Dean finds out the previous victims visited Santa’s village, and at that point I wondered if Jeremy Carver’s warped childhood involved too many family visits to tacky tourist traps. Santa’s Village is as awful as we imagined, with the weathered, and in desperate need of paint, entrance topped with an evil-looking Santa, wooden buildings that looked like rotting shacks instead of toy workshops, an unenthusiastic elf and guy in reindeer suit standing among the tacky wooden cutouts of a manger scene that gets banned by most neighborhood associations nowadays, and ugly reindeer made of logs that Amish places try to sell at a premium. The set designers must have had every one of their Christmas fantasies, real and surreal, come true.
Dean uses this bizarre backdrop to suggest that he and Sam celebrate Christmas this year. Sam hates the idea, claiming their Christmases weren’t exactly loaded with “Hallmark memories.” Are they for anyone? My memories of Christmas include being bored stiff with my new toys after an hour and nothing but crap on TV, all while the adults broke into the eggnog early. These were the days before the Internet, DVD’s or even VHS, and my videogame choices were limited Pong. At least when I get drunk at Christmas now my kids have GameCube.
Somehow, a goofy reindeer triggers a memory for Sam, he and Dean in a motel in Broken Bow, Nebraska in 1991. The sign says the Cicero Pines Motel. Isn’t that the exact same sign from “The Kids Are Alright?” There aren’t many pine trees in Nebraska either. This eight-year-old Sam is a drastic improvement the one in “Something Wicked,” but thankfully we get the same Dean. Sam’s wrapping a gift with the comics page that Uncle Bobby gave him to give to John. The point is clearly coming across that these boys have nothing, not even a Christmas tree can be found.
Sam asks Dean questions, which Dean avoids. How long did Dean think he could do that for? I have a six-year-old who leaves nothing alone. Young Sam is uncanny with every mannerism, down to the puppy dog eyes and sorrowful glare. The scene cuts to adult Sam with the exact same look of despair, and it’s remarkable how they pull that off. We honestly believe it’s the same person just years later. Now the editors get the applause.
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