Festive Cheer in Box...

It's not at all difficult...

To get that festive feeling...

When you look outside your window...

And see this:

Which is why I don't feel at all premature in reviewing a new dvd that's just been released: 'Nativity!'.

Living as I do in an expat environment where it's not the done thing to refer to Christmas - 'Happy Holidays!' is the greeting we're supposed to use - can I just say how nice it was to sit down and watch a movie which is unashamedly British in it's approach to this? Based on the competition between two schools to produce the best Nativity performance and gain a 5 star rating from the local rag's critic, it has all the required elements for festive viewing.

There were children dressed as angels, Wise Men dressed as Elvis (which took me back to a certain Christmas performance Boy #1 gave a couple of years back), animals behaving badly, a batty headmistress, a kooky class assistant and - of course - a curmudgeonly school teacher (played by Martin Freeman, complete with the requisite cardigan) who starts out Scrooge-like in his approach to Christmas and ends up feeling the spirit of the season on a grand scale.

This is a great 'run-up to Christmas' Saturday afternoon movie, although perhaps not for young children if you're at all concerned by the prospect of a primary school field trip to the local maternity ward. And I think the hilariously bad-taste decision by Jason Watkin's competitive private school drama school teacher's decision to shock his way to a 5 star rating by producing a show called 'Herod', might go somewhat over youngster's heads...

Overall though, I really enjoyed the movie, and without running too much of a chance of spoiling the plot, I think I can share that there is a happy ending and that you would have to be pretty Scrooge-like yourself not to enjoy the Christmas shenanigens even slightly...

Note: I wasn't paid for this post but I did receive a free copy of the dvd...