I mean, Norway knows snow!), the casting is spot-on, and the feel of everything is just a bit more… real. 


Home for Christmas isn’t the—and apologies, here, to anyone who lurves the genre above all else—treacly-sweet variety of rom-com fare that permeates the various networks and platforms around the holidays. Rather, it’s a smart, clever, honest, and funny look at life, and how messy it can be… especially when it comes to what the heart needs, and what the heart wants (whether or not it can ever get it). 


This easily-bingeable series is far and away my pick for holiday rom-com viewing. It is, to me… perfect, and this recommendation is my holiday gift to you. 

~GlamKitty


[Musical Note: I’m the sort of viewer who immediately goes and searches out soundtrack deets if I hear a snippet of something that grabs me, and in the second season, the song that stole my breath (and made me go scour the ‘net to find it), is Norwegian singer Dagny Norvoll Sandvik’s effervescent track, “Somebody”. (I could probably write a whole piece on just that song, srsly.) Give it a listen! :)]

Comments

Post a Comment

No ads or shilling, please. And always, always be polite.

Popular posts from this blog

Prowling the Streets in Search of Justice: A SuperHero is Born

Image
Growing up, I idolized Wonder Woman. She had it all--awesome strength and beauty, intelligence and kindness. To me, she was female perfection. Ever practical, I knew I’d never achieve that ideal (she was just fantasy, after all), but following her tireless quest to rid the world of evil and replace it with love and peace allowed me to envision a place and time in which women enjoyed real power and respect (and could fix problems without a lot of senseless bloodshed). It's never all about thrilling feats of derring-do, of course.  There’s a bit of melancholy attached to any superhero story too-- sometimes a sense of loss, and always feelings of loneliness. Nothing comes without a price.  Raymond Benson explores what it would be like to become an all-too-human superhero in his new book, The Black Stiletto . ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ Martin Talbot is a just a regular Joe. Ordinary-looking, middle-aged, and divorced (with shared custody of an only daughter), he’s not the sort to inspire...
Read more

Werewolves in London? Try Bloodsuckers Down Under (Aussie urban fantasy/thriller REVIEW)

Image
Aside from a few dozen or so songs--the unremittingly-cheery sort of dreck I can only charitably term “uplifting”--there seems to be something of a universal consensus that life can be pretty awful. Sound overly harsh? Let’s look to some experts then, shall we? Consider that the first of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths is that “life means suffering”. Think back to John Hobbes, who concluded in his 1651 book Leviathan that life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. “ Of course, if you prefer your proof to be of the less-erudite variety, there’s always that late-20th-century classic, “Life sucks, and then you die”. (Lacks a bit in the eloquence department, but it gets the same point across, in inimical Bill-&-Ted fashion.) With such depressing thoughts bearing down on us like so many dark, angry stormclouds--and the fact that most of us have just seen too much bad to fall for the false promises in those sappy songs--it's no wonder a lot of people look for ways to escape t...
Read more

A Nightmare Without End: Abduction & the Long Road Back

Image
Danger takes many forms. Most of us--once we’ve become rather uncomfortably aware of our own mortality--make an effort to take at least a few precautions to ward ourselves from some of the dangers we face.  At a bare minimum, we look both ways before crossing the street. We inoculate ourselves against deadly diseases. We bolt our doors and lock our windows to all the scary things (and bad people) that go bump in the night. We fasten our seat belts before setting out on the roadways in our little hunks of metal (although statistics show that a lot more of us could stand to be doing that ). Taking such measures is empowering; we’re proactively doing something to safeguard ourselves. So many other things, of course, are completely outside the realm of our control. We’re unable to prevent cancers or illnesses that we’re genetically predisposed to getting. We’re at the whims of Mother Nature when it comes to floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and such. We can’t predict if a random stran...
Read more