Christina here. It’s December and the countdown to Christmas has started in earnest. For my younger daughter and me, that means watching seasonal movies. It’s part of our traditions and we try to fit in at least one a day. Finding them isn’t hard – there are entire channels devoted to them here in the UK (is it the same where you are?), so there’s plenty to choose from. Some of the streaming services have their own offerings too, so the difficulty is usually agreeing which one to watch.
The quality does vary though, I have to say. We started this year’s movie marathon with The Knight Before Christmas, which starred Vanessa Hudgens (of High School Musical fame) and Josh Whitehouse. It’s about an English knight from the 1300s who is magically transported to present-day America. (Why there? Who knows!) There he meets a high school teacher who is disillusioned by love since her ex cheated on her. Their meet-cute is that she almost runs him over, so she thinks he’s hit his head and is therefore imagining himself to be a medieval knight. She takes him in until he regains his memory, and of course, they fall in love. I didn’t have very high hopes for this film, which is just as well because OMG, the anachronisms! Not least of all, the fact that he can speak to a modern woman and they understand each other (apart from the odd “egad!”). As someone who writes time travel stories, I would have liked him to be a little more surprised by some of the things he comes across in the modern world, but he takes everything in his stride. I really hope no children watch this and think it’s based on proper historical details, but apart from that, it’s a bit of harmless fun and quite charming.
Naturally, we have favourites that we watch every year. There’s Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase which is an absolute must. If nothing else, it has the best song ever for a Christmas movie (featured during the credits and sung by Mavis Staples). It is very dated now, but it’s still funny. And the plot is one that resonates – the main character wants to have a “fun old family Christmas”, with everyone he cares for under one roof and enjoying the holidays together. That is something we all strive for, I think. I, for one, would love it if I could get everyone in my family to celebrate with us, but we are too spread out so that will remain a pipe dream.
Another must is Home Alone (both 1 and 2, although personally I’m not a fan of sequels). Macaulay Culkin is superb as the little boy who is accidentally left at home when the rest of his large and chaotic family go off on a Christmas trip to Paris. The way he fights off two would-be burglars with humour and ingenuity is hilarious and heart-warming, and no matter how many times we watch it, we always laugh.
One of my personal favourites is The Ref (I think it’s called Hostile Hostages in some countries), an unusual Christmas movie featuring a thief on the run. He’s being chased by the police and needs somewhere to lie low for a while. He ends up hiding out in the home of a couple who are on the verge of divorce, and he takes them hostage so they won’t report his whereabouts. The husband and wife are continually bickering about everything under the sun, and even while tied up and threatened, they won’t stop. It drives the thief crazy! Their teenage son is a juvenile delinquent who’s resorted to blackmailing people at his school, and the thief can’t believe how dysfunctional this whole family his. Add the mother-in-law from hell, and a couple of other relatives, and you have a hilarious mix. The thief ends up telling them all a few home truths and I love it! Definitely not the usual Christmas “sugar and spice” type of film.
Most of the films we watch are Hallmark movies. Nothing wrong with that, but they do seem to feature plots that are very similar. There’s usually a girl returning to her home town for the holidays, where her parents or friends are either selling a family business or needing it to be rescued somehow. Enter a hero who is threatening the business, but ends up being the saviour and the love of her life. There are plenty of single dads with cute kids to pull at your heartstrings. The setting is always a small town where everyone knows everyone else, and the Christmas cheer is boundless. And don’t get me started on the over-the-top decorations … Having never visited a small town in America, I have no idea if this is a reflection of real life but I would suspect not. Still, it’s a nice fantasy and puts you in the mood for the holidays.
What do we really want from Christmas films? Do we want this saccharine version of a fantasy that few of us actually achieve? Do we want humour? Or do we want action and adventure? For the latter, you can’t beat Die Hard, of course. A New York police officer, John McClane (played by Bruce Willis) saves the day when he single-handedly fights off an entire group of German terrorists who are holding his wife and her co-workers hostage in a high-rise building. Alan Rickman is wonderful as the leader of the terrorists, and the film is filled with humour, as well as violence and bravery.
And then there’s love – most people would probably say their number one Christmas film is Love Actually, but personally I prefer The Holiday. The idea of just taking off somewhere, swapping my house for someone else’s for the holiday season, is very appealing. If I was young and single, I might do just that – it would definitely be an adventure!
If you need a few suggestions, here’s a list of the 100 top Christmas films.
I’d love to hear about your favourites though please, and what (if anything) do you want from a Christmas movie? Or perhaps you prefer not to watch them at all and instead stick to a good book?
