One of the traditions around Christmas that I love are Christmas movies, and as a movie lover in general, this is a great genre at this time of the year.
Even within the general category of Christmas movies, there are sub-categories. You have the classic movies, you have the comedies, the rom-coms, and the modern tales, and then the addition of horror movies with a Christmas theme, sort of.
In regard to the latter category, it just seems wrong (unless you’re one of those die-hard horror fans) to join up this season with horror, which usually involves death and blood and gore. I mean, seriously? Movies like “Black Christmas” just do not fit the season.
Amongst the classics, one of the all-time favourites for me and my family is “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart.
Back in the days of VCRs, one of the very first movies we bought to play on our new VCR was that movie, along with a couple other classics, like “Harvey” and “Casablanca”.
The original “Miracle on 34th Street” is also a good one, although that’s one of the very rare remakes I also like (with Mara Wilson in the latter version), and the Alistair Sim version of “A Christmas Carol” from 1951 (non-colourized version, thank you). These are great movies that stand the test of time, even though, yes, they are in black-and-white and are outdated in many respects. The storytelling and the acting are as good as any movie made today.
For comedies, “The Santa Clause” is a good one (the sequels not so much), “Elf” has funny moments, there’s the original animated “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas”, and of course the Charlie Brown Christmas is an all-time classic that needs to be watched.
The “Polar Bear Express” is a newer (sort of) animated movie that has a lot of quality animation and a fairly good story, although it seemed sometimes like the train ride went on and on. Having Tom Hanks in it was a good move, of course.
A non-traditional kind of Christmas movie is a favourite (especially with my kids), namely “Die Hard”. A funny post I read said it didn’t feel like Christmas until you see Hans Gruber fall off the Nakatomi Tower. There’s even an advent calendar where each day through December Gruber falls a little further … (If that sounds weird, you kind of have to be into the Die Hard flicks to understand.)
This clearly is not an exhaustive list, considering all the Christmas movies there are to see, and every year there are new ones to check out. Whichever ones are your own favourites, there’s nothing better than curling up under a blanket with a hot chocolate and popcorn to watch them.
