It’s HO-HO-HOliday Movie Time

-Do you celebrate the release of the Holiday Movie Schedule with the same pomp and circumstance usually reserved for the Academy Award Nominations?  

 -Do you plan your entire holiday schedule around Hallmark’s “Countdown To Christmas” calendar?

 -Do you buy yourself a Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle in the hopes that you’ll shoot your eye out so you don’t have to watch a single holiday movie this year?   Bah, Humbug!   

It’s beginning to look a lot like Netflix and Lifetime and Hallmark, Oh My!  Here are our favorites:

Lindsay (Fabulous Forties)

As I was starting this blog, I realized how much I truly love some Christmas movies.  I’m not talking about the all-day marathons running for 2 months before Christmas on the Hallmark channel, I mean the REAL Christmas movies.  Those routine blog readers will not be surprised I run the gamut of movie genres I appreciate. 

Nostalgic and true love of Christmas movie fav for me is Miracle on 34^th Street.  The 1946 version not the remake! Once a year watching a feel good movie that has a glimmer of magical hope is 2 thumbs up for me.  Natalie Wood perfected the timely eye roll, and was a tremendous actress at an early age.  Yes, I get teary eyed every year when she sees her dream home with the cane by the fireplace.  I, like a Christmas tree, am sappy. 

I love a good laugh!  Christmas Vacation is my top ranking Christmas comedy. Crazy family (or should I say A family) shoved together in one home with their dysfunction at an all-time high.  Cousin Eddie with his dickie turtleneck, luxurious RV, shorty robe, and well trained dog have me crying laughing every year.  There are so many great one-liners I could not possibly mention them all but a couple of my favs are:

Eddie: “You surprised to see us, Clark?” 

Clark: “Oh, Eddie…If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn’t be more surprised than I am now.”   

Clark: “Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the  middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?”  This has popped into my thought bubble on a Christmas or two.

Clark: “when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he’s gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.”  It never gets old for me. 

Christmas Story is an all-time fav.  Must see every year!  The fra-gee-lay leg lamp is genius.  Who would not want to place this “major award” in their bow window as the holiday lights are glimmering in all the windows of your home?  There are so many classic scenes in the movie.  Tongue stuck to the flag pole, being warned not to shoot your eye out, sucking on a bar of soap due (I would need a case of lifebuoy now), and the bunny PJs.  I triple dog dare you not to watch!

My love for Christmas has dwindled over the years, but my love for Christmas movies still remains strong.

Amanda (30-Something Millennial)

Pull out the Christmas jammies from the back of your drawer and heat up some hot cocoa, it’s time to snuggle down and watch Christmas movies.

My all-time favorite is Elf. Buddy shows that you’re never too old to believe in Santa, eat candy for every meal and spread Christmas cheer. I actually feel bad for anyone who watches this one with me because I know so many of the lines and am not shy to recite them.

Next up it’s not December until I see Love Actually. So many great actors, so many great storylines, all set in London. Christmas is even better with a British accent.

Keeping with the British accents, have you seen The Holiday? Who doesn’t dream of swapping lives and countries after a bad break-up before Christmas. I don’t know who’s got the better deal: Cameron in the picturesque, cozy, English countryside or Kate in posh Los Angeles?!

Finally, is it even Christmas if you don’t get sucked into a Hallmark movie? They are on a constant 24/7 loop so you can’t miss them – or avoid them. Yet there’s something endearing about the predictable happy endings in picturesque towns aptly named The North Pole with a main character named Noel that has a “magical” Uncle Nick. But seriously where’s the story of the girl from a small town that gets dumped before the holidays, moves to the City to focus on her career, gets a dog and crushes it in the new year?!?!?!

Happy holidays everyone! If you need me, I’ll be on my couch watching these flicks…

Brooke (60-Something Baby Boomer)

Holiday Movies?  Not a fan.  I don’t get the whole girls with hot chocolate and matching sweatshirts gathered to watch the month-long stream of drivel coming out of the Hallmark Channel.  Unless the point is to make fun of them, count me out.

As a kid, my brother and I had a touching annual tradition of watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” and inserting our own dialogue and plot devices, a la “Rocky Horror Picture Show.”  In our version, after an embarrassing naked ice-skating situation, Uncle Billy goes to Rehab.  Instead of losing George Bailey’s cash, old man Potter is seduced by Violet Bick and loses his fortune financing her plastic surgery obsession.  Bert and Ernie collaborate with Jim Henson on the Children’s Television Workshop and are immortalized in puppet form . . . and so on.

As young screenwriters, though, we were rank amateurs.  When it comes to holiday movie magic, riveting plot lines are the hallmark of Hallmark.  Welcome the heroine of every story:  the overworked, overstressed, corporate ladder-climber is forced to spend Christmas with her prickly, overbearing mother and assorted pathological relatives.  Among the old high school friends (why did these losers never leave town?), she encounters the class nerd, now a sweater wearing woodworker for whom she casts aside her (frankly preferable) former life.

Hallmark Christmas Movies are the 21^st Century equivalent of “Love Boat” or “Hollywood Squares,” it’s the elephant graveyard for B-level actors.  It’s the last stop on the Celebrity Train Line.  Look at this year’s stellar lineup – All Aboard:  Donna Mills, Patrick Duffy, Priscilla Presley, Barry Bostwick!  You too, Kathie Lee Gifford! You know I may just organize my own Hallmark Movie Christmas Party, it would go like this:  Any time you can identify a washed up celeb, shout out “Zuzu’s Petals!” and chug a mug of my homemade hot chocolate (the secret ingredient is vodka and unbridled sarcasm).

So, enjoy the holidays and remember, every time a bell rings, an angel drinks a shot.

Karen (F’ing Fifties)

You know what my favorite holiday movie is?  Not Die Hard!  That’s right, I enjoy most holiday movies (except Die Hard, is it really a holiday movie)?  Like Lindsay, I actually look forward to my annual tradition of filling up my Wally World Moose Mug with hot chocolate and marshmallow vodka to watch Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo and the rest of the “jolliest bunch of a**holes this side of the nuthouse” put the fun back into their dysfunctional Griswold Christmas Vacation.

And, if it weren’t for “The Holiday,” how would I have known that I could log into VRBO or Airbnb to search for a quaint holiday home and ditch everyone during the holidays?  I haven’t actually followed-thru on this dream trip yet (or been arrested for stalking Jude Law) but, there’s always next year . . .

I am also that person that leaves TBS’ 24-Hours of “A Christmas Story” playing on a loop for, you guessed it, 24 hours on Christmas Eve.  Although, if Brooke follows-thru with her Hallmark Movie Christmas party, including snarky re-narration of holiday classics, I would gladly give up this tradition to participate.   

I must admit, I have never seen “It’s A Wonderful Life” or “Miracle on 34^th Street” in their entirety.  Oh, I’ve caught bits and pieces here and there over years, although, never in chronological order.  My childhood films of choice were more along the lines of “It’s A Wonderful Christmas, Charlie Brown” or my claymation favorite, “The Year Without Santa Clause.”  These days, I much prefer the Oxygen Channel’s “Homicide for the Holidays” series . . . it’s a real thing and, though quite a morbid choice for the holidays, it is captivating (pun intended)!  Check it out, I double-dog dare ya!

Do you have a favorite holiday movie?

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