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What makes a Christmas movie epic? The same qualities that make Christmas not just a holiday, but also a symbolic stocking stuffed with a lifetime of precious and joyful treasures and some sad clumps of coal.
We drag out those memory-filled stockings and hang them back up every year. They stick to us, as surely as Ralphie’s friend Flick’s tongue sticks to the frozen flagpole in A Christmas Story.
Why do we get so attached to holiday movies? Because they celebrate two things we need to feel happy and whole: believing and belonging.
Yes, there is a Santa Claus … if we believe. Yes, faithful friends who are dear to us will gather near to us once more … if we belong.
Christmas lives in our memory, as John Williams wrote in the theme to Home Alone: Somewhere in my mem'ry, Christmas joys all around me … all of the fam'ly home here with me.”
When I hear that theme, I am transported back to 1990, when my daughters were babies. That’s why Home Alone and its first sequel top this list of 12 magical movies for 12 days of Christmas.
Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992): Kevin (Macauley Culkin) and his forgetful folks remind us there’s nothing like family, even if you’ve got a jerky big brother like Buzz. These films are so ingrained in my daughters’ psyches that they started calling my boyfriend “Marv” — after Daniel Stern’s character in Home Alone. (Let’s just say my boyfriend is a prankster.)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944): This is not technically a Christmas movie, but it’s on my list because of one scene: Judy Garland singing the musical equivalent of a gut punch, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” to her sister, Tootie, played by Margaret O’Brien. Tootie is upset because their father wants to move the family to New York City.
Considering that the film came out during World War II, I dare anyone to hear these words of longing and not cry:
“Through the years, we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now …”
Bing Crosby double feature — Holiday Inn (1942) and White Christmas (1954): Both of these classics feature the No. 1 best-selling single of all time: Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.” My friend Scott Eyman, a renowned Hollywood biographer and film historian, prefers Holiday Inn because Bing’s co-star is Fred Astaire, but he and his wife, Lynn, love both films. White Christmas is a loose remake of Holiday Inn — about performers singing and dancing their way through love triangles.
Trivia tidbit: the Holiday Inn hotel chain is named for the film.
Jimmy Stewart double feature — It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and The Shop Around the Corner (1940): Most people know the It’s a Wonderful Life story of George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), who almost loses everything — only to discover he has everything he needs. But if you want to spend a truly charming 90 minutes, stream director Ernst Lubitsch’s lovely The Shop Around the Corner.
Stewart plays Alfred, who works in a general store in Budapest with Klara (Margaret Sullavan). They bicker constantly, putting all their wooing words into letters they write to pen pals. Surprise: they are each other’s pen pal, and they’ve fallen in love, just in time for Christmas.
Sound familiar? You’ve Got Mail (1998) starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan is a loose remake. Trivia tidbit: the proprietor of the shop is played by Frank Morgan, better known as the Wizard of Oz.
Elf (2003): Who doesn’t love the sight gag of Will Ferrell in tights as Buddy the Elf, a human raised by elves at the North Pole? Bob Newhart, who died last year at 90, loved this film so much that he said his role as Papa Elf “outranks, by far, any role I may have ever played.”
Let’s not forget the “Code of Elves,” the commandments Papa Elf lives by, which need to be repeated and practiced as often as possible:
1. Treat every day like Christmas.
2. There's room for everyone on the nice list.
3. The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.
Miracle on 34th Street (1947): This classic might have been the inspiration for every Hallmark Christmas movie ever made. A sadder-but-wiser single mom and career gal almost blows her chance at happiness by refusing to believe the Santa at Macy’s, where she works, is the real Santa. The cynical mom has taught her 7-year-old daughter (played by a charming Natalie Wood) to armor up: if you believe in fantasy, kid, you’re doomed to be disappointed. It turns out that this Kris Kringle delivers the greatest gifts of all: love and family, believing and belonging.
The Holiday (2006) and Love Actually (2003): My late mother, bless her innocent, romantic soul, watched The Holiday on repeat throughout the year, alternating it with Love Actually — because she had a crush on The Holiday star Jude Law and Love Actually star Liam Neeson.
In The Holiday, Amanda (Cameron Diaz) lives in Los Angeles and Iris (Kate Winslet) lives in Surrey, England. They try to get over their love troubles by switching houses at Christmas — but love, like Santa, finds them anyway.
The Holiday is one Frito over the cornball line for me, but I love it because my mother loved it.
I also love the real-life airport scenes at the beginning and end of Love Actually. My mother replayed these over and over — not easy while watching on a VHS tape.
Any Hallmark Christmas movie … but only if you watch while playing Hallmark Christmas Movie Bingo: This is a real game, and it's a hoot. Google "Hallmark Christmas movie bingo" and you'll find several printable bingo cards. You mark a spot every time "a character sips from a mug while looking pensive," for example, or "someone complains about the big city,” or "it suddenly starts snowing," or “the town goes caroling.” Your game comes to a merry conclusion when the two main characters fall in love.
My daughter Kate and I play Hallmark bingo every year — but we take sips of wine to note each predictable plot point. Oh, look, our heroine's high school boyfriend is selling Christmas trees! Cheers!
That’s the moral of this story: almost any holiday movie can be epic — if you watch with someone you love.
What's YOUR favorite holiday movie? Let us know in the comments below.
AARP (Everett Collection, 3; Getty Images, 2)
