My Favorite Christmas Movies!

I've been thinking about this post for awhile now, and its really hard to write! Ya'll know I love movies, but I REALLY love Christmas movies! I love their corny sappy smiling goodness. And sometimes it seems the cornier the movie, the more I like it!  So I'm going to throw down a few posts here over the next couple of days, because I don't think I can write just one post, and do justice to the Christmas movie genre. I'll do some ABC Family Originals, stuff you can find on Netflix, old stuff, and just my faves. Maybe I'll even be able to dig up a favorite Christmas episodes from some of my favorite shows.
SquishyBug

Tonite I'm going to list a few of my all-time favorites. These are movies I can watch all the time, whether its December or July. I'm not putting these necessarily into any order, but here are some of the movies I LOVE at this time of year.

All the movies after the break!



The Santa Clause (IMDB, AMAZON)! This one is probably number one on my holiday must see list. I've always been a big Tim Allen fan, I like his stand up comedy, I enjoyed the book (Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man), two t.v. shows starring him. So it was probably inevitable that I would like this movie. It has just the right amount of magical realism to bring Santa to life, and keep you hooked. It has that warm sappy father-son stuff. They do the "heroe's journey" well, with a good black moment, denial, and everything. The kid playing his son even manages to not be too annoying. Judge Reinhold is also great.

If you haven't seen the movie, basically Santa comes to deliver toys on Christmas Eve, Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) startles him while he's still on the roof, and Santa falls off the roof and (presumably) dies. Charlie (Scott's son) convinces Scott to put on the Santa suit and deliver some presents, which kicks in the "Santa Clause", causing Scott to now be Santa Clause... Its a MUST watch every year. There is also the Santa Clause 2 and 3 (boxed set), which are both ok, but not nearly as good as the first one.




How the Grinch Stole Christmas (IMDB, AMAZON) is another favorite at this time of the year. Not the old cartoon one (that's good too), but the newer one with Jim Carrey as the Grinch. Good cast, good soundtrack, great movie. It even won an Oscar, along with a bunch of other awards.




Christmas With the Kranks (IMDB, AMAZON) is another holiday favorite. Again we have Tim Allen, but he's almost more of a Scrooge then Santa in this movie! A lot of stars join us for this movie, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd, and Cheech Marin to name a few.

Based on the book, Skipping Christmas by John Grisham: With their daughter away, her parents decide to skip Christmas altogether until she decides to come home, causing an uproar when they have to celebrate the holidays at the last minute.



A Chrstimas Story (IMDB, AMAZON) has really become a holiday classic. With the 24 hours marathon that has been ran for years now, it has become tradition to turn on the marathon and watch this movie repeatedly while we wrap the presents for the kids.

Nine years after the Yuletide slasher flick Black Christmas, Porky's director Bob Clark once again took on the holiday genre, switching from gasps to laughs with A Christmas Story. Adapted from a memoir by humorist Jean Shepherd (who narrates), the film centers on Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley), a young boy living in 1940s Indiana, desperately yearning for a Red Rider BB gun for Christmas. Despite protests from his mother (Melinda Dillon) that he'll shoot his eye out, Ralphie persists, unsuccessfully trying to enlist the assistance of both his teacher and Santa Claus. All the while, Ralphie finds himself dealing with the constant taunts of a pair of bullies and trying to not get in the middle of a feud between his mother and father (Darren McGavin) regarding a sexy lamp.




That's it for the first edition of my Christmas movies list! What are some of your holiday favorites?

Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas!