The thing about Christmas films is the looove. Love to the extent that small children will watch them, repeatedly, even in August. That’s how much love.
I haven’t had to watch full-on snow-and-Santa outside of December too many times.
But there are a couple of kids’ DVDs in our collection where the Christmas version seems to have much more pulling power than the other episodes.
I guess we like it when we know what to expect. Misers get invited to the party, whatever their previous behaviour. There is sharing – meals, possessions, and so on – and there is of course caring.
And if we’re lucky, there is also a hint of mystery. The strange, the unexpected, the mind-bogglingly amazing (if we’ve been really good, that is). We may know what’s coming, but we’d sure like to be surprised and amazed too, if we can.
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Christmas Past
Back in the mists of the two-week double edition copy of the Radio Times, I’m sure there were properly Christmassy films. But I don’t really remember being aware of them.
Films at Christmas: check. Films about Christmas: I drew a bit of a blank (apart from The Snowman). So I went off to check.
The ever-kindly Wikipedia informed me that, really, there wasn’t much going on in the 1970s and 1980s that I would be allowed to watch.
It took until 1990, and Home Alone, for there to be something that might be classed as a family Christmas film. (Although, as you know, there’s not so much focus on family for much of the film.)
All of a sudden, others followed suit. The Muppets, reliably, raised the bar for Christmas films with their version of A Christmas Carol.
By this point, I was looking more towards life after leaving school, rather than the Christmas film options. And by the time things got seriously underway, with films like Elf (early 2000s), I was being indoctrinated by Dan into the delights of earlier Christmas films.
It’s a Wonderful Life appeared fairly soon on. In fact, Casablanca can kind of count as a Christmas film (it’s set in December, you see).
When Harry Met Sally counts as a Christmas film. It’s not all Christmas, true, but it has buying Christmas trees, and of course the big final build-up just before New Year.
(It’s obviously not ‘early early’, but late 1980s, which is a long time ago in the Christmas film stakes.)
But in the early 2000s, there was competition. Peter Jackson was getting underway with the Lord of the Rings films, which conveniently premiered shortly before Christmas.
Back in the pre-kid days, we were there, folks. In fact, it was required activity for our little group of friends.
We might have very different likes and dislikes in some areas, but we could agree that, come December, we’d spend some time with Gandalf and co.
They weren’t Christmassy films per se (though you can argue that there’s often snow, lots of eating and drinking, and of course, that important bit of gold jewellery).
But they did fulfil the expectation of a film-at-Christmas. Excitement. Derring-do. Thrills, heart-stopping moments, and battles hard won.
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Christmas Present
Parenthood allows you another go. If you want to go the Christmas film, or Christmas animation, route to mark the build-up to the big day, there’s very little to stop you.
Plus, these days, every animated film franchise seems to need to have its own Christmas special. Shrek. Kung Fu Panda. Madagascar (because whatever the four lead characters may think, it’s really all about the penguins).
In fact, with the increased popularity of streaming films, you can scratch the Christmas film itch pretty much whenever you please.
So we may not have made it to either Hobbit film when it came out. That’s OK. We’ll catch up later, and we’ll even bring our own snacks.
For now, we’ll settle for something a little lighter, but where we can all join in. Maybe we’ll have another go at The Polar Express. Or even see the Grinch in action.
Will it become a tradition? Don’t know. But when the light levels outside are low, cuddling up and keeping warm are priorities. And a Christmas film might just do nicely.