‘Tis the season for holiday disputes

It’s mid-December, time for my annual dispatches from the Christmas wars:
Let’s start with the latest on a holiday battle that’s been going on for six years. I haven’t yet seen “Twas the Fight Before Christmas,” the documentary by the director Becky Read, but I’m looking forward to watching it. The film, now streaming on Apple TV+, chronicles the 2015 battle over the size of and scope of an Idaho family’s holiday decorations.
The litigation between Jeremy and Kirsty Morris and their neighbours in Hayden, Idaho, has been in the courts for years. Even without a final judgment in the case, the critics like Read’s version, calling it “the perfect story for our increasingly polarised times” and “offbeat, dark and comedic.” And one reviewer, noting the protagonist’s political ambitions, asks: “One can’t help but wonder if Morris has already calculated the number of Christmas lights needed to cover the White House.”
While we’re on the subject of the White House, this year those who are interested in the executive mansion’s Christmas decorations can enjoy a virtual tour without leaving home through a 360-degree interior view available via Google Maps.
And while we’re on the subject of Google, I noticed the other day that once I’d typed the first five letters of “Christmas,” the auto-complete function invited me to request the latest about Chris Cuomo. In another winter ritual, the Hallmark Channel is under fire for offering insufficiently diverse casts of characters in the latest editions of its popular holiday movies, which all seem to be about people who meet cute in small towns and fall in love. The channel’s new leadership promises to do better next year.
Fans seem undeterred by the contretemps. This year’s slate is already providing the usual ratings bonanza. Small wonder that click-hungry websites are outdoing themselves in the rush to produce lists of the best Hallmark Christmas movies ever.
For those who love to watch brand-new holiday films on television, Hallmark and Lifetime are the behemoths. But we shouldn’t ignore GAC Family, a much smaller competitor offering its own holiday fare. Some critics worry that the channel is “positioning itself as
a destination for viewers who think Hallmark holiday movies are too edgy.” That fear might help explain why GAC Family has worked so hard to publicise its film about a black couple — a film with the Hallmarkian title “Christmas Time is Here.”
In the end, diversity is a matter of what the market demands. Speaking of markets, a shortage of Christmas trees is being blamed on climate change or snarled supply chains or maybe a cycle of over-planting and under-planting. The Fraser fir, long the tree in greatest demand, is particularly hard to find. Happily, alternatives exist.
Christmas trees aren’t the only holiday item that’s significantly more expensive this year. According to PNC Bank’s Christmas Price Index, which tracks how much it would cost to buy all the gifts mentioned in “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” the total is up 5.7% this year, led by a whopping 57% increase in the price of those six geese a-laying and a 50% surge in the price of two turtle doves.

—Bloomberg