It’s once again the time of year to speak about Christmas favorites, and in my case, I’m going to speak about my all-time favorite Christmas movies. 

It’s a Wonderful Life

Without a doubt, one of the all-time classics is 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. In it, Stewart’s character, George Baily, contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve due to missing money owed to a savings and loan that George’s uncle has accidentally misplaced. Facing possible criminal charges, knowing he’s worth more dead than alive, with his insurance policy, George goes to a nearby bridge, thinking of suicide. It’s then when an Angel 2nd Class – 2nd Class due to not yet having earned his wings – Clarence Odbody intervenes by jumping in the river himself, prompting George to rescue him rather than killing himself. When Clarence informs George that he’s George’s guardian angel, George doesn’t believe him,and on wishing he’d never been born, Clarence grants George his wish and shows him what the world would have been like without him. And, of course, in the end all is solved when George realizes his impact upon the world around him. At the end of the movie with all the family gathered around the Christmas tree, a bell ornament rings, prompting his daughter to say the classic line, “Look Daddy, teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings!” Prompting George to glance heavenward, wink his eye and say, “That’s right! That a boy, Clarence.”

A Christmas Story

Moving from the excessively sentimental to the totally hilarious, there’s the 1983 classic A Christmas Story, about young Ralphie’s dream present of a Red Ryder BB gun and the chaos that surrounds his quintessential suburban family over the holiday season, featuring Darren McGavin as Ralphie’s dad, who’d previously portrayed the reporter Kolchak in the movie and then series The Night Stalker. One can’t help but remember the gaudy lamp dad won as a “Major Award” for  finishing a newspaper crossword puzzle.There’s also his constant battle with the furnace and the neighbor’s dogs and his foul mouth, where Ralphie picked up a bad word, causing his mother to wash his mouth out with Lifebuoy soap. And who could ever forget Ralphie’s friend Flick taking a dare by sticking his tongue to the school’s freezing flagpole, then having to wait for the police and fire department to save him. And there’s the classic warning to Ralphie, warning him about what might happen if he had a Red Ryder BB gun: he might shoot his eye out. Oh, the little-boy memories this movie always brings back to me.

A Christmas Carol

And what Christmas would be complete without revisiting Charles Dickens’ world of Tiny Tim and the three ghosts of Christmas in A Christmas Carol. My favorite cover of this tale is the 1984 made for television feature starring George C. Scott as the consummate Ebenezer Scrooge, totally acing the part as the best Scrooge I’ve ever seen, exhibiting his stingy, cruel demeanor to the ultimate, until…

Miracle on 34th Street

Of course, what Christmas would be complete without seeing an 8-year-old Natalie Wood portraying a Santa non-believer in Miracle on 34th Street, the movie ending with the courtroom drama of “Kris Kringle” being  declared the true and real Santa Claus.

A Charlie Brown Christmas & The Muppet Christmas Carol

For the kids, and us grown-up kids, there’s Charlie Brown and Snoopy’s A Charlie Brown Christmas and being the Kermit fan I am I have to include as one of my favorites, The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Scrooged

 There’s been dozens of Christmas movies over the years. However, there’s one that I fell in love with and have to admit, in my own Grinchy way, is my all-time favorite.And that would be Bill Murray’s Scrooged, a modernized version of A Christmas Carol, displaying Bill Murray as a curmudgeonly TV executive who learns the true meaning of Christmas. This film includes the Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton playing “Tiny Tim”, and a number of other major stars appearing in cameo roles. As for being hilarious, this move even tops that other top fave of mine, A Christmas Story.

So goes my wish-list for movies to see this holiday season. And by the time I watch all of these over the next week, any idea of me being a Grinch or Scrooge will melt away in the warmth of nostalgia and sentimentality. And from the snowy mountains of Western North Carolina, Merry Christmas, y’all! HO, HO HOOOOOOO!