A VERY BOO CHRISTMAS

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo
(2013)

I apologize for my lack of posts this past week but living takes precedence over blogging, so since flying home for the holidays I’ve been spending my time wrapping, eating, socializing, decorating and enjoying the holidays.  But never fear!  I’ve also been busy watching lots of Christmas movies and TV.  Along with the usual favorites I’ve been mixing in some new shows, including this TLC special.  

A lot of digital ink has already been spilled over the pros and cons of this controversial show.  I haven’t watched it much but I’ve always found it surprisingly fun and a not-very-guilty guilty pleasure.  This Christmas special reinforced my sense that in terms of the reality TV wasteland you could do a heck of a lot worse than the Boo Boo clan.  Give me Mama June and her brood over the Kardashians any day of the week.  They may be crude and feed into some of our worst voyeuristic tendencies but their family dynamic seems rooted in a genuine spirit of love and togetherness.

This hour-long special packs in a lot of Christmas activities for the Thompson family.  Some seem more staged than others but the Christmas quotient is high regardless.  They decorate their tree (only to have their pet rooster knock it over), go shopping at the flea market, ice skate and decorate their front yard for their annual toy and canned food drive.  
As Mama June carefully points out several times the family was doing the charity event years before the cameras started rolling.  

Santa and Elvis go together like peanut butter & bananas

The charity event involves lots of lights and inflatable snowmen, with patriarch Sugar Bear dressing like Santa Claus and Honey Boo Boo dressing like Elvis.  When a visiting child asks her why Elvis she replies “Because I’m Santa’s helper,” as if that somehow explains it.  It’s genuinely touching when the family drops off an impressive amount of donated toys to the charity organizer and Mama June explains that they were inspired to help after being recipients themselves during some lean times. 

Another favorite scene of mine involved Alana (aka Honey Boo Boo) shopping at the flea market, where each family member was given ten dollars to buy presents (had the TLC paychecks not come in yet or was this just a reenactment of Christmas budgets past for the camera’s sake?)  Alana shops just like a normal kid, in that she ends up buying the most bizarre present possible for her father: two mannequin heads that hairdressers use to practice on.  The gift is charming in its sheer randomness and in both this scene and throughout the episode Alana comes across as a pretty normal kid, despite the cameras and craziness around her.

Sugar Bear + Mistletoe

Later the family preps for Christmas Eve, which includes leaving out cheese balls for Santa’s reindeer.  Alana seems to still believe in Santa, or at least is gamely playing along, but her Christmas Eve excitement is palpable.  On Christmas morning the family opens their gifts along with their Uncle Poodle.  Openly gay, HIV positive and hailing from the Deep South, Uncle Poodle certainly provides a much-needed alternative representation of gay life.  The family’s easy acceptance of Uncle Poodle is another positive aspect of this much-maligned show.  

When writing about Here Comes Honey Boo Boo it’s hard to avoid getting into the many social and cultural questions it raises, and hard not to take a stance either for or against it (though clearly I lean towards supporting it, or at least not condemning it).  In terms of sheer Christmas enjoyment however, this episode is a win.  It’s funny, chockfull of holiday cheer and appeals to someone like me, who likes nothing more than watching people’s home movies of opening Christmas presents on YouTube.  I can’t resist a peek into people’s lives and houses come Christmas time and seeing how everyone celebrates the holiday both differently and yet somehow the same.

Alana cradles a decorative Baby Jesus. Let the outrage ensue!

Christmas Quotient: 4

See It, Skip It, Own It?
If you’re looking for a late in the game dose of Christmas cheer you could do a lot worse than this surprisingly charming special!  I say see it and enjoy!