-Okay, we can do this.
It's five days.
How bad can it be?
-My pick is "Happiest Season."
It stars Kristen Stewart playing a woman named Abby,
and her girlfriend Harper, played by Mackenzie Davis.
And the two of them decide
to go to Harper's family for Christmas,
and it's the first time that Abby is meeting Harper's family.
On the drive to Harper's home,
she pulls the car over and tells Abby
that she's not exactly out to her family.
-I was going to, and then my dad told us
that he was running for mayor
and it just didn't feel like the right time.
-In real life, someone might call an Uber from the side
of the road and be like, "Get me out of here."
But she does it.
They conjure up this charade
where Abby is just her roommate who's an orphan.
And she is an orphan and they do live together,
so some of that is true.
There are a series of things that go wrong
as they try to hide their relationship,
but it all culminates at a white elephant party.
One of Harper's sisters has discovered her secret and outs
her to her entire family
and all these, like, friends and assorted guests.
-Harper's a lesbian. Abby's her girlfriend.
-What struck me about that moment,
that scene is, you know, Harper is in it thinking that,
like, her parents and her family are going to be shocked
and dismayed by the news,
but really, the looks on their faces show
that they're shocked that she's kept this a secret
for so long thinking that they wouldn't understand.
And we really see this empathy for this character
that is falling apart,
that she hasn't felt comfortable being herself.
It's something we haven't seen in a romantic comedy before.
And as much as viewers have been turned off
by some of the internalized homophobia going on there,
I actually thought it was just really refreshing
to see a holiday romantic comedy take on heavier themes
and to acknowledge that not everybody
has an easy time coming out and it doesn't always happen
at a certain time in a person's life.
-Everybody's story is different.
There's your version, and my version,
and everything in between.
-I think the movie was triggering
for a lot of people who have wrestled with that
and either have had unsupportive responses from their family,
or even who had good experiences but remember the pain of before,
when they were in the closet and thinking about coming out.
-"Christmas Eve Eve" is the Christmas episode
in the sixth season of "New Girl,"
and the premise of this episode is basically that
they're doing a Secret Santa with everyone in the loft.
-One special gift, one person, and a guessing game at the end.
Secret Santa!
-You get a feel for how the dynamics of this group work
in the holiday season, which I think is always just
a really great thing for television and movies,
to take things and stick it in this weird time of the year
where everyone seems to be,
like, operating at a heightened level of who they normally are.
♪ - The snow's coming down ♪ -Love me some Darlene.
♪ - I'm watchin' it fall ♪ -Every episode of "New Girl,"
I would say, is built on that classic, like, misunderstanding
or something that goes wrong between these friends.
You know, again, with the holidays,
we get this through the lens of a Secret Santa.
The main character, Zooey Deschanel,
she gets her ex-boyfriend Nick.
Turns out, Nick already bought himself the present
she wanted to get him, so there's,
like, the number-one thing that goes wrong.
-I get Nick the perfect gift and then he goes
and buys it for himself!
What am I supposed to get him now?
-There's a lot of, you know, smaller things that go wrong
that I think are very applicable to quarantine,
actually, gifting as well.
A delivery comes to the door
that's Winston's gift for his friend Cece,
but then Schmidt, his roommate, you know,
turns the delivery guy away, so the gift doesn't arrive.
-Did you refuse a package
to Retired Rear Admiral Jay Garage-a-Roo?
-Listen to what you just asked.
Of course I did.
-Damn it!
Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it,
damn it, damn it, Schmidt!
-A lot of people who aren't seeing their family
for the holidays kind of can relate
to that feeling of looking to your friends
as your family during this time of the year,
the people that you have chosen to have in your life.
This holiday season is a little bit extra special
in terms of our friendships
because we're really grateful for the people that we do have,
you know, in our immediate circles around us.
-Sarah Jessica Parker plays this woman who goes home
with her boyfriend, played by Dermot Mulroney.
And Dermot's character, Everett, has this huge, Bohemian,
open, super nurturing, close-knit family.
And Meredith is nothing like that.
-Mom, this is Meredith. -Hello.
You have a lovely home.
-She's intimidated, and they kind of make it obvious
that she's nothing like them.
She very early on invites her sister Julie,
who's played by Claire Danes.
And her character is more relaxed, more fun.
Meredith kind of calls on her to help her, you know, fit in.
And it kind of goes sideways.
The Stone family and Meredith and Julie are around the table,
everyone has their significant others,
and there's a discussion that comes up around
Everett's brother, who is deaf and gay,
and he and his partner are looking into adopting a child.
-All I mean to say is that just --
I just don't think that any parent
would hope for a child to be challenged like that.
-I'm sorry, I didn't hear a word you said.
-Sorry, this isn't coming out right.
-Meredith ends up going to a bar with Everett's brother Ben,
played by Luke Wilson.
He shows a lot more compassion for Meredith,
and so they connect.
And simultaneously, Everett and Julie,
Meredith's sister, connect.
The movie definitely oversimplifies
this aspect of it, because it's like
literally siblings swapping their significant others.
I imagine it would be a lot more messy in real life.
There's this chaotic scene where Meredith goes into the kitchen.
She's trying to retrieve this, like, breakfast strata
and she drops it on the floor.
At the same time, Everett has realized that his brother Ben
basically spent the night with his girlfriend,
and they start getting into a physical fight.
So it all sounds very bad,
but it ends up working out great for everyone.
As most holiday movies do, it ends on a happy note.
"The Family Stone" is sort of built around this
very common experience
of going home with a significant other for the holidays.
I think if you're someone who has had a sort of terrible
or even embarrassing experience
with meeting a significant other's family,
it might be enjoyable in retrospect to realize
that it could be worse.