Christmas Eve
And then the true meaning of Christmas came through, And the Grinch found the strength of ten Grinches plus two.
Today’s Quote:
“But this... this sound wasn't sad. Why... this sound sounded glad. Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small, was singing, without any presents at all! He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming, it came! Somehow or other... it came just the same.
And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling. ‘How could it be so? It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!’ And he puzzled and puzzled, till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! ‘Maybe Christmas,’ he thought, ‘doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more.’”
Dr. Seuss, “How The Grinch Stole Christmas!”
Reviews:
In response to this somewhat incorrect Vulture article, which “ranks” the 40 best Christmas movies, I present a much smaller and more efficient list of the top EIGHT Christmas movies. This list includes only the best of the best, so if you’re in the mood to watch two white people people who live inside a literal snow-globe realize the big city is bad you’ll be sorely disappointed.
8 - The Santa Clause: Even though Tim Allen has taken a hard-right turn in his fall from grace, I watch this movie every year due the joy that is Judge Reinhold’s character “Neil” and his pointy head and interesting taste in sweaters. Also David Krumholtz plays Bernard the Elf and he should really be in more things.
7 - A Christmas Carol: There are lots of adaptations of this movie, so here are the three that you can choose from:
1a - A Muppet Christmas Carol - It has muppets AND Michael Caine, what more do you need?
2a - Scrooged - It has Bill Murray AND Carol Kane, what more do you need?
3a - A Christmas Carol (1984 version starting George C. Scott). If someone you are with says you have to watch a “classic” Christmas Carol - this is the best one. George C. Scott IS Scrooge, and it’s far less creepy than the 1951 version.
6 - Christmas Vacation: “Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.”
5 - Charlie Brown Christmas / The Grinch (animated): Both of these movies are animated and are about 30-minutes long, making it one hour that will leave you chock-full of the Christmas spirit. Charlie Brown takes the award for some of the best lines ever uttered by small children:
Lucy Van Pelt: I know how you feel about all this Christmas business, getting depressed and all that. It happens to me every year. I never get what I really want. I always get a lot of stupid toys or a bicycle or clothes or something like that.
Charlie Brown: What is it you want?
Lucy Van Pelt: Real estate.
While The Grinch is perfect and a classic and teaches you that not all singing is bad, if done by an entire town and NOT by individual teens.
4 - Miracle on 34th Street: I’m not choosy here, you can either watch the 1994 version with Mara Wilson and Elizabeth Perkins OR if you’re feeling like a deep cut - you could watch the original 1947 version starring Natalie Wood and Maureen O’Hara. Both hold up remarkably well, telling the timeless tale of Doris and Susan Walker, a mother-daughter duo who DON’T believe in Santa but end up meeting and hiring him to work at Macy’s, where he then gets ARRESTED and put ON TRIAL because the real villain in this world is our over-zealous criminal justice system. A must-watch.
3 - Home Alone/Home Alone 2: I chose to tie these two because they are both equally great and compelling in my humble yet expert opinion. Home Alone 1 is best for the soundtrack and Catherine O’Hara interacting with John Candy while Home Alone 2 is best for it’s location (NYC >>>> Chicago) and side-character of “The Bird Lady”.
2 - White Christmas: Bing Crosby’s best Christmas movie (looking at you, “The Bells Of St. Mary’s”) that includes everything a good Christmas movie needs: World War 2, Rosemary Clooney, and a nosey housekeeper that nearly ruins the whole thing and is never properly punished for her sins. Come for Bing singing his song, stay for Danny Kaye teaching an acting class in faking an injury “It's probably just a small internal muscular hemorrhage, sir.”.
1 - It’s A Wonderful Life: Quite simply the greatest movie ever made. If you can watch George Bailey realize that putting others’ happiness before his own resulted in him making his little town of Bedford Falls a better place without learning a lesson or two on CHRISTMAS, then I don’t know what to say. I watch this movie on Christmas Eve every year, and every single year I cry when his war-hero brother Harry Bailey says “To my big brother George, the richest man in town!”. If you can only watch one more movie in the next 48 hours, it has to be this one.
Honorable mentions that didn’t make the list: “Elf”, “The Holiday”, “A Christmas Story”, “Love Actually”, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” , “Christmas In Connecticut”, “Die Hard”, “Jingle All The Way”, "all the “Claymation” movies, and the live-action “Grinch”.
Dishonorable mentions: “Holiday Inn”, which includes Bing Crosby putting on blackface for a minstrel show. Should NOT be watched.
Musings:
