So I'm really not hating here. I'm just telling it like it is. As New Zealanders we're good at winning rugby trophies and Man Booker prizes and Grammy awards. Not so good at Christmas. That's all I'm saying.
But the worst part of it being so damn nice out is that we don't have an appreciation for the Christmas telly special. Those saccharine affairs that put beloved characters in a festive pickle before teaching us valuable and heart-warming lessons about the spirit of Christmas while shoehorning in as many Christmas jams as possible.
The latest entry into this crowded genre stars the most beloved character of the modern age: Bill Murray. A Very Murray Christmas is surprisingly traditional and about as clichd as a red-nosed reindeer.
The Netflix special doesn't flip the script in any way on standard festive proceedings and does a serviceable job at stretching a pun out to an hour of variety style television.
It's played mostly straight, but director Sofia Coppola, reuniting with Murray after her terrific film Lost in Translation, does inject some quirk. Co-writing with Murray, the pair push the format into meta territory as we watch a Christmas special that's all about Murray attempting (and failing) to film a Christmas special.
It kicks off with Murray doing his dour, sad clown routine in a luxurious hotel room. He's upset because a blizzard is preventing all the celebrity guests from attending a Christmas special he's about to film in the ballroom.
Even with no audience the show must go on. Murray gives it a crack, things go horribly wrong and the plug is quite literally pulled after a few minutes. With the blizzard trapping him inside, a grumpy Murray can only sing and schmooze away Christmas Eve with the hotel's fellow prisoners, which are all played by celeb guests.
Of course, as tradition dictates, Murray must learn the true meaning of Christmas. Here it happens somewhere between an amusingly disastrous take on Do You See What I See? with a blackmailed Chris Rock and a frankly show-stopping version of Silent Night by enfant terrible Miley Cyrus, of all people.
In variety shows like this the story is always the weakest part, primarily concerned with shuffling characters to the next song, and the same is true here. It's wafer thin and mostly terrible. Disappointingly, so are most of the gags. Especially in its painful opening stretch.
But once Murray slips comfortably into wry, bemused mode and the focus shifts on to selling the songs, things pick up.
Where I think A Very Murray Christmas shines, especially in sunny New Zealand, is not as dedicated viewing but rather as a hip take on a background Christmas soundtrack.
Turn it on, turn it up and leave it to fill your house with its (mostly) cracking covers of exceptionally curated, non-traditional festive hits like Baby, It's Cold Outside, Alone on Christmas Day and Fairytale of New York. They're all really good, but the highlight has to be the dirty P-Funk flavour of Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin' that sees George Clooney in freaky, funky form.
So while it's not a Christmas television miracle you'd have to be a real Grinch to not be won over by its loose charm. The special closes with Murray singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas and for this final column of the year, so do I.
