Wait what's her name?

We didn't watch Elf this year. In recent Decemers we've watched it about as often as we haven't watched it, but we had other holiday favorites on the docket in 2022.

However, it's a movie I've seen about seven times, and I had no idea the name of Zooey Deschanel's character until today.

My older son and I were watching the Christmas day basketball game between my Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks -- the teams with the two best records in the NBA -- and the TDNorth Garden in Boston was doing a trivia game for the crowd that involved guessing the names of characters from beloved Christmas movies.

I started out strong naming Ralphie Parker -- which would have been easy for me even if we hadn't just watched it -- but then the name George Bailey eluded me. I also couldn't provide the name Yukon Cornelius in a timely fashion, and some other misses were combined in there. I finally recovered a bit with John McClane, but then couldn't remember that Tim Allen's character in The Santa Clause was Scott Calvin -- though I did get his alternate character name of Santa. (Duh.)

When Deschanel's character from Elf came up in her familiar Gimbels elf garb, I thought "I should get this."

But then I was all "What the hell is her name?"

Don't you know, it's "Jovie."

Um, no, I did not know.

The number of times her name is spoken in the movie must be very few for me to have never picked up on it before now. Or really, never picked up on it, since it's not like playing along with a trivia game qualifies as "picking up on it." And it's a distinctive name, with a Christmas twist, so I wouldn't forget it like I might if it were Sarah or Jane.

But I also feel like I should have learned it by writing about her character at some point in the past. Deschanel is easily one of my favorite parts of the movie, and if I've never written about her it was not for lack of appreciation. I might have written about her but just referred to her as "Zooey Deschanel's character," because I guess that's how I've always thought of her. She may have lost some luster as a performer as she's been revealed as a bit of a one-trick pony, but Elf was peak Deschanel.

Oh well, it doesn't matter what her name is. It matters what she brings to Elf, which is a ton.

And we had quite the jovial Christmas this year, even without Elf or Zooey Deschanel. One of the best I can remember actually -- great food, great company, great presents. If yours is still going on I hope it's just as good.

(And the Celtics won big, making for a very Merry Christmas in our house indeed ... even if it was Boxing Day.)