Happy first Sunday of Advent!  Naturally, I had to do a Christmas themed post (to match my Christmas themed TGIF post).  I briefly considered doing unmarried mothers in honor of Mary, but then I decided to think small instead and use the random small items of Christmas as jumping off points for story ideas.

Indian Engineer Invents Improved Christmas Lights

It’s an Action movie!!!!  Our Indian engineer, Akshay Kumar, has worked tirelessly in his lab for years trying to improve Christmas light technology.  Specifically, the way they all tangle together in storage.  He has finally designed a tangle-free style.  He leaves the lab to celebrate in a fun romantic song with his wife, Sonakshi Sinha.  They picture a world covered in Christmas lights, Christmas trees everywhere, it’s all very festive.

(Like this!)

He takes his discovery into his boss the next day at the Christmas light factory where he works.  His boss (Satish Shah) is thrilled and says he will be sure to show it to the representative of the American company they work with who is coming to town today.  The American (Arjun Rampal) is friendly, but says they can’t use the invention after all.  Akshay goes home downcast, is comforted by Sonakshi.  She encourages him to try somewhere else, travel to another city and talk to another company.  He agrees this is a good idea and leaves.  He meets with another businessman (Raj Babbar) who is very impressed and signs a contract with him immediately.  Akshay returns home, ecstatic, to learn his wife is in the hospital!!!!  There was an intruder, Sonakshi confronted him, now she is in a coma!  Sad song at the hospital, and then he returns home to see the house torn apart, but the only thing taken was HIS PROTOTYPE!!!!  As he is still processing this information, he gets a call from Raj Babbar saying that he is shocked, he has just learned that another company is already working based on Akshay’s designs, he is furious that Akshay tried to sell him stolen goods.

Akshay, miserable, sits alone in his destroyed house and looks at his photo of Sonakshi.  And flashes back to her giving him advice, telling him that he is always too willing to roll over and he needs to fight back for once.  As he is thinking this, an intruder breaks in!  He starts attacking Akshay!!!!  And Akshay for the first time FIGHTS BACK!!!!  Big fight scene with him being believably untrained but smart in how he fights.  The bad guy gets away, but Akshay manages to grab a piece of paper from his pocket which directs him back to New York and the original company.  So Akshay bids farewell to comatose Sonakshi, flies to New York, many more fight scenes with Christmas lights and Christmas trees as a backdrop, until finally he confronts Arjun with a Christmas tree in his office blinking in the background, and ultimately wins the fight by strangling him with his untangleable Christmas lights.  And then returns home to learn that Sonakshi is awake!  Just in time for Christmas.  And he brings her home to their house, which is covered in his Christmas lights.

 

Hero Engineer: Akshay Kumar (or John Abraham?  Salman?)

Decent Guy Boss: Satish Shah (or Anupam Kher?  Boman Irani?)

Encouraging Wife: Sonakshi Sinha?  Kareena Kapoor?  Juhi Chawla? Madhuri Dixit?

Decent Guy Who Gives Contract: Raj Babbar (Jackie Shroff?  Amitabh?)

Evil Thief of Idea: Arjun Rampal (Danny Denzongpa? Sanjay Dutt? Akshaye Khanna?)

 

 

Christmas Tree Farm Family Feud

One of those rural feud movies!  Only, on Christmas tree farms in Canada.  Naturally, our two families are Punjabi.  This is a bit of a tongue in cheek one, Rohit Shetty style.  We open in the past, a young couple (Amrita Singh and Sunny Deol in terrible make-up) are telling their parents that they are married.  Sunny’s father (Dharmendra) is FURIOUS!!!!  Sunny and Amrita were both engaged to other people, they have ruined the honor of the family by breaking those promises.  Amrita’s father, Rishi Kapoor in bad make-up, is also furious for the same reasons.  It ends with the two families joining hands and both throwing out Amrita and Sunny, who go to Canada and start a tree farm.

25 years later, Amrita and Sunny’s son Varun runs the tree farm and they are a happy family.  Varun is a bit of a flirt and a playboy (of course), and when he is driving through town one day and sees a sweet young thing browsing at the local Christmas store in a Salwar (Alia?), naturally he sweeps in and flirts with her.  He takes her out to the local bar that night and she accidentally drinks alcoholic eggnog and does a sexy song, which intrigues him, but he also feels protective and so keeps dancing around her to keep her from danger.  Finally she passes out and he takes her home and puts her to bed and is a complete gentlemen.

(Sexy song like this)

The next morning, she wakes up and stumbles downstairs and Amrita and Sunny greet her and give her breakfast and are generally super nice, and then Varun shows up and offers to take her on a tour of the property.  They talk, they bond, he explains that he went to school in the city but felt the pull to come back to his hometown and help his parents with their farm and he’s happy here.  She says that she came halfway around the world from her hometown in the Punjab and never wants to go back.  They kiss, they are in love, there is a love song.

Only, the next morning, she’s gone!  With just a note saying “I’m sorry”.  Sad song as a time passes.  And then, months later, Varun is driving home and suddenly sees that the abandoned farm next to theirs has all kinds of trucks and movement around it.  He goes home and tells his parents who naturally get dressed up and bring a plate of halwa over to the neighbors.  Only to be STUNNED when they see Dharmendra!!!!  And Rishi!!!!!!!  Who angrily explain that their honor has not been satisfied, the misbehavior of their children brought a curse on their family.  The fields failed, their wives died, the investments went away.  But now, now they will fix all of that!  They have sold everything and moved here, to Canada, to start fresh with a tree farm and will destroy Sunny and Amrita’s tree farm and therefore fix their dishonor and their bad luck.

Amrita and Sunny go home and tell this to Varun, who is FURIOUS!!!  Against their wishes, he storms over to the farm next door and fights his way through all the young man cousins who are hanging around, until finally, bloody and beaten, he stumbles into the house to confront Rishi and Dharmendra, asks them “How can you, my grandfathers, be so unfair?  Can’t you see that love is a blessing?”  But in the middle of that speech, who should come running in to the room, but Alia!!!!!!  Varun is stunned!  Dharmendra laughs evilly and explains.  She was a little baby found abandoned in the temple on the first anniversary of Amrita and Sunny’s wedding, they took it as a sign that she was a replacement for their lost children and raised her together.  And now it has proved true!  She came up with the idea to start fresh in Canada, she came up with the idea to try to track down Amrita and Sunny and destroy them in order to fix the curse, and she managed to track them down.  Varun, naturally, is heartbroken.

Later that night Alia finds him drinking in the bar and makes him listen to her.  Yes, she was trying to find Amrita and Sunny, but she had no idea Varun was their son.  It wasn’t until she went to bed after their day together on the farm that she got a photo of Amrita and Sunny emailed to her (all photos were destroyed in anger after they eloped, so it took a while to track one down).  And then she immediately left.  But although Sunny and Amrita are her enemies, she does truly love Varun.  Can’t he leave his parents?  Go with her, run away and start a new life?  Varun, sadly, turns her down.  He loves her, but he loves his parents too, and he knows she will be strong enough to survive without him, but his parents won’t.

And so, feud!  The two families try to attract the customers with ever bigger signs and promos.  Varun dresses up like santa and so do his cousins and there is a massive Santa fight.  At the town Christmas party, there is a temporary truce and Varun and Alia do a big dance number.

(Maybe it’s the Canadian setting, but I just keep thinking of Neal ‘n Nikki!)

But then it goes bad again, Dharmendra and Rishi have managed to buy up the mortgage for Amrita and Sunny’s farm and they will be evicted the day after Christmas.  Alia is furious and yells at them for their heartlessness.  She runs off to Varun that night, says she wants to be with him, but he says they can’t do the same thing in the new generation as happened in the last.  They will have one night together and then he will take her home in the morning.  Sexy song!!!!!  Sexy Christmas night sex song!!!!

And then the next morning he takes her home only to see an ambulance!!!!  Oh no!  Rishi and Dharmendra had matching Christmas morning heart attacks!!!!!  Alia is upset, Varun takes her to the hospital, then rushes home and tells his parents that they have to go to the hospital, not to save the farm, but because they will always regret it if they miss this last chance to wish their fathers “Merry Christmas”.  So the whole family is in the hospital, many tears, and as Sunny and Amrita touch their fathers’ feet to take their blessing, eyes flicker open!  They have recovered!  As new and more forgiving men!  They realise that the “curse” wasn’t from Sunny and Amrita eloping, it was from their fathers refusing to accept the elopement.  Everything will be better from now on!

And, happy Christmas wedding song!  Alia and Varun get married, the two tree farms join together, life is wonderful.

 

Mother: Amrita Singh (or Dimple? Or Rekha? Ratna Pathak?  Kirron Kher?  Who can pull off young for five minutes and then middle-aged for the rest?)

Father: Sunny Deol (or Sanjay Dutt?  Aamir playing his own age Dangal style?)

Son: Varun Dhawan (or Arjun Kapoor?  Imraan Khan?  Ranveer Singh?)

Heroine: Alia (or Anushka?  Deepika?  Can they play that young?  Oh!  Parineeti!)

Grandfather 1: Dharmendra (I refuse to get this up, set in stone!)

Grandfather 2: Rishi Kapoor (Or Amitabh?  Could he do Punjabi rural funny feud?)

 

 

Sexy Shahrukh Mistletoe Story

Oooo, so many options!!!!!  Mistletoe is really the gift that keeps on giving to hack writers.  But I think I have figured out what I want.

Shahrukh is at the holiday party for his very very posh South Bombay Anglo-Indian fiancee’s family.  Shahrukh is a self-made millionaire from Delhi.  He feels awkward with all these traditions he doesn’t know about, and his fiancee (Lisa Haydon) doesn’t have much time to explain them to him.  But the helpful Sikh servant Anupam Kher is thrilled to have another Punjabi speaker in the house and lets him in on all the family gossip, along with introducing him to the family Christmas traditions.  He explains who everyone is, Lisa’s uncle and younger cousins and very proper elderly grandmother Waheeda Rahman who they all revere, and of course Shahrukh already knows her father Jackie Shroff and her mother Dimple Kapadia.  Shahrukh has them all straight in his head now, only who is the woman (Rani Mukherjee) on the stepladder putting up evergreen boughs?  Anupam shakes his head, this is a sad story.  She is Lisa’s half sister.  Child of Jackie’s first marriage, her mother was a saintly sweet woman who raised her to be sweet and homily.  She died when Rani was a young girl, and Jackie immediately got married again.  Amrita never really bonded with Rani, but tried to do her best for her, since Rani didn’t like school or business, they decided to marry her off as soon as possible to a nice man from the same social circles.  Only, it didn’t work out.  After a year, Rani was returned to the family, her husband wanted someone more sparkling and interesting, a hostess who could do him proud in social situations.  And that wasn’t her.  Since then, Rani has lived the life of a spinster in her own home, she helps in the kitchens and brings her father his pills, but is never introduced to company and is forgotten in social situations.  Shahrukh, because he is so nice, goes over to introduce himself, and surprises her, so she falls off the stepladder into his arms.  They are both very flustered by this, Shahrukh barely manages to get out that he is her sister’s fiance, and then Lisa sweeps up and takes his arm all “What have you been doing with yourself darling?  Don’t bother Rani, she hates company” and Rani runs off with Shahrukh looking after her all puzzled.

(Just like Jackie catching Juhi in Aaina!)

 

So, the evening goes on, and there is a big explanation of mistletoe.  Shahrukh is puzzled by this, but finally starts to understand it, and surprises them all by bursting into song and leading a dance number as everyone cheerfully dances back and forth and exchanges kisses on the cheek.  Rani is in the background for all this, watching from the shadows.

The evening goes long and Jackie keeps pushing more and more eggnog on Shahrukh.  Finally he is very tipsy as he stumbles up to his room.  He sees a female figure in his room decorating his little Christmas tree (which Lisa had promised to do for him earlier).  He stays back and waits until she leaves and then grabs her in the hall under the mistletoe and kisses her passionately.  Only to realize halfway through the kiss that of course it is Rani, not Lisa.  But she is responding to his kiss!  Her arms are around his neck and she is holding him close.  Who knows how far it could have gone, only Anupam Kher comes down the hallway making a lot of noise, and Rani suddenly comes to her senses and pushes away, and runs off.  Passing Anupam Kher, who is all “what happened?????”

And so, for the rest of the holiday season, Shahrukh is confused between the two women.  Lisa seems more and more not the kind of woman he wants to marry.  She talks about how they will naturally live in an apartment in Bombay, not his house in Delhi.  She will keep working as a model and accepts a 3 month overseas job for right after they come back from the honeymoon.  And he finds himself so drawn to Rani!  When they go out for a family boat trip, somehow she is the one he sits next to, and holds her hand when she gets scared during a big wave.  When he wakes up before everyone else in the household, he finds her in the kitchen and helps her make chai for them all.  But what is really surprising, one afternoon when everyone else is just out of sight in the other room, Rani sees him walking under the mistletoe and drops the laundry she is carrying to grab him and kiss him.  And he can’t help responding.

We get a Rani flashback after this, as she runs to her room.  She remembers her wedding (a Christmas wedding), when she was shy and scared and didn’t know who to talk to, Dimple wasn’t sympathetic, just told her she would be so much happier in her own household with a place in the world.  That night, her new husband (Bobby Deol should work, he has chemistry with almost nobody) tries to kiss her and she gently pushes him away.  He is nice about it, says he understands it will take time, he is fine with waiting.  But then the days and weeks and months pass, and it never happens.  Rani works away in the kitchen, he sneaks up and surprises her with a kiss on her neck, and she freezes and moves away.  He gives her a present and asks for a kiss in return, and she forces herself to let her lips meet his but clearly isn’t feeling it.  Finally, he comes home the first Christmas and first anniversary.  She has lit up the tree and decorated the house just like her parents always did.  But he doesn’t even care, he looks around, and sighs, and says that none of this matters, he knows she is trying her best, but she can light up the home all she wants, it means nothing if he can’t light up her heart.  And for Christmas, he is giving her divorce papers and taking her back to her family.  It’s not her fault, some women just are not meant for everything that happens in a marriage.  Rani finally breaks down, says she can’t go home, she can’t let down her father, she can’t go back to her stepmother who doesn’t understand her, she will let him do anything he wants, just don’t humiliate her like this!  Bobby is very nice and explains that he doesn’t want a wife who will “let” him do things, he wants a wife who wants those things, and if she can’t be that wife, it is better to let her go back to her family.  Better for both of them, someday she will understand.  And Rani realizes, she does understand!  So she kisses Shahrukh again.  And runs away when someone catches them.

But the next day, at the engagement party, Rani and Shahrukh keep exchanging glances.  but when he moves towards her, she moves away.  And before they have a chance to talk, he is hustled in to position to exchange the rings.  Lisa is there, all proud and pretty and happy.  She is handed the huge ring and reaches for Shahrukh’s hand, and suddenly Rani cries out “No!!!!”  Shahrukh looks up, surprised.  So does everyone else.  Rani moves forward and says “No!  You can’t have him, he’s mine!  I want him and he wants me.”  Lisa is shocked and stands up and slaps her.  Shahrukh stands up too and moves to protect her, but he doesn’t have to because Rani slaps back by herself and Lisa lets out a little yelp.  And then Rani turns to Shahrukh and holds out her hand and says “Will you come with me?”  Shahrukh reaches out and takes her hand and says “It would be my pleasure” and then kisses her in front of everybody.  Horror!  Shock!!!!  Jackie is furious and declares “LEAVE!  And never return, you are no daughter of mine!!!!”

So, Shahrukh and Rani go to a hotel, which is all decorated for Christmas, and Shahrukh gets them a room, only once they are alone together, Rani turns away suddenly shy.  Shahrukh laughs and says “you can kiss me in front of your entire family and all the leading people of this city, but you can’t kiss me alone in a hotel room?”  Rani smiles but still seems shy.  Shahrukh says “good thing I took this with me, for emergencies” and pulls a sprig of mistletoe out of his pocket and holds it over her head as they kiss.  And then they have sex.  It is implied.

(Sex like this.  Thank you internet person for editing together all the sexy bits)

Meanwhile, back at her house, Lisa is raging about the loss of face in front of all those people, how could stupid plain simple Rani take this away from her?  And how could that little lowclass uneducated man reject her?  Jackie agrees, says they should sue that man, take all his companies away from him!  Humiliate him and drag Rani back to her home where she belongs.  At which point Dimple speaks up, finally, and says “You will do nothing of the kind!!!!!  I have never been able to know what that girl wanted, and I have made a lot of mistakes, but now that I know what she wants, by golly I am doing everything in my power to make sure she gets it!!!!”  Lisa and Jackie are both stunned, Lisa is all “Mother!  But what about ME?!?!?”  Dimple says “You will be fine.  You will always be fine.  You are like your father and me, you can take care of yourself.  But Rani, she is like her mother, her sweet sweet mother who begged me on her deathbed to marry Jackie and take care of her daughter.  That kind of woman, she only wants one thing in her life, a happy family for herself.  I thought I could pick that family out for Rani, give her a place of her own, but it didn’t work out.  She had to find her own way and she has waited this long for the right man.  And I am going to make sure she gets him with all the pomp and happiness she deserves.  So make up your minds to it or not, but there will BE a wedding in this house tomorrow and I am giving my daughter away!”

After that big dramatic scene, it’s almost an anticlimax when Dimple sweeps over to Shahrukh and Rani’s hotel.  She surprises them in their suite flirting, Rani is all embarrassed and runs into the other room, but Shahrukh stays, and is polite and respectful, but not apologetic.  He asks if Dimple will give her blessings for their marriage.  Dimple asks if he has made any plans for this marriage.  Shahrukh says yes, he has, they will go to the registrar office and then get blessings at a temple and a church.  Dimple says “that may be fine for the son of a shopkeeper from Delhi, but my daughter is used to something a little better.  You will be married today, but not in any registrar office.  The Priest is standing by, you will be married in a church, and then return to our home for a Hindu ceremony.  Now, tell my daughter to come out, because we only have 6 hours to pick out a dress.”  Shahrukh says “yes Ma’am” and goes back to gently draw out Rani, who has been listening and is in tears.  She comes into the room and falls on Dimple, all crying, and saying “Ma!” for the first time.  Dimple looks touched too, but is all brusk and says “now now, enough of that, we can’t have your eyes puffy in the photos.”

Happy wedding ending!  Dimple gets Rani to the church, all gorgeous in a white dress, and at the last minute Jackie pulls up in a car dragging a sullen looking Lisa Haydon out of the back and pushing her forward to say “Happy wedding Didi” with a lot of resentment, before sweeping in to sit in the back of the church.  And then Jackie tells Rani “you look so beautiful!” she asks “Can you ever forgive me father?”  And Jackie is all “there is nothing to forgive.  Your mother made me see that.  You deserve your happiness.”

And weddings!  Church wedding, and then Hindu wedding in the fancy mansion, big song and dance number with everyone happy (including Bobby who shows up to give Rani his blessings with his new wife who is clearly very into him and they are completely happy).  And finally at the end, Shahrukh drags Rani away from everyone else into the hall, for one final kiss under the mistletoe.

 

Hero: Shahrukh (unless there is someone you want more to see in a lot of sexy kissing scenes?)

Heroine: Rani (is there someone better who is age appropriate and has rousing sexual chemistry with him?)

Evil Fiancee: Lisa Haydon (she’s just the best.  I always want her to be the evil comic relief)

Stepmother: Dimple Kapadia (or Rekha?  Or Amrita Singh again?  Raveena Tandon maybe?  Someone inappropriately young feeling?)

Father: Jackie Shroff (or Amitabh?  Or Rishi?)

Ex-Husband: Bobby Deol?  Who just screams “no sexual chemistry”?  Siddharth Malhotra, but he’s kind of young.  Anil Kapoor?

Ex-Husband‘s new wife: Madhuri I guess, because she can have chemistry with a log

 

 

 

 

Well, that turned out better than I thought!  What should I use for a jumping off point next week?  There’s 3 more Sundays of Advent to fill so I need ideas.  Christmas cookies?  Christmas cards?  Something related to Jesus in some way (stables?  Unmarried mothers?)?

 

And as always, if we could only make one of these, which one would you make?