'Tis The Season For Christmas Movies
You can't convince us 'Elf' isn't the best one.
Hayley: Let's talk about one of the most wonderful genres of film: the Christmas movie. I feel like there really isn't another genre that people have such divisive opinions on (maybe horror?) and I love it. There are so many incredible Christmas movies and then there's also a large swath of Very O.K. movies which for some reason I find charming? They're not bad per se, but they're being held to this impossible standard that they never quite meet. All of our standards are very high surrounding anything to do with Christmas.
If I had to pick a favorite Christmas movie, it would be Elf. I love the cast, the soundtrack, the story, the pacing, and the ending ALWAYS makes me cry. It hits all the Christmas-y notes in the right way. Every year I get excited to watch Elf.
Other Christmas movies that I simply adore are While You Were Sleeping, The Family Stone, White Christmas, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I try to watch them all at least once during the holiday season. Another more recent entry into this are the so-bad-they're-good movies of The Christmas Prince franchise on Netflix. Literally everything about these movies is irredeemably BAD. It's like if AI created a Christmas movie having seen the entirety of Gossip Girl and a handful of holiday car commercials. It's bizarre in a way that I find entertaining.
What are your favorite Christmas movies?
Victoria: Something I find interesting about the Christmas movie canon is the role of television in its creation. Movies that get played on TV in December are Christmas movies. This’s how It's A Wonderful Life became iconic — it was a cinematic flop, but got replayed on TV all the time!
And a lot of the Christmas movies you end up loving depend on what the adults in your life like. My mom loves the old claymation specials (specifically Santa Claus Is Coming To Town and A Year Without A Santa Claus), so those are canon to me in a way that movies we never watched, like White Christmas and The Santa Clause and A Christmas Story, won't be. I did watch It's A Wonderful Life on my own in college and fell in love with it, but every Christmas no one in my family will watch with me.
Elf is also my number one. Every moment is a delight. The whole cast is giving their all, and I think it is one of the best New York movies of all time. I'm always struck by how odd but perfect Mary Steenburgen's role in it is; in a less good movie, she'd be jealous or mad that James Caan's son has arrived. Instead she's just so happy for him. She is supportive and kind in a way that's really beautiful.
I am a Love Actually lover, despite my adult knowledge that most of the plots are fucked up. I love The Holiday. Last winter was the first time I watched While You Were Sleeping, but it's now iconic to me. I am fond of The Family Stone, though I've only seen it once. I do not fuck with Christmas Vacation, but maybe because my brother loved it so much? I just hate Chevy Chase. I do stan 2016's Almost Christmas, which I feel like no one ever talks about. I would rewatch last year's Last Christmas, even though it was deeply deranged, and I'm sure the same will be true of this year's similarly disappointing Happiest Season.
And of course I love a made-for-TV Christmas film. To me, these are in a category all their own. The stakes are lower — "good" and "bad" take on new meanings. If it entertains — even if it's nonsense — it is good. The new Dolly Parton Netflix movie, Christmas on the Square, meets this entertaining, nonsense marking nicely. Of the Vanessa Hudgens Christmas cinematic universe, I think I liked The Knight Before Christmas best.
I would be remiss to forget another group of Christmas movies — one's that just happen to have good Christmas scenes. For me that includes You've Got Mail and both Little Women (2020) and Little Women (1996) (When Harry Met Sally, which could fit this, is a New Year's Eve movie to me).
What Christmas movies do you just not understand why people like?
Hayley: I always forget about It's A Wonderful Life but there was a brief time in high school where I considered that to be my favorite movie period, not just my favorite Christmas movie. I think that what's fascinating about Christmas movie preferences is that so much of it is dependent on what you grew up watching — like you said, certain movies don't really connect as much for you because you didn't watch them with your family. I think I enjoy Christmas Vacation so much because my family has spent years quoting entire scenes back and forth to each other (who doesn't love an indignant "I don't know, Margot!" response to even the simplest of questions?) And because my grandma loved White Christmas, my mom loved it, and now I love it.
Other movies that feel Christmas-y to me are always the Harry Potter movies, the first two most of all because they have a kind of cozy quality. And ABC Family used to play all of the Harry Potter movies over and over again every December. I consider Sleepless in Seattle a true winter holiday movie, because it covers Christmas, New Year's Eve, and Valentine's Day. Mean Girls is both a Halloween and a Christmas movie. Die Hard is of course a Christmas movie, whatever. What's more interesting to me than the "Die Hard is a Christmas movie" discourse, though, is that Alan Rickman was quietly one of our most prolific Christmas and Christmas-adjacent movie actors. The Harry Potters, Die Hard, Love Actually ... we've been inviting Alan Rickman into our home constantly every December. Also, why do period films always feel Christmas-y? Is it because everyone is wearing layers and surrounded by candlelight?
Because Christmas is one of those holidays that becomes so dictated by what your individual family did growing up, the movie preference divides are wide and will never be bridged. I don't care about A Muppet's Christmas Carol at all, but some people love it. (Treasure Island is my preferred Muppets movie, thank you.) I loved Love Actually for a long time but the last time I watched it I just felt...kind of bored? It's weird! I never anticipated that to happen to a movie that I could quote every single line right now if need be. I haven't seen Almost Christmas, and I was thoroughly disappointed by Happiest Season. I feel like what I'm looking for in a Christmas movie above all else is a particular feeling. I love the feeling of joy in Elf, the (sometimes complicated) feelings of familial love in While You Were Sleeping and The Family Stone, the feeling of nostalgia in White Christmas, and the feeling of hijinks in Christmas Vacation.
I haven't seen a single Vanessa Hudgens Christmas movie and I feel like that should be remedied in the near future.
Victoria: ABC Family has forever been trying to convince us Harry Potter movies are for Christmas. The books always had such evocative Christmas scenes, which was always really lovely. Maybe that's why period films feel Christmas-y: they usually have holiday scenes! I don't know if it's because it's a pretty easy way to show how well-off people are, in a way that's easy for modern viewers to understand?
I am a Muppet Christmas Carol person, thought as a kid Treasure Island was also my favorite. I LOVE this essay from last year about why the Muppets Christmas Carol is the best adaptation of the novel. The movie is a real delight, and streaming on Disney Plus! (Also streaming on D+ is The 12 Dates of Christmas, an old ABC Family Christmas movie that I love very much).
I also love when TV shows just steal the Christmas Carol plot device for an episode (we read the actual Dickens novella in fifth grade; I wonder if that's part of why I love it so much). According to TV Tropes, television shows that have used it include Boy Meets World, Animaniacs, The Jetsons, Rocko's Modern Life, and Sabrina: The Animated Series. (Did the makers of children's television just run out of plots in the '90s?) Iconically to me, in 2004 General Hospital did a Christmas Carol episode where Luke Spencer subbed for Scrooge. I guess I just want to believe that bad or misguided people can get better and realize they need to care for others, and A Christmas Carol is such a tidy little exploration of that.
Are there things you hate in Christmas movies? I hate the horrifying animation in The Polar Express, for example.
Hayley: I count myself lucky that I have never seen The Polar Express and honestly that was a creepy book to begin with, why they felt the need to make it into that monstrosity I'll never know.
I hate when hijinks are not believable to the world that has been established in any given movie. So many Christmas movies rely on a huge pile of misunderstandings and sometimes it works, but sometimes it does not. Or it becomes obstructive to the flow and overall joy of the film. The Christmas movie that does this so incredibly well, of course, is While You Were Sleeping. The premise is absurd, but because the movie has a real sense of love and warmth to it, you can get on board with everything that happens. The scene in the hospital when the nurse says that Lucy is Peter's fiancée could have gone so over-the-top in a bad way, leaving us with little reason to root for Lucy. But because the misunderstanding happens quickly and escalates rapidly and within seconds we find out that Elsie has a heart condition, it actually makes more sense that in that moment Lucy would just go with the fake fiancée story! I love this movie so much and how realistic it keeps the emotional stakes when there are so many funny comedy games within it as well.
One of my favorite "bad" Christmas movies is a Lifetime one called 12 Men of Christmas that stars Kristin Chenoweth as a high-powered NYC exec who takes a job in a small town in Montana (because of a cheating ex, duh) and convinces the local volunteer firefighters to pose for a sexy calendar to fundraise for their cause. It is a classic Lifetime movie with all the tropes and it is executed well because they know how to hit each of these beats! I have seen prestige films do a shittier job of world-building and story development.
I guess something I would like to see less of in Christmas movies is engagements? I'm not a love Grinch, but why is this always the pinnacle of romantic achievement for Christmas movies? I mean I know that Christmas is by nature, Christian, and good Christians fall in heterosexual love and get married and make more Christians. But I feel like there are more interesting romantic angles to take here.
Victoria: In grammar school, our principal took our entire school to see The Polar Express in theaters. Which was fine for the lower grades, but I was in seventh grade and we did NOT like it. I think my whole class got detention.
I also wish fewer Christmas movies ended with an engagement. Even While You Were Sleeping ends with him proposing, which always kind of takes me out of it: Just date for a while! You've known each other for two weeks!
But I can't hold Christmas movies alone responsible for this phenomenon — all of American culture is obsessed with ending romances with engagements, weddings, and/or babies. So many romance novels I've read end with a flash forward to one of those three events, which is honestly depressing. I guess the creators want us to know these people end up happy and OK, but there are lots of ways to signal that without marrying everyone off! It's 2020, baby!
Things Hayley Is Into:
In case you’re like me and hate podcasts until you find an entry point (like a deep dive on Princess Diana) and realize that it slaps and you’ve been missing out, please check out You’re Wrong About. If you are a podcast person you definitely already knew about this podcast, just keep scrolling.
Season 4 of The Crown reminded me of many things, but especially this pitch-perfect British punk documentary sketch.
I’ve been watching a lot of HGTV lately and the show Home Town is the only home renovation show that doesn’t make me want to scream. Imagine a genuinely skilled couple that doesn’t ruin every house they renovate. I know, very off-brand for HGTV!
The Hershey’s hot cocoa Kisses are just unbelievably good.
Stuff Victoria Has Loved Lately:
This soup is basically perfect.
I treated myself to this candle, and it’s the perfect Christmas scent.
Let’s talk music: I’m obsessed with this playlist of 2000s k-pop. The new Miley Cyrus album is ridiculously good. Here’s my Christmas 2020 playlist.
Gold-Plated Girls comes out twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays! Don’t forget to check out Victoria’s blog about The Mandalorian and annoying Jedi from Tuesday!
Victoria that kpop playlist had me astral projecting back to 2011, and I feel it's important you know of the kpop Christmas song playlists that exist on Spotify (it's a whole subgenre)