I suppose I may be taking a bit of a gamble by recommending this movie to you all, considering the last time I watched this with friends, they were all confused as to why I was ranting and raving about how amazing it is. (Actually, looking back, I’m not really friends with those people any more…. heh)

Mixed nuts is, well, a really nutty comedy with a crazy plot that takes place all in one day. I’ll even go out on a limb and admit that it is currently my very favorite holiday movie.

If I tried to explain the series of events, they might seem strange and unrelated to you. Until you get to the end of the movie, that is. So please excuse my shabby synopsis! :)

The main setting of the movie is at an LA apartment based non-profit business called Life Savers. Three people sit around answering phone calls of people who are depressed, lonely, and may even want to kill themselves.

Going against policy, two of the Life Savers workers give out their address because a certain man was so lonely that Christmas Eve, he simply had to talk to someone in person. He, of course, was either an eccentric cross-dressing man, or a transgender person, who one of the workers is afraid might be the infamous sea-side-strangler, who has been terrorizing their LA neighborhood.

The varied cast brings you along on their wacky day, with plenty of hilarious moments and “Christmas miracles.” It’s a fun movie (even the opening credits are giggle inducing!) that I enjoy watching at least once each holiday season, and always makes for a happy evening.

Leading up to Christmas, I’d like to share a favorite holiday films each Movie Monday, kicking off with this classic comedy starring Barbara Stanwyck. Her character’s career as a writer for a popular women’s magazine was going quite well, even though she was just a single city girl and her beloved magazine column was about her life as a wife and mother in the country cooking up fabulous meals and keeping house in style.

Everything is thrown into the air, though, when her publisher (to whom “publishing the truth is first and foremost”) asks if she will host a soldier in her home for Christmas. And so, hilarity ensues when she must procure a country home, a husband, a baby, and all of the skills of keeping house while she attempts to keep her secret from the soldier and the publisher.

Of course, things get even more complicated when she (a supposedly married woman) begins to fall in love with the soldier who has come to visit her pretend home.

Watching the story unfold is truly a delight, as is getting to know the different humorous characters (as undeveloped as they might be). If you’re looking for a new lighthearted holiday favorite (or wanting to have a refreshing oldie but goodie) to watch this season, I definitely recommend checking out Christmas in Connecticut.

Now Voyager is a story that tugs at the heart strings of any girl who has ever felt like an ugly duckling- and I think most of us can relate in some way or another. Bette Davis’s character is demeaned and teased by her family of well-bred Bostonians, to the extent that she experiences a nervous breakdown and leaves for a sort of sanatarium resort.

She leaves the care of her psychiatrist mostly healed, but still insecure with herself. In any case, she looks much prettier after learning how to take care of herself, and draws the attention of a very charming man she meets on a cruise ship.

Things are difficult for her when she returns to her overbearing and sickly mother, but her character develops in ways that I did not expect, but in ways that delighted me. I quickly realized while watching this movie that it should take its place in the top-five-movies-I-love list.