My 6 Favorite Christmas Movies... Plus an Embarrassing New Holiday Addiction

Monday, December 11, 2017


I've got to tell you a secret: I don't watch black & white movies. I don't know why exactly; I have no doubt that many of them are wonderful & heartwarming - but it's just never appealed to me to watch a film that doesn't show the full-color joy of life, especially at Christmastime. So no, you won't find any classics on this list - but you will find a few colorful favorites that I find myself watching year after year after year... & sometimes as early/late as July.
 

Home Alone

It's a well-known fact that Home Alone is one of my all-time favorite movies, period, & not just at Christmas. I know almost the entire movie by heart, & don't come at me with those BuzzFeed lists of "stuff you never noticed" about this movie because I have noticed. I've been "Buzz, your girlfriend, woof"-ing since I was 17, at the latest, & I shed real tears when John Heard passed away this year.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Our Idiot-in-Chief's brief cameo aside, I truly believe that Home Alone 2 is one of the most perfect sequels in American film history (even though, by this point, I believe the elder McAllisters to be woefully unqualified parental units). Also, I once purchased a winter coat that a then-boyfriend told me made me look like the Pigeon Lady.

Elf

When I first saw this Will Ferrell comedy, I just didn't get it. The grown man in an elf suit, the spaghetti with maple syrup, the animated narwhal... like, whaaaat? Now, though, this is one of my favorite modern-day classics, to be quoted all year long. Don't think I don't yell, "I know him!" every single time I see Santa Claus alllll throughout the Christmas season.

Love Actually

I know, I know, this film is outdated & fairly problematic in more than a few ways, but I give it a pass because, hey, a lot of the early 2000s was fairly problematic - & so much of this movie is so adorable that I can overlook the rest of it (I'm lookin' at you, weird scene with Keira Knightley & Andrew Lincoln). That scene of Hugh Grant shimmying through the prime minister's mansion? Priceless.

The Santa Clause

I find this plotline to be weirdly sort of genius, & here's another secret: As a kid, I had a huge crush on the actor who played the head of the "Elves with Attitude" team. I watched this movie over & over because of it. These days, though, I just like Tim Allen as a bumbling accidental Santa & Elf Judy as his adorable little cocoa-making sidekick. "Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing."

A Christmas Story

As a proud Clevelander, I love this movie, which was filmed right here in my neighborhood. And as an American Jew, I spent a lotttt of time watching this movie on repeat on Christmas Day, when it played on TV all day long. As this leg-lamp-loving man in Iowa says, "Nothing says Christmas like the soft glow of electric sex!"

This holiday season, I'm also watching a few Christmas movies of the absolute cheesiest variety - the Hallmark kind! My coworker Marissa & I binged Snow Bride late night in our hotel while we were on a work trip last week, & I just devoured Netflix's A Christmas Prince (which, yes, made me cry). Got any recommendations for more in this vein? I want to watch as many as I can find!

And tell me: What are your favorite Christmas movies?

No comments

Post a Comment

Leave me some love.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...