The best place to see some films isn't necessarily the cinema. Some are best viewed on drowsy Sunday evenings, some with friends, pizza, and sarcasm, and a few are best stumbled upon at some insomniac hour of the night, half awake and terrified of the horrible thing you're watching (say, Funny Games). Arguably, the best place to view Meet Me in St Louis is blissed out in front of the TV on Boxing Day, surrounded by Quality Street wrappers and your sleeping grandmother. Still, given how festive it feels, it's unsurprising that the BFI are re-releasing it cinematically over the Christmas season.

Meet Me in St. Louis is notable for being one of the first cinematic musicals to actually integrate its songs into the narrative, coming from the characters rather than being a random assortment of popular hits. Still, the plot is so paper thin that this scarcely matters. The patriarch of the Smith family (Leon Ames) plans to move his family from St. Louis to New York. The elder daughters (Lucille Bremner and Judy Garland) are bothered about this due to their blossoming romances, and the father eventually changes his mind. That's pretty much it, which means the film is heavily padded, featuring a weird fixation with minutiae that adds to the feeling that incredibly little is actually going on.

Perhaps more than in The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis represents Garland's apogee as a star. It makes the experience of watching her more poignant now than it would be for audiences of the time. Her character may get a husband and the happy ending that is compulsory with such things, but Garland herself was headed for a slow, tragic decline. What we're left with is Garland at her brief, winsome best, singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and completely breaking your heart. Interestingly, that most depressing of Christmas songs performs the function in the film of being a lie Garland tells her younger sister when all hope seems lost. A song which has always seemed excessively melancholy finally has a context: a sad, beautiful fiction, sung to a child.

More than the costumes, the songs or the plumminess of the accents, what feels truly old-fashioned are the attitudes of the characters. It's unsettling to see a world where a father is the only authority in his family and where getting married is the sole life goal for a proper young girl. But the film is lovely enough that it isn't too difficult to acknowledge that and put it aside—the past is a foreign country, etc.—and focus on just enjoying the thing. Gorgeously shot and filled with rousing songs and dialogue that's agreeably flinty when it's not being bland, Meet Me in St. Louis is one of the finer musicals of cinema history. If it's not to be watched while merry on mulled wine and waiting for someone to get out Trivial Pursuit, seeing it in a cinema feels like a rare treat—a way to spend a few hours in a glorious Technicolor world in which everyone sings and everything is going to be alright. For that small measure of escapism it's worth dressing up for and braving the cold: we could all use the break.

Christmas party season is upon us, and unfortunately the dress codes are often non-existent. Informal parties can fall anywhere between 'clean pair of jeans' and 'nice, knee-length skirt for your Gran.' The hastily presented and ever fetching Bridget Jones carpeting skirt-suit may be worryingly familiar to some of us. If only things were clearer and more beautiful.

Luckily in Aberdeen they are. Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums are currently putting on an exhibition of 1950s partywear at Provost Skene's House.

Dior's 1947 New Look echoes through the collection and reminds us of a time when fabrics were thick and lustrous and skirts were very, very full. Prints and pleats, beading and brocade, voluptuous velvet and voile. We are in awe of these swathes of figure-hugging, feminine lushness.

The exhibition is open until January 7th but, if you are in the area, do try to pop in before December 25th for a bit of luxurious and festive sartorial inspiration. Party season should look much more like this.

The people from Pyrus are running a competition: post a photo of yourself with your favourite mug on their facebook wall.

The winner will get £500-worth of Pyrus' clothes, and five runners up will win a free subscription to oh comely. You've got until the 29th December to enter. Full details are here.

Photo: Ash from Pyrus with his favourite mug.

Earlier, we collaborated with Pyrus to make this bag, and had a party to celebrate. We invited people at the party to have their photo taken with Impossible Project polaroids. You can see the full collection here and some more party photos.

Party thanks also go to Hope and Greenwood for some traditional English sweets and Belvoir for bottles of apple and ginger cordial. We're getting unfortunately addicted to the leftovers.

Photo: The mug that almost got away.

I'm nothing if not ambitious. When I opened my pack of Cass Art Robobauble Christmas cards I zoned right in on the most difficult one to make - RoboSanta.

The Christmas cards are printed with five different designs to cut up and make your own Christmas baubles from. Theoretically you are just glue and a pair of scissors away from original and artistic tree decorations. Art, craft and correspondance in a slim, festive envelope - irresistible to us. The cards don't have actual difficulty ratings on them but the RoboElves, RoboAngels and RoboChrismasPudding must be easier. Surely?

In retrospect it might have been more sensible to start small, with the RoboAngel say. That isn't how I roll though. When I'm faced with a packet of Christmas cards that you can transform into Christmas baubles it is go hard or go home. I want to make the biggest, gaudiest, most complicated bauble available.

Photo: Some of the Robo-Christmas creatures you can try your hand at.

Really, really what I should have done was to send the RoboSanta Chrismas card to a friend. I should have sent my affection and Christmas wishes, the joy of making and a bauble, to a loved one to enjoy. That is presumably what artist and musician Matthew Robins had in mind when he designed the cards. But, no, I was greedy. I called it scientific research but actually I just can't walk away from an opportunity to make a big mess.

I could give RoboSanta as a gift. My friends are very polite, I'm sure they would pretend to be thrilled. He isn't very presentable though. My Pritt-stick had dried out so I had to make do with a tube of Uhu. It is impressively sticky but it does get everywhere. By the time I had finally finished RoboSanta I had backed myself into a corner, surrounded and entrapped by an impenetrable cobweb of glue. Lots of that cobweb still clings to RoboSanta who, I notice now, only has one foot. No idea where the other one got to.

Photo: My very handsome RoboSanta (without one foot).

Don't get me wrong, I had a grand time. I spent most of my childhood engrossed in overambitious craft projects so I felt right at home. I just know that I'm the only person who will truly appreciate my RoboSanta. My friends will be the receiving their cards intact instead. Then they will get to share in the messy, frustrating, satisfactory festive fun.

The joy of these cards is in the journey rather than the destination. They certainly perk up the routine of card sending. Pick up your own pack of Robobauble cards from Cass Art stores around London.

One of the more difficult videos to watch on the Internet is the full-length trailer for Alvin and the Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked. Most viewers over the age of six will find it tough to get further than 47 seconds into the video, when the lady chipmunks (The Chipettes) start singing Whip My Hair.

It seems unlikely that the film will ever be watched by any adult unless in the presence of minors, and even then, the endeavour would be a struggle. From the trailer, Chipwrecked looks insipid, hollow, and as if you’d shed brain cells just be being in the same room as it. Bearing that in mind, I decided to accept the invitation I received to a screening of the film, despite the distinct absence of children in my life and possessing some semblance of taste.

A bad film can be far more enjoyable than a good one, but Chipwrecked doesn’t fall into that category. It isn't a folly of ambition, where a good concept was derailed by bad choices, or where elements simply didn’t click. That at least would be watchable, and worthy of discussion. The problem with Chipwrecked isn’t that it’s awful, but that it’s competent. The film is a mediocrity, and deliberately so: it’s entertainment designed to keep children with low standards occupied for an hour and a bit, and nothing more. If Sony could get people to come to a still image of Alvin and his chipmunk brethren with the words “Quiet down now” written beneath, then presumably they would.

And that’s okay. Pixar and Studio Ghibli continue to make films, and continue to be commercially successful, so children are still getting the magic they need. When you’re stranded in it, childhood is infinitely boring and pretty endless: not every film can be WALL-E, and there’s a market for something that will literally just pass the time. Children need to have their time passed, because they have so much of it. Chipwrecked isn’t an insidious film by any means, it’s just one that any rational human would only watch with 6-year-old cousins, on a wet Saturday, under duress.

Photo: Eleanor Miller, the youngest member of The Chipettes, with Theodore Seville. © Fox UK Film

What is notable about the film (and it’s just about the only thing that is notable about it) is its non-rodent cast list. Someone who isn’t an aficionado of the sizeable, baffling series might be surprised to see comedian David Cross star as the chipmunks’ arch-nemesis, Ian. Best known for playing Tobias Fünke in Arrested Development and for his acerbic stand-up, Cross is an unlikely choice for the series, and Chipwrecked is exactly the opposite sort of film you’d expect him to be in.

Photo: Alvin surronded by The Chipettes and his friends Simon Seville and Theodore Seville. © Fox UK Film

Unsurprisingly, when Cross appeared in the first film he was crucified by cultural commentators and across the internet, leading him to write a lengthy blog post defending his right to appear in a kid’s film solely for the money. The non-controversy raged on for a while and eventually dissipated, supplanted by something else. Now as the third film appears no-one has taken any notice at all, and even Cross’ fans probably have no idea he’s continuing to star in the series. It’s understandable: a film like Chipwrecked is cultural white noise. It basically doesn’t exist. 

That initial outcry is worth investigating, however, because it says less about artists and more about our desire for those artists to be unimpeachable. The high standards we hold creative people to seems hypocritical when applied to our own lives. The rest of us do jobs that we don’t like so that we can pursue things we care about, so why can’t actors? Why can’t there be a division in an actor’s work between things they do for the art and things they do for the pay check, even though both things exist in a creative medium? 

We may balk at a gifted comedian like Ben Stiller starring in family-friendly dross, but doing that dross allows him to appear in films like The Royal Tenenbaums or Greenberg, or to have supported a string of talented filmmakers early in their careers. Night at the Museum 2 doesn’t cancel out Flirting With Disaster. Unless an actor is exceptionally lucky it isn’t possible for them to maintain a career without taking roles just to pay the rent. 

Photo: Simon Seville, the most intelligent chipmunk of Alvin's gang. © Fox UK Film

Perhaps we should think of Chipwrecked as the equivalent of working in a shop. Surely it’s better for David Cross co-star in Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 than him doing admin somewhere? Admittedly that may be an arguable point, considering that Cross spends the entirety of Chipwrecked wearing an oversized pelican costume and acting opposite CGI chipmunks who insist on breaking into song every five minutes. 

It’s a defendable choice, however. A lot of us spend our working lives putting on oversized pelican costumes they just happen to be of the metaphorical kind. Undeniably, though, there isn’t a great deal of dignity in it. Cross did the first film because he hadn’t worked in six months and wanted to buy a cottage, but what was his excuse the second time (Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel), or now? How many cottages does one man need? When is it okay to say yes? And when should you say no?

Pyrus are clothes designers who make beautiful clothes for strong women. When our fashion editor, Agatha, came across a dress by them last year, she fell for their aesthetic straight away. After months of dreaming, we've collaborated with them to make some sturdy cotton bags.

The bags have 'keep your curiosity sacred' on one side, and an enigmatic illustration by Pyrus on the other. You can buy a bag here or in their London store, and read a conversation with Lorraine and Ash Johnson, the founders behind the brand, in issue eight.

Made in the Middle is not your average craft exhibition. Happening once every three years, it has a geographically selective eye and only features artists based in the UK Midlands.

It's one of the largest selling exhibitions in the region, and Made in the Middle's next installment is happening in February 2012. This time, the show is thinking in particular about 'Pathways to Craft'. Artists and makers who've taken surprising routes into the craft market will be featured, along with a study of digital crafting techniques. 

We'll be covering the event here on the oh comely blog but for the moment, here are two artists whose work we're looking forward to seeing.

Jennifer Collier uses paper like you would cloth. She stitches and glues it together to create life-sized domestic objects. 

Photo: One of Jennifer Collier's paper-made domestic objects. 

Amy Twigger Holroyd 'stitch hacks' old clothes and designs them anew. She ladders and re-forms old stitches, or knits new names into the garments.

Photo: In the above jumper, Amy Twigger Holroyd has taken an old, second-hand jumper and 'stitch hacked' it by knitting "Samy 2010" into the bottom edge.

"The tea towel is a picture, it's one image. A rectangle, waiting to be designed and filled". In issue seven the Queen of tea towels, designer Pat Albeck, spoke to oh comely about her work. Her extensive back catalogue of over 300 tea towels has now grown by two more designs. Produced for her daughter-in-law, Emma Bridgewater, these tea towels return to some of Pat's favourite themes.

Her very first tea towel featured vegetables or, as she described it in our interview, "every vegetable in the world", and this is also the subject matter for one of her latest tea towels, which features some tasty-looking leeks, carrots and aubergines. Her other design – the colourful Butterflies – is reminiscent of the cut paper Fish tea towel, dating to the 1960s, that we published in the magazine.

The tea towels sell for £10 each. In Pat's words, "Even in a minimalist white kitchen, you'll always have room for a tea towel." Have a look on the Emma Bridgewater website for more information.