Amnesia Lane: Christmas Movie Schedule

I’ve mentioned on many occasions that my holiday traditions include watching a lot of movies. Sometimes a lot a lot. But I’ve never elaborated on the practice. It can be especially structured for Christmas, so let me walk you through one such schedule. And no, I’m not doing this just to figure out which movie I’m forgetting this year.

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National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

As I mentioned previously, Christmas Vacation is the movie that kicks off my entire season. All the decorations go up (or at least are supposed to) on Black Friday, and this is the movie the tree gets trimmed to, the tree being the natural centerpiece of the decorating.

As for the movie itself, it travels through the entire Christmas experience. Taking place over three weeks in December, it does everything we do. Getting a tree, putting up decorations, going shopping for presents, dealing with family, wrapping up work, cooking a feast, and committing felony kidnapping. And everything just goes so horribly wrong at every step along the way that you feel a bit more grounded about whatever perils you’ll happen to face this time around.

Though it does stick harder this year, as I’m hearing from some of my professional friends that a lot of people had Christmas bonuses axed without notice. I think a few of them might even have repeated Clark’s rant, to boot.

I’ll give an honorable mention to Miracle on 34th Street as a starting movie. I’m not a big fan myself, but it’s an obvious choice to watch on Thanksgiving to kick things off.

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Christmas specials

Once things have been kicked off properly, my attention turns from movies to specials. I have a modest collection of nearly 20 of the things, not including Christmas-themed episodes of TV shows.

But above all others stand three that must be seen each and every year. A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Garfield Christmas and A Muppet Family Christmas are mandatory viewing each year while the rest happen or not as they fit. Sorry, not sorry Rudolph and Frosty. You just don’t rate.

I always try to get these three in early. It’s easy to set aside a half-hour here or there for them, so I can get through them much more ably than I can movies.

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Some version of A Christmas Carol

It is no coincidence that this quintessential Christmas story has survived the test of time. It is also no coincidence that I need to watch some manifestation of it each year. As such, it tends to be the first feature-length showing following Christmas Vacation. And one of the fun parts is that you can keep it all the fresher by watching a different one of its remakes each time.

This year, I had a twofer. I watched the made-for-TV version with George C. Scott for the first time in a while, and my goodness can that man act. Somehow a TV budget also produced better cinematography than most movies with beautifully framed shots throughout. Sure, a few dramatic reveals land a little flatly, and the script cuts out bits of the story I’d rather have remained. The cast backing up Scott has few soft spots (mostly Frank Finlay’s Marly), but the whole package is just so good that I wouldn’t doubt a soul who said it was their favorite version.

Following that, I was curious about Netflix’s new CG-animated take, as I had heard it incorporated several pieces from Leslie Bricusse’s score for 1970’s Scrooge! The Musical which long-memoried readers may recall is my favorite rendition of “A Christmas Carol.” As for Netflix’s Scrooge: A Christmas Carol, it’s very clear the target audience was children. Lots of bright flashing lights and colors and quick movements, everyone save for Bob and Tim Cratchet have the Dreamworks-glib personalities, and the music is heavily overproduced. But every once and a while, the movie slows down and takes itself seriously, and does something genuinely moving. Still, it’s unlikely to become one of the versions I’ll revisit in future Decembers.

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Home Alone

I really enjoyed Home Alone as a kid, but I outgrew it. One of my friends never did, though. They have a tradition I get roped into, but respect nonetheless.

Each year, they invite me over to watch Home Alone and also eat the food in the movie. That means getting a plain cheese pizza delivered from some random local place, popcorn, ice cream, and debating whether microwave mac and cheese ought to count as part of the experience given that Kevin doesn’t get to eat it.

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Hogfather

This two-part miniseries (so it usually takes most of the month to find a long enough block of time to get it all in) adaptation of one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels not only serves as a great introduction to the series, touching upon not only all its different groups of protagonists but also places across the breadth of the land, it has a fascinating plot that serves well as a canvas for different characters to philosophize about the true meaning of what passes for Christmas there. And it wraps all this up with an eloquent statement of something both core to the human condition and vital for us to build a world we can live in. Not a bad day’s work for a writer.

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It’s a Wonderful Life

If enough bad things hadn’t happened to Clark Griswould for your taste, we can run George Bailey through the wringer, too. Are you not entertained?

I tend to wrap up my Christmas viewing with this overplayed classic. And for once, I can’t come up with any particular reason why I have scheduled this movie where it is. It just happened to fall into the caboose. Perhaps I’ll just make something up, saying it goes last because it ends with the singing of “Auld Lang Syne.”

it’s not hard to feel the pain in taking a character played by Hollywood’s favorite everyman, and burying him under an especially heavy weight of duty and selflessness. George Bailey spends his entire life giving up everything he wants in order to instead do the right thing in a series of unfortunately to cruelly timed trials. And even then, he doesn’t break until Mr. Potter directly sabotages the Savings and Loan through petty theft. The movie takes its time breaking down George, just so it can show him the considerable amount he is worth more alive than dead. For me, it all works due to the extreme lengths the movie is willing to go to in telling its story.