Watching Christmas-themed movies is an American Christmas tradition. I know it has nothing to do with Advent, but it’s part of the cultural celebration of Christmas, and one that we enjoy.
In our home, we find that our favorite Christmas movies fall into one of two categories: the nostalgia favorites and the truly good films.
The Nostalgia Favorites
In our house, we’ve noticed a trend: each of us has a “nostalgia favorite” Christmas movie that’s tied to our childhood. However, the rest of the family doesn’t tend to appreciate these movies as much.
Peter grew up watching Laurel and Hardy’s March of the Wooden Soldiers. A few years ago, he introduced our family to it. I couldn’t even finish it. It’s just plain weird. It wasn’t even about Christmas as far as I could tell and not at all my type of humor. (Take a look at a trailer on YouTube.) But he enjoys it and threatens every year to make us watch it again.
Now, The Muppets, on the other hand…that’s my kind of humor. The Muppet Show debuted the year I was born, but there must have been re-runs playing into the mid-80’s, because I remember watching it, as well as seeing all of the major movie releases. So when The Muppet Christmas Carol came out my senior year of high school, I enjoyed it for the nostalgia back then. Nearly 30 years later, I still enjoy watching it every few years. Last year, someone shared this listicle on Facebook about the brilliance of the movie. (Here’s the trailer on YouTube.)
Because of my nostalgia, I can overlook the schmaltzy songs that my husband finds tedious. I love the Les Mis-esque opening song (tell me “Another Day” and “Scrooge” aren’t cut from the same cloth). I also enjoy the characters-playing-characters of Muppets acting another story: It’s a fictional Miss Piggie playing a fictional Mrs. Cratchit. We all sing along to “Marley & Marley.”
But it’s not for everyone. Last year when we all watched it together as my Forced Family Fun choice, my husband said at the end, “At least it’s mercifully short.”
My boys will watch and to varying degrees enjoy both of these, but to them, The Polar Express is the childhood Christmas movie they cherish. The irony of this is that we didn’t do Santa in our house, so their love for the movie isn’t tied up in the “magic” of Santa or anything. So what is it about the movie?
For one thing, it’s the train. When they were young, my boys were predictably into trains for some time. When we watched it together last year, we remembered how my eldest went through his train phase (including Dinosaur Train and Thomas the Tank Engine) and simultaneously his “drawing” phase, where he would pause movies and draw pictures of anything that included levers and buttons (for a long while, pre-music, we assumed he’d be an engineer—not the train type). The scene where the kids are left in charge of the train while the engineers go out to replace the light bulb would be slowed down and paused and analyzed. He also reminded us how he recreated the special tickets and attempted, over and over, to punch words into them, like the Conductor does.
They are also huge fans of the soundtrack. When I say, “Let’s put on Christmas music,” one of them will inevitably choose a song from The Polar Express.
Personally, I don’t like the animation style, so I don’t enjoy it. In fact, before last year, I’d never actually seen the whole movie. But now that I’m committed to FFF, I sat through the whole thing. It was fine.
Best line of the night goes to my youngest, who, when the main character says, “I believe, I believe, I believe”, my son commented, “This would be so much more meaningful if it was about Jesus.”
Movies We All Love Because They’re Just Good
I know it’s not a very original position, but we all like It’s a Wonderful Life. It hits on every level. I will never not tear-up at the end, and we will never not laugh when Clarence tells George the awful news, that since she did not marry George, Mary has succumbed to the worst fate of all...becoming a librarian! Look at those glasses! Shameful!
When my boys were young, they watched the weird VeggieTales version It’s a Meaningful Life that somehow combined some ideas from the classic movie with The Polar Express train idea. It’s kind of cringy, but as part of the nostalgia pull, this year they’re asking to watch that one instead.
Last year we discovered that we all fully love Miracle on 34th Street. I had probably seen it once as a child but had no memory at all of it. But my husband and I were on a “classic movies” trend for a while so we carried that into Christmas.
The trailer is quite unusual and very effective. The boys were honestly hyped about seeing the movie—and it didn’t disappoint. My younger two loved it, repeatedly commenting throughout, I like this guy,” or “This is great.” It wasn’t predictable and was quite funny. All in all, it was a great surprise.
And what to say about A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) ? These are somewhere in the middle of the two categories—ones we enjoyed as kids, but they stand on their own as well.
This year, I've got a new one for us to try: The Shop Around the Corner. Perhaps it will be good enough to be added to the rotation in the future. There's always room for another classic.