What makes a movie a Christmas movie?
As I sit here writing this, one of my favorite childhood Christmas movies is playing in the background. The Night They Saved Christmas is a made for TV movie from 1984. I’m old enough to remember the days when “home entertainment center” meant that your floor model console television included a stereo system. This was long before streaming services, before DVDs, VHS tapes, even before most people had cable television and the dozens, not hundreds, of channels that came with it. With most people having access to fewer than a dozen channels, made for TV movies and holiday specials were considered an EVENT.
It's a given that any movie that includes “Christmas” in the title would automatically be considered a Christmas movie. The same can be said for keywords like “Santa”, “elves”, “reindeer”, “sleigh”, or “North Pole”. For some people, any movie where that is set during the Christmas season is considered a Christmas movie. That’s where the argument for movies like Gremlins, Die Hard, and Trading Places being considered Christmas movies comes from.
Every household has their “must see” list of Christmas movies. For our household, the top four “must see” movies are White Christmas, Trading Places, Die Hard, and A Christmas Story. Over the years, other movies have been added, like the Christmas Chronicles, some version of A Christmas Carol, and Emmett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas. That’s not to discount the Christmas Specials like all the Rankin and Bass Holiday Specials, Muppet Specials, and Peanuts specials.
Over the years, some movies cycle in as others cycle out of rotation. A Christmas Story will always play on loop on Christmas Day until we switch to the sequel.
This year we’ve already watched White Christmas, and Trading Places from our “must see” list. We added a couple of violent movies with Violent Night and Santa’s Slay.
It ultimately comes down to what sort of movies make it feel like Christmas for you. Are you a Hallmark movie lover? Do you prefer comedies like Elf or Home Alone? Do you go for classics, new movies, just movies from a certain point in your life? What’s your favorite Christmas movie?
