I love this time of year with all the decorations, the shopping, the Christmas cookies and the time spent with family and friends. When my children were little I remember settling in with our pillows and blankets on the couch, with a plate full of Christmas cookies and milk in preparation for a night filled with Christmas movies.
Many of the Christmas movies on TV air early in December, so we much preferred our VHS movies that we could watch closer to Christmas without commercials. We always started off with Home Alone and Home Alone 2–two of my son’s favorites.
My husband’s favorites are It’s a Wonderful Life and Scrooge (the 1951 version). My favorites are Miracle on 34th Street (1994 version) and Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.
My children are older now, DVD’s have replaced our VHS’s, and I am lucky to have them home long enough to watch one movie. But my husband and I continue the tradition every Christmas. Start your own tradition with family and friends. Here is a list of some Christmas movies we love and recommend.
- A Christmas Story (All Ralphie wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder BB gun)
- Christmas With The Kranks (A suburban couple decide to forgo Christmas festivities, preferring to take a cruise to the Caribbean instead, their neighbors refuse to allow such Scrooge-like behavior)
- Elf (A human, raised at the North Pole, searches for his family in New York)
- Home Alone (Accidentally abandoned, Kevin McCallister defends home from holiday burglars)
- Home Alone 2—Lost in New York (The wrong plane takes Kevin McCallister to New York for Christmas as his family travels to Miami, Florida)
- It’s a Wonderful Life (Classic tale of a man who gets to see what his hometown would be like had he never lived)
- Jingle All The Way (Dad, while searching for season’s hot toy, finds season’s true meaning)
- Miracle on 34th Street (Macy’s Santa restores a little girl’s faith)(1947 or 1994 version)
- National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (The Griswold family plans turn to disaster at Christmas)
- The Polar Express (Tom Hanks in cartoon form)
- Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer (Rudolph’s journey from zero to hero)
- Scrooge 1951 (Charles Dickens’ ghostly meditation on the holiday. This version of the story, with Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge, is regarded as one of the best)
- Serendipity (Opening scene set to Cool Yule at Bloomingdale’s during the Christmas rush. John and Sara meet when they both reach for the same pair of gloves, which they are buying to be Christmas presents)
- The Grinch That Stole Christmas (Furry green creature wants to ruin the holidays)
- The Grinch That Stole Christmas (Jim Carrey)
- The Santa Clause (When Santa falls off his roof, a harried ad exec is required to assume the mantle)
- The Santa Clause 2 (Sequel to The Santa Clause; Santa must find a Mrs. Claus)
