Once upon a Christmas time, in the year nineteen hundred and eighty something, families both traditional and blended would finish stringing tater-tot sized red and green lights onto their Douglas Firs, adjust the rabbit ears on clunky television sets, pop up some Orville Redenbacher on the stovetop, and settle down to watch some of the most cherished and iconic Christmas movies of all time.
Who can forget the first time they watched the bespectacled and cherub faced Ralphie in, A Christmas Story, finally get up the courage to ask his parents for what he really wanted for Christmas? Sure, you might remember that Ralphie asked for a BB gun, but can you remember its exact name? It was, “an official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time.” Of course, poor Ralphie’s Christmas wish was immediately shot down (pun intended) by his well-intentioned parents with the now infamous rebuke, “You’ll shoot your eye out,” but the shenanigans and hilarity didn’t end there. Who couldn’t relate to being the kid so well wrapped in Christmas sweaters, jackets, and mittens, that you couldn’t move your arms and could barely walk? This was before apparel companies like Patagonia perfected neat little Nano Puff down jackets. This, was the olden days. The days when you ate the dinner that was put in front of you, and you could get your mouth washed out with soap for swearing. More than a few of us still pucker our lips in empathetic disdain as we watch Ralphie stand helpless in the bathroom, giant bar of glycerine soap jutting from his mouth. And on the rare occasion that I get a package in the mail marked, “Fragile,” I can’t help but exclaim, “FRAY GEE LAY,” in just the same way that the Old Man Parker does when his fishnet stocking wearing leg lamp finally arrives in a great big box marked, “Fragile.” A Christmas Story is good. So good in fact, that even though we now have hundreds of channels to choose from, TBS and TNT play the movie over and over again- the entire 24 hours of Christmas Day. Christmas never feels complete without at least one (if not two or twelve) viewings of, A Christmas Story.
With so many options of what to watch at Christmas time, it’s not surprising that we’ve made a habit of having weeks long Christmas movie marathons. For many families the movie watching festivities begin on Thanksgiving Day when television networks are fond of playing the 1947 classic, Miracle on 34th Street, which not coincidentally, is set, in part, on Thanksgiving Day. Who among us can’t help but smile when we watch Susan (played by a then 9-year-old Natalie Wood) tug on Santa’s beard to prove that there is no such thing as Santa Claus and that the man claiming to be him is in fact, just a regular old man. The plot thickens when Santa finds himself in court trying to prove that he is, in fact, the real Santa Claus, lest he be committed to a mental institution. And while the state of New York eventually rules in Santa’s favor (thanks to bags of letters addressed to him at the North Pole) that’s not what ultimately changes Susan’s mind. Do you remember what does? If you recall that good old St. Nick seemed to have connections in the Real Estate market, you would be correct. Ultimately, Santa provides Susan’s mother and soon to be new father with directions to Susan’s dream house. And who can’t relate to being a child (or an adult) who wants nothing more than a nice house with their own room, and of course, a swing set in the backyard? We can hear little Natalie Wood’s voice exclaim, “There is a Santa! There is a Santa,” just thinking about it.
Speaking of disputing the existence of Santa, few movies will make you want to bake some Toll House cookies and cozy up with the kids like the 2003 movie, Elf featuring the ever-hilarious Will Ferrell. Ferrell’s character, whose name is Buddy, is an orphan raised to adulthood by Santa and his elves until one fateful day when he is told that he’s not an elf after all, but a human. That’s when Buddy sets out for New York City where he meets his biological father, his new mother, half-brother, and the sweet natured songbird Jovie, played by Zooey Deschanel. Buddy is whimsically child-like, naturally loves Christmas, and has been raised on the standard elf diet of pure sugar, which is why it’s genuinely hilarious when he tries to plan a day with his newfound father by suggesting, “First, we’ll make snow angels for two hours, then we’ll go skating, then we’ll eat a whole roll of Toll House cookie-dough as fast as we can, and then we’ll snuggle.” When Santa has trouble with the engine on his sleigh on Christmas eve, Buddy, Jovie, his new family, and a group of otherwise skeptical New Yorkers save Christmas. Do you remember what makes Santa’s sleigh run when the engine fails? Well, the best way to spread Christmas cheer, is singing loud for all to hear.
While Buddy and Jovie met at their respective jobs as elves for hire at Gimbels department store, another Christmas favorite, The Holiday, is known for a different, “meet cute.” Iris meets Arthur, an elderly, award-winning Hollywood writer, because Arthur gets confused during his morning walk in San Marino and can’t find his way home. That’s when Iris sees Arthur hunched over his walker looking rather befuddled, and offers him a ride. The two become fast friends and he tells her that how they met would have been called a “meet cute” in the kinds of motion pictures that he wrote back in the day. But Iris and Arthur’s isn’t the only “meet cute” in this gem of a Christmas rom-com. There are actually a few. I’ll let you cook up some Christmas fettuccine, cozy up by the fire, and watch the “meet cutes” for yourselves.
If Christmas rom-coms are your thing, then you’ve definitely got, Love Actually on your Christmas movie marathon list. Who can’t help but feel all warm and fuzzy inside as the movie follows an ensemble cast of characters, each with their own unique love story. There is a scene so iconic in this film, it’s on par with the moment Lloyd Dobler holds up a boom box beneath Diane Court’s window in “Say Anything.” I’ll give you a hint, the scene that I’m referring to in “Love Actually,” also involves a boom box. For those readers under forty, boom boxes are large and rectangular battery-operated relics from the 1980’s that played music and made it somewhat portable for the first time ever. Actually, music plays a pretty significant role in, “Love Actually.” Can you remember the name of the song that Sam learns to play drums for in the school Christmas play? You’ll have to watch to find out.
If you’re a fan of the way, way back classics, then no doubt you watch one of the iterations of A Christmas Carol every season. My family watches several of them, from the Albert Finney and the Alastair Sim versions to Bill Murray’s Scrooged. And every year we ask the same question; “What the heck is in the Christmas Pudding everyone in, ‘A Christmas Carol’ is so crazy about?” According to Wikipedia, Christmas pudding, also known as plum pudding, is composed of thirteen ingredients to symbolize Jesus and the Twelve Apostles, includes many dried fruits held together by egg and beef fat, and is sometimes moistened with a sugary syrup called suet, or molasses. No offense to Great Britain’s centuries old tradition of eating Christmas pudding at Christmas dinner, but I’m gonna stick with brownies. And apple pie. And pumpkin pie. And pecan pie.
Speaking of pies, Harry Bailey is in charge of bringing pies to the school dance in the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, and no list of Christmas movies would be complete without having this classic in regular rotation. If you haven’t ever taken the time to watch this masterpiece from start to finish without interruptions, you’re going to want to do so this year. Can you remember how little George Baily loses his hearing in one ear, or what his future wife Mary whispers into it when they are just kids and he’s bent over to get her a scoop of ice cream with some coconut on top? (Incidentally, she tells him that she doesn’t like coconut, and he calls her brainless and gives it to her anyway. Ah, kids in love!) Do you remember what the angel Clarence is reading when he jumps off the bridge to save George? It was Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, and Clarence gifts it to George at the very end of the movie with the inscription, “No man is a failure who has friends,’ while all of George’s friends, neighbors, and his brother, just back from fighting in WWII, sing auld lang syne around the tree. If the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life doesn’t have you crying tears of Christmas nostalgia into your eggnog, I’m not sure what will.
Of course, there are many other Christmas movie classics that probably tug at your heart strings, make you laugh, or just make Christmas feel like Christmas. White Christmas, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, The Grinch, Home Alone, and The Polar Express are also on holiday “must watch” lists across America. I know a guy who likes to invite a few friends over every year for some beers to watch Die Hard in his man cave. Hey, whatever floats your Christmas boat. But no matter what’s on your Christmas movie list, just remember the age-old nuggets of wisdom we’ve gleaned from some of the classics. No man is a failure who has friends, every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings, the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear, God bless us everyone, Love actually is all around, and you’ll shoot your eye out.
Happy Christmas everyone!
~Sage Jessica Murphy
*This article was written for print for a Real Estate client who wanted a nostalgia themed Christmas movie article that contained some trivia.