The look on George Bailey’s face says is all, he has come to understand he has lived a wonderful life. His friends and family are dumping money on the dining room table, his brother, the war hero, bursts through the door making a toast “to my brother George, the richest man in town.” ‘It’s A wonderful Life’, (1946) arguably the greatest Christmas movie of all time brings tears to my eyes every deep and dark December. It is the time of season when we get to have the fun conversations about the best movies to watch with family and friends during the Christmas season. I was 10 years old when my father introduced myself and my brother to Charles Dicken’s original ‘A Christmas Carol’. I was perplexed at the sinister, yet poignantly real way Dickens interpreted the season of giving. Like most things in my life, it was my father who shed the classics to light for me. It was especially around Christmas time that we would go through the list. “Did you watch the ‘Grinch’ yet,” my dad would ask me sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.” The Grinch had a way of making me laugh and cry during the same 30-minute span. “Go back to bed my dear little Mary Lou Sue Who, Santa’s here to take the tree for repairs.” The next thing you know the evil Grinch is at the head of the table carving the roast beast. Most of the seasonal sagas send the universal message of the longing to love, and to be loved, to give without getting back, to receive without asking in return. It is in the Christmas classics we find the lessons we fight so hard to internally reject. We get a perspective of meaning when Frank Capra tells a story of a wonderful life, or Irwin Berlin writes a melody for ‘White Christmas’. Which are the Christmas movies you watch every year? What are the ones that tug the hardest at your heart? What are the ones that make you hysterically laugh right before your hysterically cry.
The 1947 version of ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ is near the top of all lists when it comes to touchy feely tales of the holiday season. A cynical young attorney struggles to find the faith within himself to defend a man’s right to identify as the one and only Santa Claus in a Manhattan courtroom while the whole world looks on. Natalie Wood plays little Suzy, a preteen girl who is unconvinced regarding the existence of a true St. Nick. Maureen O’Hara plays Suzy’s mom, who happens to work for Macy’s as the chief organizer of the Macy’s Day Parade. The lawyer and the Macy’s executive are making the in roads to a love story as the counselor attempts the impossible: to prove that Kris Kringle, the man O’Hara just hired is really Santa Claus. The movie’s heart tugging theme is all about the spirit of Christmas. Is Santa Claus real, or simply a commercially created salesman for Toys R Us? The climax of the movie occurs on Christmas Eve where a judge must rule as to the legitimacy of the man in his courtroom insisting, he is the deliverer of our Christmas fantasies. Several courtroom security guards come marching through the doors with crates filled with letters addressed to Kris Kringle. Gazing through the pile of letters from children that contained their Christmas wish list the judge had the evidence to make his much-anticipated ruling: “If the United States Postal Service recognizes this man Kris Kringle as the one true Santa who I am to say they are wrong.” In the end it is determined that Kris Kringle is the Santa who delivers presents to children throughout the world. The last scene shows little Suzy in the back of a car after the trial. Suzy was pouting wearing her permanent face of disappointment. Although a court had ruled Kris was Santa, he hadn’t delivered to her the only item she had on her Christmas wish list. “Wait, stop the car Uncle Fred,” Suzy gets out of the car sprinting towards the house with the for sale sign on it. Suzy runs into the back yard, “the swing, the swing, just like the one I asked Kris for. Oh mommy, it is true, there is a Santa Claus!”
Most of the old school Christmas lovers dream of a white Christmas and the way all things used to be. In the 1954 movie ‘White Christmas’ the snow is finally streaming down on Christmas Eve at a quaint Vermont winter resort. The old hotel is the setting for this post-World War II sentimental Christmas time tearjerker. The resort, owned by former army Major General Waverly (Dean Jagger), has fallen upon lean times; business is down, and Thanksgiving has past without any white powder falling. A couple of General Waverly’s platoon grunts Bob Wallace (Bing Crosby), and Phil Davis (Danny Kaye), hook up, in more ways than one, with sister act Betty (Rosemary Clooney), and Judy Haynes (Vera-Ellen) to put together a Christmas extravaganza at their former commander’s Pine Tree Vermont resort. The movie is set during the booming fifties when Americans were trying to find their lane after the emotional scars left by two world wars in three decades. Bob, Phil, and the girls bring their vaudeville act to Pine Tree and organize a Christmas Eve which included inviting the old gang that fought together on D-day. The group had survived the beaches of Normandy but ordering snow to be delivered for Christmas was a little bit different. To a full house of Army vets and holiday travelers Bing and Danny Kaye swing open the doors to the patio as the snow begins to fall from the sky as they croon in a White Christmas. General Waverly’s resort would soon be deep into the black. In the years of our innocence every holiday was bright, and all our Christmas’ were white.
“God bless us, everyone,” Tiny Tim belts out before his father carves the roast goose, courtesy of his dad’s boss Ebeneezer Scrooge. In the indelible Christmas tale ‘A Christmas Carol’ Charles Dickens examines the meaning of Christmas and its correlation to our own lives. Tim Cratchit is the son of Bob Cratchit, a middle-class working man, employed by the accounting firm of Marley and Scrooge. Mr. Scrooge, the childless old curmudgeon with a reputation of having short arms and deep pockets, and who every time he heard the word Christmas let out a “bah humbug”. Mr. Scrooge had no use for anything but working and counting money. On Christmas Eve night Scrooge has three dreams revealing where he has been and where he is headed. The ghosts of Christmas’ past, present, and future take the old geezer on the journey of his life and the portray the bleak forecast ahead if he is unable to release his selfish stubborn attitudes. The ghost of the Christmas past reminds Scrooge of the joy he did have in his innocent youth. The ghost of Christmas present displayed the darkness that had become synonymous of the way of his day-to-day existence. Finally, the ghost of Christmas future paints a picture of the gloom and despair that lies ahead if he does not change immediately. As the sun rose on Jesus’ birthday Ebenezer Scrooge had an epiphany. His dreams the night before had convinced him that his priorities had been misguided his entire life. That Christmas day Scrooge’s heart grows ten times its size. He walks into Bob Cratchit’s house with a bountiful goose and a promise to do what ever it takes for Tiny Tim to rid himself of his crutches and walk again. Ebenezer Scrooge learns before it is too late the meaning of giving.
”You can’t have a Red Ryder air-rifle Ralphie you’ll shot your eye out.” My father was 60 when ‘A Christmas Story’ was released into theaters in 1983 and he immediately declared it his second favorite movie of all time, only trailing the ‘Godfather’. Believe me my father was no fan of Christmas comedies but ‘A Christmas Story’ took him back to the isolated happy memories of his youth. For 30 years there wasn’t a Christmas season that my father didn’t call me up and ask if I had watched ‘A Christmas Story’ yet. Then he would recall a funny scene in the movie that he had watched hundreds of times. I asked him one year why this story touched him so much. “There was one Christmas, I was ten, it was during the depression, and we didn’t have any money, I begged for six months for a new Red Ryer air-rifle. My father (my grandfather) who had no use for guns put his foot down only to be overruled by my mother (my grandmother). When I saw that Red Ryder under the tree Christmas morning it was the happiest moment of my childhood.” The movie is set in 1939 the winter after Hitler had marched into Poland to officially begin World War II. The world was on edge and back here in America we were battling our own anxieties and my dad’s new gun was a bigger reason for a young boy to find joy rather than then have any fear of Fascism. “Ralphie reminds me of the last time in my life when I felt the innocence and the pure joy of Christmas.” My father was more of a Bah Humbug guy when it came to the holidays, but he loved a good ‘Christmas Story’.
“And so, this is Christmas, and what have you done, another year over and a new one has begun.” I am still stuck in the old-fashioned holiday tales of finding meaning in a time of year we can’t help but be introspective. The classic tales that I go back to each year for sweet memories and recollections of the battles won and lost: ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’, ‘A Christmas Carol’, ‘Miracle on 34thStreet’, ‘A Christmas Story’, and ‘White Christmas’ are my seasonal favorites. I will watch them each year and am reminded of what the human spirit is capable of. These movies send the message that life is worth living, and that just maybe all our day-to-day struggles have value. My favorite amongst my favorites has always been the ending scene in ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’. George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) is standing in his living room on Christmas Eve as the bank examiners are preparing to take him to jail for bank fraud. Before they can get George into handcuffs his entire extended community and family show up with their hard-earned cash to bail their friend out. As they throw their money on the table, they breakout into a chorus of ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing.’ This year right after Thanksgiving I asked my immediate family for a Christmas present: Pick out a movie from my Christmas list of favorites that we can all watch together on Christmas Eve. Their answer was an abrupt unanimous “none”. No big surprise here. ‘OK Scrooges what sophomoric garbage do you want to watch: ‘Elf’?, ‘The Grinch’? ‘Home Alone’?, ‘The Holiday’? to name a few of feel good, yet nauseating holiday stories. Finally, we settled on the Christmas Classic ‘Die Hard’, an explosive story of family coming together at a Holiday party. For me, it’s not going to be “God bless us everyone”, or “Geroge is the richest man in Bedford Falls”, or “you’ll shoot your eye out,”…. It’s “yippee-ki-yay mother fucker”, and Merry Christmas!
