THE HOUSE WITHOUT A CHRISTMAS TREE

In the voiceover we learn that Addie's relationship with her father continued to suck for the rest of his life—it just sucked a little less than when he wouldn't let her have Christmas and wished she were dead.

The reason I wanted to see The House Without A Christmas Tree would best be expressed in three little words: Mary. Katherine. Gallagher. Remember the Molly Shannon character on SNL who'd stick her fingers in her armpits when she'd get nervous? Well, there was this Christmas skit where Mary Katherine kept interrupting Jennifer (Whitney Houston) in choir practice, and finally she explained to the class:

The reason that I keep interrupting Jennifer would best be expressed in a monologue from the made-for-television movie The House Without A Christmas Tree, starring the Tony Award-winning Mr. Jason Robards—"Oh, Daddy! Oh, Daddy! Daddy, I want a Christmas tree in this house! A big, tall, green, beautiful juniper. And we would have one, Daddy, if you weren't so grumpy all the time. And we would have... and we would have... we would have presents, and... and... and... and we would have eggnog with cinnamon and nutmeg and Christmas songs. Oh, Daddy! I want to sing! I want to sing!"

Since then, the mere thought of The House Without A Christmas Tree has struck me as inherently funny. Watching the movie itself only made the whole thing worse, and I was in a fit of giggles halfway through the movie. The only trouble is that it's a drama.

From the get-go, it's hard to take things seriously because the movie's production values are so poor. It's kind of like an old school play filmed with a camcorder, and the set is so flimsy the walls actually wobble when they use the front door. As you may have guessed, there is no Christmas tree inside this house.

It's 1946 and Addie (Lisa Lucas) lives with her gruff father (Jason Robards) and her sweet grandmother (Mildred Natwick). She's feisty and outspoken, prone to giving everyone a piece of mind but her father. When someone at school calls Addie's grandmother a nut, she rips into them, evoking a sincere classroom discussion on the difference between having character and being nuts. She and her best friend Carla Mae (the late Alexa Kenin of Pretty In Pink fame) pal around all the time, and Billy Wild with the cute cowboy boots likes her enough to give her a necklace during the class gift exchange.

Indeed, our Addie would have the world on the string, if only she could convince her father to get a Christmas tree. "Grandma," she says one day after school, "why is Daddy so parsimonious?" (Notice the use of the spelling word? Do you love this girl, or what?) Grandma explains that Daddy isn't cheap, he's just an ass, so Addie decides to come out and ask him about it. Then she loses her nerve and spends a bunch of time dawdling around the kitchen, eating scraps off his dinner plate (ew!), while her grandmother nudges her about 500 times with, "Weren't you going to ask your dad something?" Apparently they had trouble getting this movie to come in at the 75 minute mark.

Addie finally confronts the old goat, and he bets her a Christmas tree that she can't drink a glass full of water. She runs to the kitchen, triumphantly sucks down a glass of water, and he just laughs. "I said drink a glass full of water. You drank it empty. Ha ha ha!" Man, what a jerk. Even when Addie wins a tree at school, he still won't let her have it. Geez, what is his problem?

Actually, his problem is so predictable that you don't really even need to watch the end of the movie. He misses his dead wife, and anything happy reminds him of her. Therefore, he hates Christmas and resents Addie. He even goes so far as to say that he used to wish the baby had died instead of her. Gasp! It would all be so shocking if we hadn't seen it a million times before.

You can bet that in the end there's a Christmas tree in that living room and some major father-daughter bonding going on. Except that  in the voiceover we learn that Addie's relationship with her father continued to suck for the rest of his life—it just sucked a little less than when he wouldn't let her have Christmas and wished she were dead. Huh. I'm thinking this movie leans more toward being nuts than having character, but if you're up for some so-bad-it's-good holiday cheer, it just might hit the spot.