Even though I do own a copy of The Silmarillion and tear up every time I hear Enya’s songs on the soundtrack. I’m not, you know, buying Funko Pops or staging an environmentally disastrous Lord of the Rings-themed wedding, because I’m a functioning adult with a healthy sense of shame. It’s because the Lord of the Rings movies are technically Christmas movies-the greatest Christmas movies. But this is about more than 12-year-old me having my sexual awakening the first time I saw Aragorn’s chin in a suburban movie theater in 2001. The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King had successive late December releases during my formative tween and early teen years, and so they’ve always been indelibly linked to this season for me. To be fair, snowstorm or not, I do this every year around the holidays. When I heard the news that New York was going to be hit with its first major snowstorm of the season, one that could result in over a foot of snow and potentially knock out the power, I prepared in the most pragmatic, survival-minded way possible: I pulled out my Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs.

The lord of the ring