Favorite Christmas Movies

Do you have a favorite Christmas movie? One that you watch without fail every single holiday season? One where you know the dialog so well you can speak it right along with the actors and actresses? Or maybe sing the songs?

There are so many out there. There are the wonderful old classics like It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, A Christmas Story, Holiday Inn, A Christmas Carol and Miracle on 34th Street. We rarely watch those any more, but every once in awhile they offer a bit of nostalgia for ‘the good old days’.

There are humorous Christmas stories. Some folks enjoy Home Alone (1, 2 and/or3), but we’re not fans. Bad Santa just increases my dislike for Billy Bob Thornton (though truth be told, he’s awesome in the new Landman series!). The Santa Clause and Elf are popular, just not our kind of movie.

The animated movies like How the Grinch Stole Christmas or Charlie Brown’s Christmas might be worth a watch every couple of years, but this ain’t the year. Polar Express tops my list of the animated holiday movies. Frosty and Rudolph just don’t cut it for us any more. Maybe we watched them too many times when the kids were little plus with the new CGI animation, the older animation flicks seem a bit one-dimensional and lame.

Of the new holiday flicks out there, we recently tried to watch Dear Santa. We like Jack Black, but this movie was a loser in our book. We only made it through 20 minutes and gave it a thumbs down. Red One, on the other hand, though predictable, was entertaining. We like both J.K.Simmons and ‘The Rock’ plus the reindeer animation was exceptionally cool and the Krampus scenes were delightful!

I checked out Rotten Tomatoes’ list of Best Christmas Movies. Just because a movie has a Christmas scene in it, doesn’t make it a Christmas movie in my book. So Die Hard doesn’t qualify nor does You’ve Got Mail or several others on their ‘best’ list. Just click on the link above if you’re looking to binge Christmas movies or need to get into the Christmas spirit without leaving the house or your recliner.

Of all the Christmas movies, I have two that top my list: Love Actually and The Family Stone. Both are in the rom-com genre. Love Actually has a convoluted, far-fetched plot, lots of characters, an implausible timeline and I absolutely love it. David enjoyed it the first 10 times, now he tolerates it and only after I whine for awhile. The Family Stone is a mix genre of rom-com and drama with some comical twists and turns and though I know how it ends, I still always cry. I think of it as a holiday catharsis.

So which holiday movies float your boat? Do you have an absolute favorite? Old classics? Animated? Rom-com? Family comedy? Christmas horror? C’mon… share!