My Top 7 Christmas Movies

First things first: I’m one of Those People who tries to do very little in the way of Christmas-y things until it is actually Christmas. Seeing how it is not actually Christmas yet, but plumb spang in the middle of the Third Week of Advent, I am not watching Christmas movies yet. However, it won’t do much good if I wait until after Christmas to let you know about Christmas movies you might want to watch during Christmas, will it? So, here are my top 7 Christmas movies a little ahead of time.

(By-the-by, after much excruciating effort I loosely ordered these in reverse order of how much I like them, but there is a strong possibility that I did it wrong: hence why I stress the world “loosely.”)

So here goes:

7. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

“Would you please tell her that you’re not really Santa Claus, that actually is no such person?”

“Well, I hate to disagree with you, but not only IS there such a person, but here I am to prove it!”

Okay, so this isn’t a plot to take super seriously, perhaps…”Macy’s Santa Claus declares that he actually is Santa Claus” is not the stuff that serious movies are made of. Also, romances in which one of the parties is divorced don’t sit well with me. But if you don’t take it seriously, this movie is just fun. Besides, although it is presented in a secular context, the basic message that the over-commercialization of Christmas is bad and gets in the way of the good, wholesome, “lovely intangibles” that Christmas really stands for is a good message.

Also, Maureen O’Hara’s outfits are pretty gorgeous.

6. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. Maybe Christmas, he thought… doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps… means a little bit more!”

Because come on, the Grinch is iconic. And hey, it also has the very laudable message that Christmas is about something more important than material stuff and commercialism and whatnot.

(Oh, and I stoutly refuse to accept the existence of any Grinch remakes. That just should Not be a Thing. I mean, would you make a sequel to Mary Poppins? …oh wait, never mind.)

5. A Child’s Christmas in Wales (1987)

“Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.”

This seems to be a fairly obscure film, but it shouldn’t be. A Child’s Christmas in Wales is based on a book of the same name by Dylan Thomas (who was a poet, you know), and so there’s a lot of lyrical, rather poetical description woven through the movie.

The premise of the film is very simple: on Christmas Eve, the main character, Geraint, reminisces about the Christmases of his youth to his grandson Thomas. I think perhaps its simplicity is part of its endearingness…it smacks so much of real, everyday life. There’s nothing contrived about it. We can all relate to the uncles who play pranks and eat too much at Christmas, and the little boy who pretends that his reflection in a shop window is a cocky stranger or that his toy soldiers are alive and he must throw hard candies at them to defend himself. And the last scene (which the quote above is from), which moves from young Geraint going to bed, listening to his family singing the beautiful hymn “All Through the Night” to old Geraint sitting quietly over Thomas’s bed while the singing from the past still continues…it’s actually rather moving.

4. The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)

Dickens: He’s been this way for a long time. I’m not sure he can change.

Tara: Of course he can. He’s not a monster.

Scrooge: I thought this was a ghost story, not a fairy tale.

This is the only movie on this list that was not a part of my childhood and which I discovered recently. I was quite impressed with it when I did see it (despite its rather silly name, as, not only did Charles Dickens most demonstrably not invent Christmas, the movie is in fact in no way claiming that he did…”The Man Who Saved Christmas” would be closer to representing the actual story, though still an exaggeration). If you haven’t seen it, this movie is about Charles Dickens writing A Christmas Carol, and it’s in the same genre as, say, Saving Mr. Banks; it’s based on the facts but isn’t afraid to tamper with things a bit to serve the story.

I love the way it includes Charles Dickens’ characters as actual characters within the movie…it’s so accurate of what building a fictional world is often like (not to mention that it’s a lot of fun, too – some of Charles’s conversations with Scrooge are priceless). And there are actually some very powerful points made about the importance of second chances and forgiveness and that nobody is ever past hope. I’m not completely sure how I feel about the relationship between Charles and his father in the movie…while it is definitely true that Charles needed to let go his resentment against his father, one also doesn’t want to be an enabler. But where to draw the line in such cases can be confusing in real life, too, so maybe it’s more realistic that way.

The ending almost seemed a bit too perfect and tidy, but then I had this realization that it was just like a Dickens ending. The story about Dickens pretty much is a Dickens story. I love it.

3. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)

“I know one way you can help me. You don’t happen to have 8,000 bucks on you?”

“No, we don’t use money in Heaven.”

“Well, it comes in real handy down here, bud!”

Truth be told, I don’t love Frank Capra’s directing, and some of his other movies have not grown on me with time. But It’s A Wonderful Life really is different, and absolutely deserves its classic-status. It has a bit of the Capra syrup and lack of subtlety, but combined with an actually rather harsh, un-syrupy storyline, it really works. Does anybody not tear up in the last scene?

Funnily enough, although this is probably one of the most iconic Christmas movies, it really has precious little to do with Christmas as such. But you can make the case that in a deeper sense it really is a Christmas movie, since you could say that the heavenly – represented in this case by Clarence – intervening to save George Bailey’s life is a sort of metaphor for Christmas, where God intervened to come save all our lives.

2. Part 1 of Jesus of Nazareth (1977)

“When I heard the news, the child in my womb leapt for joy!”

I do apologize. I only have one movie about the actual Christmas story on this list, and it’s not even a whole movie, just part of one. But it seems like there are very few good movies about the Nativity story…or maybe I just have not come across them.

In any case, I do like the representation of the Christmas story in Jesus of Nazareth. Due to time constraints and such, not everything can be included – Zechariah is left out, for instance – but on the whole it’s a very faithful and reverent version. I especially like the portrayal of St. Joseph; I think he sometimes gets short shrift, so it was very nice to see him given ample time and characterization.

(I’m not completely sure, since we usually don’t watch Jesus of Nazareth in the original segments it aired in, but I believe Part 1 actually stops when Jesus is a young boy, about an hour and a half into the movie…if you want to stop before the murdering of the Holy Innocents (though you miss the arrival of the Magi then), stop at about fifty-two minutes in.)

UPDATE: I spoke without properly checking my facts. The murdering of the Holy Innocents doesn’t happen until about an hour and two minutes in, and you don’t miss the arrival of the Magi.

1. A Christmas Carol (1951)

“We Spirits of Christmas do not live only one day of our year. We live the whole three-hundred and sixty-five. So is it true of the Child born in Bethlehem. He does not live in men’s hearts one day of the year, but in all days of the year. You have chosen not to seek Him in your heart. Therefore, you will come with me and seek Him in the hearts of men of good will.“

We watch this every year on Christmas night. For me, this is the ultimate Christmas movie. It changes some things from the original story, but nothing major, and I think the spirit of the original is captured wonderfully. Some of the old Hollywood adaptations of classic literature are slightly butcherous of the original material (take the 1940 Pride and Prejudice, for instance), but this is not one of them. A lot of the dialogue is taken straight from the book, and that which isn’t might as well have been. And the last ten minutes or so are just so cheerful and Dickens-y and happy…it’s great. Alastair Sim is really rather perfect as Scrooge…as are all the rest of the cast as their respective characters.

Also, this one has so many great quotes – it very well may be the movie that is most quoted in my family.

“You see that toothpick?”
“I do.”
“But you’re not looking at it!”
“Yet I see it, notwithstanding.”

“I am not mad …even if I look it!”

“A guinea? For me? What for?”
“I’ll give you a guess!”
[pause] “To keep me mouth shut?”

So, there you have it; my top 7 Christmas movies! Have you seen my choices? What are your favorite Christmas movies?