All the Christmas nonsense I was forced to endure during I Believe In Santa

this film is about the horror of dating later in life

Welcome to our recap of I BELIEVE IN SANTA on Netflix, a christmas rom-com about a woman who hates christmas who discovers that her boyfriend of 5 months LOVVVVVEEEEES Christmas way too much.

In fact, we discover that this 40-50 year old man truly and genuinely believes in Santa. And that’s not even the weirdest part.

It’s deranged. It’s amazing.

she spends most of the movie looking at him like this, and she is right to do so.

Bec: My rule for Christmas movies is that they either have to be good, or they have to be insane. 

Patrick: thankfully this is absolutely insane.

Bec: I kept waiting for there to be some sort of solution for the adult man who believes Santa is real, but it never came. 

Patrick: no, in fact, the movie essentially gaslit us - and Lisa - into believing we are not only the problem, but in fact the very grinch himself, for not genuinely believing in the existence of Santa.

Bec: Does the Grinch not believe in Santa. WHY IS HE DOING THIS

Patrick: the Grinch has a lot of problems, but his very existence implies the equal existence of Santa i believe. Anyway, there’s a lot of problems

Bec: I’ve got 99 problems with this movie, but believing in Santa is not one of them! Does this track. I’m trying to relate to people who like cool music. 

Patrick: im trying to think of a single popular song to make a joke about, but all I can think of is carly rae jepsen b sides. Call me maybe (santa).

Bec: Call Me Maybe…a doctor because I am a grown man who believes in Santa Claus. 

Patrick: before we get into this, I just want to say that I think this movie might be the realest thing I’ve ever seen about dating in your late 30s/40s/ 50s, everyone has at least one truly psychopathic thing about them.

Bec: Not me, I’m normal :))))))))) 

Patrick: my thing is that i’m too handsome 🙁

Bec: Imagine finally meeting a man in your 30s, only to discover he’s handsome!!! Speaking of handsome…

THE LEAD ACTORS

Bec: ….the lead actor is not. I found him a strange and curious entity, a little bit unsettling. Not just because of the Santa thing, although that didn’t help. 

Patrick: when he was first introduced I thought he WAS… Santa Claus

Bec: a pedophile? Oh, I guessed too soon. 

Patrick: well I thought that too, but then it was a genuine plot red herring. TBH, he never truly gets ride of that vibe.

Bec: He really doesn’t. Also he wears the strangest vests, the same thing, but in different colours (including red for Christmas). The vests do not help with his vibe. 

Patrick: he’s always serving little train conductor

the actor who plays this guy has the world’s most beautiful website, and from it, I discovered he was on a couple of episodes of the Friends spinoff, Joey.

Bec: So during the movie, I googled him because he seems like someone I should know. He isn’t, but I did find out that he is married to the OTHER lead, who is a woman that looks exactly like Gillian Jacobs from Community in an age filter. 

Patrick: Gillian Jacobs with an age filter who has also been startled.

i cannot stress this enough: she always looks like this.

and they were roommates.

Bec: An always-startled Gillian Jacobs who as far as I can tell has the job to write one article per week for the newspaper about whatever holiday is happening at the time. 

Patrick: holiday correspondent who HATES Christmas is a real job, and frankly, this is why the fourth estate was created.

Bec: Yes they are star crossed lovers, like Romeo and Juliet, except Christmas. Okay, this is a good point to ask one of the several questions I have about this movie.

HOW DID AN OBSESSION WITH CHRISTMAS NOT COME UP WHILE THEY WERE DATING

Bec: In this movie, the woman hates Christmas for reasons we will get into later, and the man is OBSESSED with Christmas to the point that it becomes frankly disturbing. Yet, this didn’t come up at any point during the seasonal montage we see of them dating for over a year? You can’t tell me this man doesn’t talk about Christmas every chance he gets, regardless of the month. 

Patrick: I think that you never assume a grown man is deeply obsessed with Christmas, so she probably just tuned out when he would say things like “only 143 sleeps to go!” or “these BELLS are making me horny!!!!!”

Bec: Okay, that is another important question. Does this man want to suck on Santa’s sack? Does he want to Ho ho ho himself out to the big man? Does he want to jingle Santa’s bells. 

Patrick: he wants Santa to climb UP his chimney.

Bec: Wait who is the bottom in that scenario? 

Patrick: there’s no way the 40 year old man who believes in Santa isn’t the bottom.

Bec: True, and Santa actually has top vibes. He wants to deliver you his gift (cum), eat some cookies, and then toss some tinsel at you to tell you to clean yourself up while he takes off and you don’t hear from him until the next time he’s in town one year later. 

Patrick: he has leather boots and a big beard, huge daddy vibes.

IF SANTA IS REAL WHERE ARE THE PRESENTS FROM SANTA?

Bec: This may have been mainly my issue, and my girlfriend certainly had enough of me talking about this point, but if Santa is real how come there are not gifts under the tree that parents don’t know about??? It’s such an obvious point!!! It didn’t come up! Again, maybe just my own issue that I need medical help for!! 

Patrick: if you brought up that point to Tom(?) he’d look at you with those blank eyes like little pools of sewerage and chuckle and say “or is that what you’re MEANT to think” or something inane like that.

Bec: I also thought it was a bit weird that he, several times, made quite big parenting choices for his girlfriend and her daughter. He decided she should keep believing in Santa, and that she should get an iPhone, because she asked Santa. That’s not your job! You’ve only been dating this woman for a few holidays in a row.  What if she asked Santa for the bloody murder of 10-12 of her enemies? 

Patrick: there’s an episode of Buffy where her mum starts dating someone and he gets more and more controlling, and then it turns out he’s a robot who has been controlling Joyce with mind-altering cookies. Anyway, exact same vibes.

Bec: I just absolutely love that this woman is so starved for decent men that she decides to let slide that her boyfriend literally believes in Santa, and spends so much time on Christmas activities to the point he ignores her and her daughter. It’s so funny. I think this movie is secretly subversive genius. Speaking of the woman, sorry, what’s her name in this. Whatever it is he is going to call her Mrs Claus when they fuck. 

Patrick: her name is Lisa, and she’s deeply a Lisa.

Bec: We must talk about my favourite part of the movie, the jaw dropping moment when Lisa explains why she hates Christmas so much. 

CHRISTMAS TRAUMA 

Bec: Lisa has trauma. Christmas trauma. From a horrible incident when she was a child. We all have Christmas trauma, but hers has meant she has actively hated Christmas since she was 8 years old (sad music is playing) because from what I can gather, she found a Barbie in the closet that was labelled “From Santa”. Her parents found out that she had seen it, and knew Santa wasn’t real, so they took the Barbie back to the shop????? And Santa never visited again. That is why Lisa hates Christmas with a passion. It’s maybe the biggest stretch I’ve ever seen in a movie, and I’ve watched that mum in The Incredibles. 

Patrick: She was so surprised by this Christmas betrayal, her face froze like that! But I am actually deeply empathetic to this, there’s no worse betrayal than thinking you’re getting one thing at Christmas and then getting something else (I’m Emma Thompson from Love Actually).

Bec: I just want to meet her parents. Who are these people who would return a Barbie to the toy shop at Christmas because their daughter found it. It genuinely sounds like they are abusive and toxic. I’m CANCELLING this fictional woman’s parents who weren’t written into the movie. 

THE GAY GUY 

Bec: Someone who was written into the movie was Joe’s best friend, a handsome gay man who Joe ‘came out to’ as believing in Santa, and who continually says things like ‘I accept Joe for who he is’ and ‘you have to live your truth’, as if believing in Santa is the same as coming out as bisexual. 

Patrick: i used to think it was really funny how the rule of these movies is that everyone just has ONE friend, and they do everything with that friend. They work together, they celebrate holidays together, they socialise. However, as I continually cull my own friendships, I’ve started to believe this is how things actually work. Everyone just has one friend, who they do friendship things with, and also write a newsletter where they recap Christmas films together.

Bec: I am your handsome gay friend, and I accept you for who you are (annoying)!! Also you have another friend, Basil the greyhound you keep in your home and force to spend time with you. 

Patrick: Basil doesn’t have a job however, he is deeply toxic.

BELIEVING IN SANTA IS THE SAME AS BEING MUSLIM 

Bec: Speaking of the gay friend in this movie, he is also the POC friend, which comes in handy when you have a cast of 4 people and some of the worst greenscreen you’ve ever seen in your life. Anyway, the moral of this story, turns out, is essentially - believing that Santa is real and delivers millions of presents around the world (WHERE ARE THEY), is exactly the same as being religious. This is genuinely the message of the movie. Joe does not change, to realise he doesn’t need to believe in Santa to have a nice Christmas, instead he remains clinically obsessed with Christmas, still believes in Santa, and everyone agrees that it’s normal. Maybe I should become the Ricky Gervais of people believing in Santa? 

Patrick: it’s a beautiful message of tolerance, that also makes me realise maybe we shouldn’t actually always be so tolerant. I think maybe this film has turned me into a kind of christmas terf. But yes, the fact that they make a direct link from Islamaphobia in America to a grown man who still believes in Santa is quite stunning.

Bec: It genuinely made me feel insane that by the end of the movie this woman got engaged to this man, and is going to let him become the father to her child. Is his Christmas loving dick that good, really?? Maybe it’s shaped like a candy cane?

Patrick: I think this once again comes down to heteropessimism. She’s like “if this is his one bad thing, I can live with it”.  Everyone has something! It could be model trains. It could be… standup comedy.

Bec: God yeah, you’re right. At least Christmas only once a year, not three times a week at dark basement pubs surrounded by other stand up comedians. Okay, I’ve come around. I want to marry someone who believes in Santa. I still want to ask my final question however, which is:

SHOULD JOE BE PUT IN JAIL PREVENTATIVELY 

Bec: I am an abolitionist, but I do still wonder if society would be safer or more pleasant if we put Joe in jail now. I just can’t help but think that there is a dark side to him, or one day he will snap when someone says something bad about Santa Claus. He gets really upset if you don’t believe in Santa. 

Patrick: I think his name is Tom? But it doesn’t matter. I think it’s deeply suspicious that he waxes lyrical about the magic of christmas, but he doesn’t have ANY family that he shares it with. What happened to his parents? Did they not believe hard enough? And did they suffer the consequences?

Bec: Joe and Tom are the same name. Also did we hear if Tom had any relationships before this? He’s like 50. Patrick, if you told me you were dating a 50 year old man who has never been married and is obsessed with Christmas and also believes in Santa - I would say, well not as bad as some of your choices. Merry Christmas. 

Patrick: I only have one thing left to say, and it’s that the movie puts forward a very interesting hypothetical about the nature of mistletoe. They, at first, use it as a cute christmas way of initiating a chaste christmas kiss - but as the film continues, they bring more and more of it out, implying that quantity of mistletoe might lead towards greater physical affection. Essentially, what I want to know, how much mistletoe do you need for sex? How much mistletoe for butt stuff? Is there another kind of plant you pull out for other stuff? Some food for thought.

Bec: I Saw Santa Doing Butt Stuff Under Mistletoe With Daddy, one of the new classics Patrick and I have written for the Christmas album we are going to release. This movie was genuinely insane in a way that I had a lot of fun with, and I recommend everyone watch it and have their narrow minds changed about what you will put up with in a romantic partner. In the new year, we will also study this by recapping the new season of The Bachelor, which is a show about what heterosexual women will forgive. 

Patrick: and that’s the true meaning of Christmas - lowering your standards enough to be happy. Merry christmas, Bec!

Bec: Merry Christmas to one and all. And Patrick. 

Patrick: especially patrick.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL YOU LOVELY PEOPLE! We’ll be back in January to recap the trainwreck of THE BACHELORS, and we’re also announcing a new newsletter project in the new year… that will hopefully be exciting and regular.