The day’s shopping is done, the fire is lit, and you're curled up on the couch with your loves ones. Time for a good holiday movie — and we don't mean the Hallmark variety with their avalanche of unexpected-love-amid-the-snowflakes plots.
Instead, we asked Blade staffers to summarize their favorite holiday movies, and discovered that not all bells jingle in the same key. Check out their choices, then vote for you own favorite at facebook.com/thetoledoblade.
Miracle on 34th Street (1948)
At a time when cynicism often taints our everyday world, Miracle on 34th Street harks back to an age when the holiday spirit was less about Black Friday than a child's belief in Santa Claus.
This 1948 gem from director George Seaton showcases mid-20th century movie star Maureen O’Hara as a harried Macy's event planner, and Natalie Wood as her precocious 8-year-old daughter. When the former hires a wizened little man named Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) to be the store's Santa, the latter comes to believe in the power of holiday miracles, even as the adults around her scoff at the notion.
It's simplistic and quaintly naive by today's standards (the script persistently nudges the single mom to find a good man). Yet those are the very qualities that have made it a holiday classic for 70 years, along with sly jabs at commercialism and the sort of twinkle-eyed performance from Oscar-winner Gwenn you rarely see onscreen these days.
The original movie was colorized in 1985, which is mostly what you find on broadcast TV and streaming services. No matter. The breezy humor (Kringle convinces Macy's and crosstown rival Gimbels to compete with each other for best customer service) keeps the plot moving, and moments of sentiment reveal the true meaning of Christmas to be rooted in our willingness to believe.
— Mike Pearson
Arthur Christmas (2011)
The weekend after Thanksgiving is my family's starting line to a traditional monthlong viewing sprint through as many Christmas films and holiday TV specials as is permitted by law. The selections may vary, but the race always begins with Arthur Christmas.
Arthur Christmas is an enchanting animated film from 2011 that delivers laughs and holiday cheer in a story about the dysfunctional Santa Claus family. Santa (voice of Jim Broadbent) is old and no longer passionate about his job. Steve, the eldest son (Hugh Laurie), is an impersonal tech wizard who runs the operation and is smug about being Santa's heir apparent. Arthur (James McAvoy) is the other son, a lovable and clumsy soul who is the embodiment of the Christmas spirit.
After Santa's sleigh skips over a little girl's home, the trio, along with the eccentric and long-retired Grandsanta (Bill Nighy), will embark on a life-changing Christmas Eve adventure to set things right.
Charming and heartfelt, Arthur Christmas is the warm kind of fuzzy to complement the season. (It also pairs well with a cup of hot chocolate.)
— Kirk Baird
A Christmas Story (1983)
The one holiday film I refuse to miss each year is A Christmas Story, and I poignantly remembered why.
Set in 1940 and partially filmed in Cleveland, A Christmas Story has been the perfect recipe for nostalgic banter in our family, as my dad, year after year, would provide his own personal side-by-side narrative about listening to Little Orphan Annie on the radio, choking down Ovaltine to get his own decoder pin, and pining for his own Red Ryder BB gun.
It was a perpetual joke in my family that my father, as a child, even looked like young Peter Billingsley, who played Ralphie Parker, with his blond hair, glasses, and bright blue eyes.
I lost my dad earlier this year, so I won’t get to hear him reminisce. I won’t hear him laugh during the 24-hour marathon on TBS, when Ralphie’s father misreads the word stamped on the shipping box that contains his major award leg lamp: “Fra-gee-lay ... it must be Italian!”
But the movie remains, and I’ll always tune in, and that will have to be enough. Cheers, Dad.
— Roberta Gedert
It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
Who hasn't wondered if his or her life has made a difference in the world?
Frank Capra's quintessential Christmas film It's A Wonderful Life is a reminder that even the smallest act can go a long way.
James Stewart gives the signature performance of his storied career as George Bailey, who repeatedly put his own dreams aside to help those around him.
But on Christmas Eve, 1945, George is on the verge of financial ruin and contemplating suicide.
Angel 2nd Class Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers) is assigned to intervene. To prepare for his assignment, Clarence is shown a series of flashback of George's life.
Nearly everyone can relate to George repeatedly choosing responsibility over dreams. And Clarence's childlike wonder is the picture of Christmas spirit.
Donna Reed gives a heartwarming performance as George's wife, Mary, and Lionel Berrymore thrives as the despicable, Scroogelike Mr. Potter.
Though a bit of a slog during the first viewing — can't anything go right for George?— the ending more than pays off.
Based on the 1939 short story, The Greatest Gift, by Philip Van Doren Stern, It's a Wonderful Life was a box office flop in 1946.
Still, it received several Academy Award nominations, including for best picture, director, and actor, and repeatedly appears on the American Film Institute's list of top 100 films.
The movie had a resurgence in the 1980s with TV stations repeatedly airing the film after a clerical error that prevented the renewal of its copyright.
Perhaps that one small act prevented It's a Wonderful Life from being lost in obscuirty. In any case, it's not Christmas without watching the film at least once.
— Shannon E. Kolkedy
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
My family rarely gets through a holiday meal without at least one off-handed quotation from Cousin Eddie, a seasonal figure as instantly recognizable in our household as jolly old Santa himself. And front and center on our Christmas tree, you’ll find a plastic ornament of a grimacing Clark Griswold, who holds a dried husk of a turkey and dutifully recites the “Pledge of Allegiance” when you push the little plastic button.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation has become that much a part of the seasonal milieu. The movie is just plain funny. We watch it — and we laugh — every December.
It’s the quintessential ‘80s comedy, penned by John Hughes of Breakfast Club and Ferris Beuller fame, and starring goofily earnest everyman Chevy Chase. Like the best Hughes movies, it manages to be sweetly sentimental even as it skewers holiday tropes and extended family dynamics, gently lampooning American middle class excesses while celebrating the family bonds that make the holidays special.
It’s those bonds that bring us back to the film every season. While the movie’s clever comedy is what gives it cultural staying power, it’s the sweet memories it evokes that grant it a special place in our household — memories of VHS tapes whirring in an old Zenith player and the entire family gathered around the living room television, laughing.
— Joe Landsberger
Home Alone (1990)
One holiday movie that I get excited to watch every year leading to Christmas is Home Alone, starring Macaulay Culkin.
The movie is about an 8-year-old boy who is accidentally left home alone after his family takes a Christmas vacation out of the country. His bratty attitude quickly changes when he realizes he is left alone to protect his family's house from two con men attempting to burglarize the residence.
My younger sister and I used to watch this movie religiously around the holidays growing up, and can probably quote 99 percent of the dialogue today. When we were younger my family was part of a Christian church that didn't allow its members to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, and trick-or-treating. (We said "so long" to that establishment when I was in 5th grade). Despite a fleeting Santa Claus reference in Home Alone, it was one of the few holiday movies we were allowed to watch as kids, and I think that's why it's so nostalgic for me.
I've already watched the movie twice this month.
— Geoff Burns
First Published December 7, 2018, 12:00 p.m.
