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The AfterEllen.com Huddle: Christmas Characters We’re Most Like

Everyone has a favorite holiday film to watch, and it might just be you like a specific one based on a character that is a little bit like you. (Or you are just like them, whichever you decide.) I’ve always thought my mom was just like the little elf in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. A friend of mine recently likened someone else to “Cindy Who,” from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. And this Huddle was just so easy for everyone to come up with, it assured me that everyone has a Christmas movie counterpart.

OK, guys, let’s do this! Who is your Xmas alter-ego?

Lucy Hallowell: I’m totally Uncle Jamie from Love Actually, banging away on my typewriter. Bumbling, prone to incorrect translations in a foreign tongue, attempter of grand (and possibly catastrophic) romantic gestures, apt to stir up eels at the wrong moment, and definitely working on stuff that’s “not bloody Shakespeare.”

Emily Hartl: My wife and I have agreed that we’re pretty much Peppermint Patty and Marcie, AKA why we listen to A Charlie Brown Christmas while unwrapping gifts every year. Also, one of our dogs kind of looks like Snoopy.

Dana Piccoli: I’m totally Betty (Rosemary Clooney) in White Christmas. Singing in some random half-assed empty lodge in Vermont over Christmas is so a gig I would have booked.

Elaine Atwell: I deeply relate to Kevin McAllister (Macaulay Culkin) in Home Alone. That movie is about learning to be brave and learning to appreciate the people in your life, and those are both things I am learning all the time.

I am totally the type of person who would yell “I WISH YOU WOULD ALL JUST DISAPPEAR” and then five minutes later yell, “OK AND NOW I WISH YOU WOULD ALL COME BACK BECAUSE I AM REALLY LONELY.” I am also the type of person who is afraid of the boiler that looks like a monster, and afraid of the violent Christmas movie, AND AFRAID OF BUYING A TUBE OF TOOTHPASTE, but somehow finds the courage to defend my house against bandits. ALSO, when I was six years old and my school principal visited my house, I clapped my hands over my cheeks and ran around screaming because I thought that was just what people did.

Valerie Anne: I’m definitely Rudolph from the claymation TV movie. I used to hate being different and tried to hide it, but learned to embrace what makes me unique, became proud of my misfit status and started befriending other misfits. And, on the rare occasion a girl tells me I’m cute, I tend to overreact and fly through the air in excitement.

Kim Hoffman: I’m going to go with Kim from Edward Scissorhands. For most of my life, I was a blonde and for the short amount of time I did date guys, they were all jerks like grownup beefcake Anthony Michael Hall is in this movie with his fire flame van. (Speaking of Anthony Michael Hall, if I had been a high schooler in 1985, I probably would have ended up being the Samantha Baker to his Farmer Ted.) Kim has a water bed, and as a kid I definitely wanted one of those. She also lives in this weird ’60s suburban neighborhood where all the women dress like Peg Bundy (because it’s really the ’90s) and backyard BBQs happen on the regular. Edward, who’s been shamed to live a life of isolation up in his castle, forever wearing Joan Jett/Robert Smith bondage, is sending down all his ice carving snow and Kim’s dancing in it-to this day. It’s Christmas time and you can choose between regular snow and Edward Scissorhands’ snow? Hell yes.

Grace Chu: I’ll go with Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo from South Park, because when I make a mess, someone else gets blamed for it and is called delusional when he or she tells others that I am the culprit. Actually, Ali Davis dared me to answer this huddle question with Mr. Hankey, so I guess she is Mr. Hankey and I am Kyle.

Bridget McManus: I’m the mom in A Christmas Story. I always run around cooking and taking care of everyone. I would also be super jealous of that damn leg lamp and I’m anti-gun.

Karman Kregloe: I am Papa Elf from Elf. Like him, I live with a tall, loud, crazy person who always wants to sit on my lap.

Normally I wouldn’t mind being associated with Bob Newhart, but since I just learned that he’s the headliner at an upcoming anti-LGBT summit (with Rick Santorum), I would like to send him a lump of coal. So disappointing!

Heather Hogan: I’m The Grinch, for sure, which doesn’t really jive with my normal kind-hearted Hufflepuff-ness, but I just have a hard time with Christmas. Like an “all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile” hard time with it.

Probably because most of my life’s heartbreaking stuff has happened near Christmas, and if all that stuff had happened on like June 7, that day would come and go and I’d never have to think about it. But no. It’s always been Christmas. And, you know, the over-commercialization and having to pass by those Salvation Army bell guys because I know the truth about how they hate the gays and Sarah Palin squawking nonstop and my nephew’s hyper-Christian cousins telling him Santa is dead and nativity scenes aren’t even close to being Biblically accurate but I won’t tell you why because it would drive you bonkers for the rest of your life. Plus: Recapping Glee‘s Christmas episodes. It all just adds up to making me real cynical.

But inevitably, every Christmas, I get my Grinch-y mind blown in one of those “It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!” moments and my heart grows three sizes and the real meaning of Christmas shines through and I finally find the strength of ten Grinches plus two.

Marcie Bianco: Deep-down, I am at heart the combination of that masochist of an emotional doormat, Marcie (Charlie Brown’s Christmas), and that downtrodden maestro of romantic gestures, Mark (Love Actually). That said, given this year’s events I’ve determined to cloak my true self. You can just call me Darth Vader…technically a character in the campy 1978 shitshow known as the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Dara Nai: This is a hard one for me because I never believed in Santa Claus. We were told from the start that it was just a story because my mother thought, “it’s cruel to lie to children.” Therefore, I’m going to pick Kyle’s little brother, Ike Broflovski, from South Park. Being Jewish, they don’t relate to the whole Santa thing. Also, I’m secretly a genius who speaks in incoherent babble, and usually have no idea what’s going on, but I’m super happy to be there. And my head is shaped like an egg and I like footie pajamas.

Ali Davis: I think I might be the kid in Rare Exports. I’m too curious for my own good and I like books that are full of things that no one wants to hear about and the world has a way of suddenly getting much weirder than I expected. But I keep scrambling through the snow to see if I can help (or at least figure out what’s going on), and I know when it’s time to stop and enjoy some gingerbread cookies.

Erika Star: Because I speak fluent unrequited love, push those away that I love most and desperately long for Dido songs to play during every emotional turning point in my life, I most definitely identify as Mark from Love Actually. And while I do draw the line at obsessive video recording, I’m not one to shy away from some mild Facebook creeping. The only part I haven’t mastered is where I both literally and figuratively grow a pair and admit my feelings to said girl, currently, the cute girl who works at my local pet store.

Trish Bendix: I am most like Audrey Griswold, aka Juliette Lewis‘s apathetic teen in Christmas Vacation. I might pretend to be totally over the cheese factor of the holidays, but when it really comes down to it, I love this shit. My fashions might not always be on point, but I am always trying my best to be on trend with a colorful headband or crimped hairdo while rolling my eyes and saying things like, “I hope nobody I know drives by and sees me standing in the yard staring at the house in my pajamas.” How embarrassing!

Anna Pulley: Charlie Brown’s sad tree with cleavage!

Nicole Schultz: I am going with The Ghost of Christmas Past. Mostly because I like to break into my neighbors homes dressed in only a robe and remind them of their past wrongdoings.

OK, your turn!

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