Unsung Christmas classic, "The Long Kiss Goodnight" |
Easing Into the Christmas Movies - You've got to pace yourself. I like to start with movies that only include Christmas as one element within a larger story. It's best to fight cinematic holiday fatigue by starting with these four...
Dec. 1st – Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Dec. 2nd – Funny Farm
Dec. 3rd – Sleepless in Seattle
Dec. 4th – Serendipity
Action and Comedy – Think of action and comedy movies that involve Christmas as cinematic appetizers. Because the truth is, once you start watching the classics, there's sort of no going back tonally-speaking. So keep the mood light to start.
Dec. 5th – The Long Kiss Goodnight
Dec. 6th – Die Hard
Dec. 7th - Scrooged
Dec. 8th – Mixed Nuts
Dec. 9th – Love Actually
Dec. 10th – The Santa Clause
Dec. 11th – A Christmas Story
Warming Up to the Classics – After the smorgasbord of sarcasm, action violence and wacky early nineties comedy, you might even be feeling a little bit guilty. Now is a good time to start diving into the heavier material.
Dec. 12th – Miracle on 34th Street
Dec. 13th – The Greatest Story Ever Told
The Burton Block – Beautiful, haunting, creative and original. These stylized holiday classics...yeah, I called them classics, can give you a break from the holiday cliches confronting you all day, every day at this point.
Dec. 14th – Edward Scissorhands
Dec. 15th – Nightmare Before Christmas
Cry It Out – Relieve some of your holiday stress with a good-old-fashioned Beaches-style cry-fest. Go into the final push toward Christmas feeling grateful for your family. Go on. Let it out. You'll cry now and then during our next block of movies for sure. But those will be happy tears. These are palate-cleansing tears.
Dec. 16th – The Family Stone
Classics and Neo-Classics – These are the movies you will watch. No matter what. They've become regulars for a reason.
Dec. 17th – Holiday Inn
Dec. 18th – A Christmas Carol – (Albert Finney's version)
Dec. 19th – Muppet's Christmas Carol
Dec. 20th - ELF
Dec. 21st - How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - I know, they're not technically movies, but combined, they make a great movie night.
Dec. 22nd – White Christmas
Dec. 23rd – Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Dec. 24th – National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Dec. 25th – It's A Wonderful Life
Bonus Movie - If you pride yourself on your endurance, I challenge you to watch the Rifftrax version of "The Star Wars Holiday Special". You NEVER knew a movie could be so absurd, but you'll also never laugh as hard as you will watching it with the Rifftrax crew.
There are many movies that didn't make this list...what are the movies you won't miss this month?
Bonus Movie - If you pride yourself on your endurance, I challenge you to watch the Rifftrax version of "The Star Wars Holiday Special". You NEVER knew a movie could be so absurd, but you'll also never laugh as hard as you will watching it with the Rifftrax crew.
There are many movies that didn't make this list...what are the movies you won't miss this month?
Scrooge, with Albert Finney. For years, it was on tv on Christmas Eve and we watched it before bed. A true classic with an amazing soundtrack!
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