Christmas Movies!

[AlohaDawg]

Christmas Themed or set at Christmas Time, I love watching Christmas movies at Christmas Time.

Here're some favorites (in no special order). What are yours? (New Year's/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Solstice movies count too)

The Desk Set (Tracey/Hepburn, very funny)
A Christmas Story (Why oh why didn't Peter Billingsley get an Oscar?)
Die Hard
Love Actually (thought I would hate it)
The Santa Clause
The Santa Clause II
Elf
It's a Wonderful Life (of course)
The Preacher's Wife
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Scrooged

Home for the Holidays (Thanksgiving movie, technically, but still hilarious)
Planes Trains and Automobiles (ditto)

[robot_roll_call]

It's family tradition to get a big plate of cheese and crackers and sausage and watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation on Christmas Eve. I look forward to that more than the holiday itself.

[CortJstr]

It's family tradition to get a big plate of cheese and crackers and sausage and watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation on Christmas Eve. I look forward to that more than the holiday itself.

I just get all nostalgic for when they could still say "fuck" in PG-13 movies.

[Thee]

My mother makes the whole family watch Home for the Holidays.  Every.  Single.  Year.

I think because she identifies with the protagonist and her family.  A lot.  All it does is make me sad about thanksgiving.

[V-Adore]

We don't really have a "holiday movie," but we'll usually turn on the Christmas Story marathon for a while: usually not long enough to actually watch the movie, but long enough for appropriate snippets.

The real "holiday film" tradition in my house is going out to the movies on Christmas Day, after the presentstravaganza. Sometimes this results in amusement (the recent trend of epic fantasy movies coming out in December has helped), and sometimes it results in seeing miserable films just to keep the tradition alive. ("Oh, c'mon, [V] -- 'Meet the Fockers' can't be that bad, right?" Yes, Mom. Yes it can be that bad.)

[AugustWest]

Gotta love the Christmas Story marathon.  It's now firmly embedded as a Christmas Eve tradition that I'll stay up way late assembling gifts, wrapping presents, cooking for Christmas breakfast or dinner, or doing last minute housecleaning with A Christmas Story on in the background.  Over and Over and Over.

You'll put your eye out, kid.

[AlohaDawg]

We have the DVD. We kicked off our Holiday Season watching it last night.

We got our tree but it's out in the garage. I rearranged the living room and we set up our little Bethlehem Village.

Our Nativity goes under out tree. Every year it features a live cat, roughtly twice it's size, leering over it. We usually get pictures.

[antioch]

Sometimes this results in amusement (the recent trend of epic fantasy movies coming out in December has helped), and sometimes it results in seeing miserable films just to keep the tradition alive. ("Oh, c'mon, [V] -- 'Meet the Fockers' can't be that bad, right?" Yes, Mom. Yes it can be that bad.)

 Jeez, I watched that with my Dad last year because the rest of our family was out of town. We totally connect and have an awesome time going out to movies together. But "Meet the Fockers" was so awkward. Dustin Hoffman vis-a-vis Barbara Streisand with whipped cream? Eeeeeew! And that sexual housekeeper scene was totally pointless and weird. Was this supposed to be "the sex comedy for the whole family"? Sorry, I've said too much. I don't want to ruin the Holidays.

 I enjoy watching the Rudolph claymation every year. Something about the way the characters swing hammers and pick axes always takes me back. Not to mention, "I'm cuuuuuuuuute!"

[Hobo Frenzy]

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation period. Me and my grandfather and my aunt and uncle oh hell everone ends up in the living room watching this movie every year! I love this movie and it will never get old. My girlfriend and I ussually watch Airplane during the holidays but thats not a christmas movie, but like Christmas Vacation it will never get old.

[miles]

Christmas Vacation is a tradition in our family, but as it's one we tend to watch during the summer too, I'm pretty fuck*ng sick of it.

I just get all nostalgic for when they could still say "fuck" in PG-13 movies.

That might be the best line in the movie, too.  But speaking of the MPAA rating system, and I may be wrong, isn't The Right Stuff PG?  And didn't it feature "fuck" in one form or another at least twice?  I'll never get the system.  And you still hear it in PG-13 movies, I think.  Anchorman, for example.

Two of my favorite movies ever are A Christmas Story and It's a Wonderful Life.  I don't watch them all the time or anything, but I don't only watch them in December, either.  I don't like many other Christmas movies.

I do, however, love a lot of the animated shorter movies around Christmas.  The Peanuts one, the Grinch (again, the animated short), and the claymation ones.  Frosty, too.  I think there are some newer ones, but the older ones are the best.  For some reason, even though I don't even decorate from Christmas (though I'm no Scrooge), I love those little movies.

As my Dad has traditionally started playing Christmas Music on November 1st, I'm not a huge fan of most of it.  BBC 3 will be playing all Bach, all the time, this year (starting sometime in mid-December, I believe), and I tend to listen to a lot of Bach anyway, especially during the holidays for some reason, so that will be nice.  I also like some of the stuff recorded by Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby--those guys.  Other than that, Christmas music kind of puts me in a bad mood.

[Lister]

The only holiday movies I've ever been able to tolerate were the Rankin-Bass stop motion ones, as well as a select few animated ones.

I over-empathize with characters in dramas in general, so any Christmas movies that feature Terrible or Embarrassing moments just make me cringe too much to enjoy the Funny Twist Ending.  Come to think of it, this is why I don't like most sitcoms... or romantic comedies... or regular comedies... or Fawlty Towers (despite my otherwise overwhelming love of John Cleese).  In fact, I've never made it all the way through A Christmas Story in one sitting because I feel so terrible for that kid.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas is beautiful, though.  Dr. Seuss wrote an amazing story, then Chuck Jones got to play around in the world (but didn't change the story).  Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

[Golfhaus]

My girlfriend has set up the DVR to record just about every damn Christmas movie coming on TV in the next few weeks.

I hate Christmas enough as it is, but if I start losing MythBusters episodes because of Reindeer Go Wild - Volume 2 Cancun, I'm gonna start throwing things.

[robot_roll_call]

I'll be honest with you guys. I can't stand A Christmas Story.

I'm sorry.

so sorry

[CortJstr]

I'll be honest with you guys. I can't stand A Christmas Story.

I'm sorry.

so sorry

Agreed. Except I'm not sorry.

[Bozack]

It's family tradition to get a big plate of cheese and crackers and sausage and watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation on Christmas Eve. I look forward to that more than the holiday itself.

THANK GOD WE'RE NOT THE ONLY ONES.
I think it's a sign that your family has totally given up on being anything other than totally disfunctional when your Christmas tradition is watching Clark Griswold say, "Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Kiss your own ass. Happy Kwanzaa."

Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fuck*ng Kaye. And 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.