The Roottrees Are Dead | Video Game Review

We recently got a LOT of snow in southeastern Pennsylvania. While I was stuck in my house, I bought a puzzle game called The Roottrees Are Dead. I love puzzle games and this one seemed to add a bit of genealogy, which sounded fun. Boy, was it ever!

In the game, you are a renowned genealogist. When a plane carrying the very wealthy Roottree family - father Carl, president of the family candy company; mother Brenda, fashion designer for the family’s fashion line ROOT.; and daughters, Rhayna, Rhose, and Rhiley - crashes andeveryone on board dies, a mysterious person knocks on your door. They ask you to fill in the vast Roottree family tree in order to find who is a blood relative of Elias Roottree, the great, great grandfather of the current Roottree generation and founder of the Roottree Candy Company. His fortune can only be divided among blood relatives so it is very important to figure out who is part of the trust and who is not.

This sounds a little overwhelming and it is. A little. The game takes place in 1998 so, while you don’t have a smartphone, you do have a few useful resources available to you. Your trusty computer is set up with a SpiderSearch engine, where you can look up information on the family members. The computer also has access to books and periodicals (magazines, newspapers, etc.) And, every once in awhile, the mystery person shows back up to give you information from the Roottree Candy Company. Use the right keywords to find names of family members, their various occupations, and photos of each of them.

I can’t tell you how much fun I had playing this. Like I said, I was stuck inside for a couple of days thanks to the snow and this was a perfect distraction. I always wanted to figure out my family tree but it can be difficult to figure out if the information you find is actually correct. Thankfully, in this game, you get a notification after you get all of the information for three family members. (Four later in the game and five toward the end.) The game “locks in” the correct information, turning their piece of the tree yellow, leaving you with the blue pieces. And when you get stuck, you get to talk it out with your rubber duck, which I think is adorable.

I blazed through the main part of the game in one day. Yeah, I probably should have taken some breaks but, what can I say, I get obsessed sometimes. Thankfully, there is a second part, which is a bit of a sequel. It turns out that some of the men in the family had quite a few affairs. Now you have a whole new group of people claiming to be Roottrees so they can also get their hands on the family fortune. It’s up to you to figure out who is a legitimate result of the affair and who is just a normal schlub.

If you are a fan of puzzle games, especially word puzzle games, The Roottrees Are Dead may be right up your alley. You can buy it on Steam for about $20. I don’t think this is a game you will regret buying. I just hope they make more genealogy-type games. There are definitely more family trees out there that we can build!

How I Decompress From Christmas

While I love reviewing Christmas movies every year, it does get a little overwhelming by the time the new year rolls around. That is usually why the blog ends up falling to the wayside most of the year. I get overwhelmed, don’t know what to write after the Christmas season, get stuck in my head about what to write, then by the time I know what to write, it’s October and spooky movie season. In an attempt to avoid it this year, I have spent a little more time decompressing from Christmas movies. Here is how I have been spending my days:

Playing Dreamlight Valley. Yes, I am still playing Disney’s Dreamlight Valley. I don’t get a lot of time to play it during the Christmas season so I have been spending the past few weeks catching up on everything going on in my own personal Disney world. There have been two new DLCs since I last wrote about the game. That means I got to spend some time unlocking Gaston, Rapunzel, EVE, Oswald, and Jafar from A Rift In Time, the first DLC. The Storybook Vale, the second DLC, gave us Merida, Flynn Rider, and Hades. On top of that, the main game added Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. (A list of all the currently available characters can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Dreamlight_Valley#Characters) I still have a ton of fun playing the game, even though it takes over my life sometimes.

Watching documentaries. What better way to get out of the Christmas romcom funk then a few tales from real life. Yes, I do watch a lot of true crime documentaries but I also watch ones that are just about interesting stuff. Recently I watched Jailbreak: Love On The Run, Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter, and Biggest Heist Ever. I thought about writing reviews on them, then I decided that I needed some media that was just for me.

Listening to music/podcasts. When I play Dreamlight Valley, I turn off the in-game sound and listen to music or podcasts instead. (A lot of in-game noise bugs me so I rarely play video games with the sound on.) I’ll pop on some Green Day or a random ‘90s playlist on Spotify. I’ve also been listening to the 60 Songs That Explain The ‘90s podcast. (Spoiler alert: They have covered more than 60 songs. And I think they’re currently covering 2000s songs.)

Journaling. That’s right. Sometimes I write for myself. I have a list of journal prompts that I try to do daily, except on weekends. It lets me think a little more about what goes on in my head instead of what is going on on a screen. Journaling may not be for everyone but I find that it does help me get over the romcom hump. Also, I write with fountain pens so I get extra enjoyment from picking out what type and color ink I feel like using. I particularly like shimmer inks, even though they are a pain in the butt. They are awfully pretty.

And that mostly covers it. I am going to try to get back to a regular posting schedule this week. Though I think I might do Tuesdays & Thursdays instead of Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Maybe putting a little less pressure on myself will help me keep going.

Christmas 2024 Wrap-Up

And now it is time to wrap up the 2024 Christmas season. It felt both hectic and laid back at the same time. I’m not sure how that happened!

This year I watched 74 Christmas movies. That is probably why this season felt more laid back. This was the the lowest number of movies I have watched since I moved from my advent calendar format. 2023 was 92 movies, 2022 was 127, 2021 was 78, and 2020 was 86. I think this is because Hallmark moved some of their new releases to their Hallmark+ streaming service, which I did not subscribe to this year. That cut at least seven movies from the schedule. It was also frustratingly difficult to find new movies this time around. Great American Family continues to change their movies after they have released their schedule. Movies they have announced to air on one date will be replaced by a different movie and air on a different date. It was so frustrating.

Speaking of Great American Family, I am going to cut them from the list of movies next year. While I wanted to continue to watch Candace Cameron-Bure and Danica McKellar, almost all of the movies on the channel are so boring and difficult to sit through. I hope that their 2025 movies don’t turn political but it feels like that is the way the channel is heading.

Since I am going to cut out GAF, I am going to spend more energy trying to find movies on other streaming channels. I didn’t watch anything on Roku, Disney+ (though I did watch one Hulu movie), or Peacock. There was also a locally-made movie released in theaters that I was hoping to go see but I couldn’t make it in time. And, who knows, maybe I will sign up for Hallmark+ this year. We’ll have to wait and see what their streaming-only releases are.

As always, please feel free to let me know if there is a streaming channel that you’d like me to cover. I know there are a million of them out there now. There has to be a channel with some great Christmas movies that I don’t know about.

Best Christmas Movies of 2024

If you have read most of my Christmas movie reviews this season, you’ll know that a majority of the movies were super boring. They were so boring that it made it really difficult to keep watching them. (And I didn’t watch the last five of the season!) However, this is the list of the bright, shiny Christmas lights that kept me going even when I wanted to stop early. These are the best Christmas movies of 2024.

BeBe Winans’ We Three Kings - It’s rare for me to want a Christmas movie to be longer. This was one that did.
All I Need For Christmas - The movie that proved that adults can apologize to each other when they screw up.
Hanukkah On The Rocks - Hallmark airs one Hanukkah movie each season. It is amazing when the movie teaches about the various Hanukkah traditions.
The 5-Year Christmas Party - Sometimes a movie needs to be a slow burn. This wouldn’t have worked any other way.
Debbie Macomber’s Joyful Mrs. Miracle - I never thought I would love a Mrs. Miracle movie. I was wrong.
Sugarplummed - My favorite movie of the season. Anyone who disagrees is just plain wrong.

Honorable Mentions:
Holiday Crashers - This one was just plain fun.
A Christmas Castle Proposal - A sweet little change-up to the prince trope. Though it may have slipped onto the honorable mentions list because it’s a sequel.

There were a few other movies that were decent but not quite good enough to make the Best list. These are the ones that really did make me think “Oh, maybe the next movie will be this good too!” instead of making me want to cancel my streaming subscriptions. I hope Christmas movies keep getting better instead of worse. Next up, my big Christmas wrap-up post where I talk about my plans for Christmas 2025.

Worst Christmas Movies of 2024

While I don’t normally like to start the year out on a negative note, I want to get the worst movie list out of the way so we can talk about the good movies this year! A lot of the movies this year weren’t bad, just boring. I’d hate to put them on the worst list for being boring. With that said, let’s get into the worst Christmas movies of 2024.

A ‘90s Christmas - When you link your movie to a specific decade, the viewers are looking for nostalgia. This movie only gives confusion.
Five Gold Rings - A mystery movie that completely fell apart by the second ring.
Christmas On The Alpaca Farm - This was a movie written by people who heard of alpacas but never actually saw one.
Tails Of Christmas - Never, ever make dogs the focus of your movie. It always ends up making your movie bad.
Mistletoe & Matrimony - I wasn’t sure about putting this on the list because it wasn’t completely terrible. Then I remembered the bride wanted to book a horse-drawn carriage at the last minute for a Christmas Eve wedding in Chicago.
Christmas By Candlelight - Bad script, bad plot, bad acting. There isn’t much more to say.
Christmas With The Singhs - This one wouldn’t have been on the list if the writers didn’t make the Singhs so unbearable. It’s possible to make a “sucky in-laws” movie without making them whiny babies.
Leah’s Perfect Gift - I almost rage-quit this movie. We need a sequel where Leah leaves the awful family before she marries their son and finds someone awesome who actually loves her.

Dishonorable Mentions:
Deck The Walls - While this movie wasn’t awful, the product placement was so bad and so in-your-face that it gets a dishonorable mention.
Sincerely, Truly Christmas - When the main female character acts like a child, it’s an immediate ‘no, thank you’ from me.

There you have it. These are the movies I thought were the worst this year. Let me know if you want a separate list for the movies I thought were the most boring. There were a lot of them! Coming up next: The BEST movies!

Welcome 2025!

Happy New Year!

Alas, I did not finish the five Christmas movies left on my list. I just couldn’t bring myself to sit down and watch them. Instead, I have been relaxing and spending time with my family. Over the next few days, I’ll post my best and worst list. I’m not sure if there will be ten titles on each list. A lot of the movies this year were boring but not bad or particularly good. We’ll see if I can figure out which ten were the worst…or the best.

After the best and worst list, there will be a Christmas movie wrap-up post with some talk about plans for next Christmas season. Maybe I’ll also talk about my plans for the rest of 2025. Until then, relax and enjoy the brand new year. I hope that good things are on the way.