Christmas with the Kranks (2004) - a really stupid movie and it's probably only 57% faithful to the book. For some reason I enjoy watching it, though. Probably because of how bad it is. And a nice reminder to me to skip the commercial side Christmas for real one day.
Santa Jr. (2002) - a television movie with Nick Stabile as Santa's son, Chris Kringle Jr, who doesn't like Christmas and doesn't believe in the Christmas Spirit until he's arrested and mistaken for being the "Christmas Bandit" (who steals toys and sells them on the black market).
Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1978 ) - one of my favourite Christmas specials of all time. After watching
Follow That Bird to commemorate Sesame Street's 40th Anniversary, I watched this.
ETA: November 15, 2009
The Sure Thing (1985) - I never really considered this a traditional holiday movie, but it does take place pre-Christmas, so it should count. Plus, it's a John Cusack movie. It's awesome no matter what time of the year it is. And
The Sure Thing is one of the most awesome John Cusack movies out there.
ETA: November 18, 2009
Swiss Family Robinson (1960) - it has a Christmas scene, so it counts!
It's one of my favourite Disney live-action movies and one of the few to have an awesome DVD. I was going through it last night and forgot just how extensive it all was! Took me almost 3 hours to get through all the stuff on the second disc! How often can one say that about a Disney DVD these days?
ETA: November 22, 2009
The Christmas Wish (1999) - a television movie with the one and only Neil Patrick Harris and Debbie Reynolds. I remember watching it for the first time last year and enjoyed it immensely. Was glad it was on ABC Family last night. Would love the DVD, but it's OOP.
ETA: November 23, 2009
Saint Maybe (1998 ) - a television movie that's adapted from the Anne Tyler book of the same name, and it's not really Christmas-focused though they do show several Christmases throughout the movie (which is likely why it was on the Hallmark Channel's Countdown to Christmas marathon). It's pretty good, though sometimes too sappy for its own good.
Meet the Santas (2005) - I never saw the first movie (
Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus) but they provided enough exposition in this movie that I didn't have to. It's quite funny, and it's got Steve Guttenberg!
Silent Night (2002) - an amazing movie based on a true story. In the winter of 1944, three American soldiers knocked on the door of a cabin deep in the Ardennes. Inside was a German woman and her son. She allowed them in for the night, on the condition that they leave their guns outside. Soon after three German soldiers came to her cabin, and she allowed them in as well, again with the condition that they leave their guns outside. The group then share their rations and have a Christmas Eve dinner, and a German soldier helped one of the wounded American soldiers. After a peaceful night's sleep, the two parties then pick up their guns and go their separate ways. The movie adds some dramatic licence to the event which doesn't harm the story at all. Definitely one of the best Christmas movies (and in a way, one of the best war movies) I've seen in awhile.
ETA: November 26, 2009
Sons of Mistletoe (2001) - this probably shouldn't count towards this year since I only watched during the commercials of "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune", but I've seen the movie a couple times before and figured I'd add it to the list. Roma Downey is a businesswoman who wants to try to get rid of a foster boys' home (and right before Christmas too!) that her father used to help run, and George Newbern is the guy that runs the foster home (and he used to be a foster child in that home). There's also a bunch of foster kids, one of which is played by Scott Terra (who was in the DCOM "Motocrossed"). It's an okay movie and predictable (she doesn't get rid of the home, and the two of them fall in love). But still a fun movie to watch during the Christmas season.
ETA: November 28, 2009
Comfort and Joy (2003) - Nancy McKeon plays a single businesswoman who gets in a car crash and wakes up to find she is now a married mother of two, but has no recollection of it at all. The concept is interesting, and having it set around Christmas was more of a minor detail rather than a necessity to the story. But the movie just didn't...click. Still, it's Nancy McKeon, I'd watch her mashing potatoes with a lampshade on her head and it'd be good entertainment.
ETA: November 29, 2009
The Santa Clause (1994) - I hadn't intended on watching this the whole way through, but I did. We finished watching
Pearl Harbor (yeah, yeah), and needed something to do for 45 minutes before catching "iCarly" at 10:30. So we put it on TBS to watch this, but ended up watching the whole movie! Now I'm in the mood to watch the second one, which I'll probably do later this week.
ETA: December 1, 2009
The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006) - It was either this movie or
A Christmas Carol (the 2004 TV musical with Kelsey Grammar). Since we never saw this one, and we had already seen
The Santa Clause a couple days ago, we chose this one. It's not that good a movie, and I think I only enjoyed it because of the seasonal familiarity with the characters. The first movie was excellent and the second was a great follow-up. This one just seemed like...well, a chance to revisit with old friends, but nothing really interesting happens. It just wasn't a strong enough story, which led to "paycheck" acting from everyone. Perhaps in several years we can see
The Santa Clause 4: The Next Generation, in which Charlie takes over the family business. That would be a sequel I'd like to see.
ETA: December 3, 2009
Christmas on Chestnut Street (2006) - this was one of the OnDemand movies that Lifetime was offering, and the premise sounded too ridiculous to pass up. A store accidentally orders 6000 boxes of Christmas lights instead of 60 boxes. In order to get rid of them, they decide to host a "Light the Night" contest, in which the winner is allowed one hour in the store on Christmas Day, during which they can pick up anything (and they mean *anything*) for free. This gets the whole town into buying more and more lights and decorations, and leading to more and more general shopping. There's more, but really, nothing too interesting. One of the store workers falls in love with the boss's daughter though both initially dislike each other.
ETA: December 7, 2009
"Saved by the Bell": Home for Christmas (1991) - Rather funny how we ended up watching this. It was 10:00 and we were watching the first half of "The Case of the Libertine Belle". It's the murder-mystery-weekend episode of "The Golden Girls". This got us thinking about the "Saved by the Bell" one, so we got the DVD to watch that. And incidentally, the DVD also had the Christmas episodes on it, so we watched those immediately after!
As kids we thought that show was prime entertainment, but watching it now, we can't believe how cheesy and silly it is. But it's got a lot of heart and nostalgia so we still enjoy it.
ETA: December 8, 2009
"A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965) - Technically didn't watch all of it, only caught enough of it before "Prep and Landing". But I know I'll be watching it again later this month, so I might as well list it.
"Prep and Landing" (2009) - it felt too short, probably because of all the awkward commercial breaks they put in. I would love for this to be an ongoing series of specials (like, every couple of years they come out with a new one), as the characters are interesting and seem like they have more stories to tell. But if Disney is just committed to letting them have one special (which I doubt), then what we got was really good. I'm sure next year it'll be on DVD (and Blu-Ray?) with the usual staple of Disney Christmas specials ("Pluto's Christmas Tree", "Mickey's Christmas Carol", etc.).
ETA: December 9, 2009
A Christmas Story (1983) - it just started on TNT, though the TV Guide said it would be
The Santa Clause. Oh well.
I'm bound to watch this again on Christmas Day anyway.
ETA: December 17, 2009
Christmas in Connecticut (1945) - one of my favourite Christmas movies, and it was on TCM tonight so the whole family watched it. None have ever seen it for, which was weird because I've watched it faithfully on TCM during the holidays every year since like, 2002.
Holiday Affair (1949) - this aired after TCM and I was only paying half-attention to it, but it seems like a good film. A rare type of role for Robert Mitchum as well. And Janet Leigh looks so much younger here (obviously) compared to
Psycho!
It's A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002) - I actually watched this a couple weeks ago but forgot to note it on the list. So I'm adding it to this day to make up for it.
ETA: December 19, 2009
Serendipity (2001) - one of my favourite romcoms. I absoutely love John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale.
Elf (2003) - never saw it until now. It's got a lot of heart and I never expected to enjoy Will Ferrell in such a role. It's on my shortlist of movies with Will Ferrell that I enjoy (the others being
Bewitched,
Dick,
Kicking & Screaming which is more sentimental value than it being a good film,
Stranger than Fiction, and
Wedding Crashers)
"Mickey's Christmas Carol" (1983) - part of an unexpected marathon of Disney's Christmas/Holiday-themed shorts.
"The Small One" (1978 ) - part of an unexpected marathon of Disney's Christmas/Holiday-themed shorts.
"Pluto's Christmas Tree" (1952) - part of an unexpected marathon of Disney's Christmas/Holiday-themed shorts.
"Mickey's Good Deed" (1932) - part of an unexpected marathon of Disney's Christmas/Holiday-themed shorts.
"The Clock Watcher" (1945) - part of an unexpected marathon of Disney's Christmas/Holiday-themed shorts. My favourite of the marathon.
"Toy Tinkers" (1949) - part of an unexpected marathon of Disney's Christmas/Holiday-themed shorts.
ETA: December 20, 2009
"Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion" (2005) - with the Tenner's last story this Christmas and New Year's Day, I've started a marathon of some of my favourite Tenth Doctor stories. Today I watched this and...
"Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride" (2006) - my favourite of the Christmas specials. Got a lot of quotable lines between the Doctor and Donna and is a good story as well.
ETA: December 22, 2009
Home Alone (1991) - it started on FX, but we didn't want commercials so we dug up the old VHS tape and watched that instead. After that, we were nostalgic for other old Christmas tapes we watched and watched...
"A Disney Christmas Gift" (1982) - we've seen the thing so many times that we had the music and all the segments memorized. It's really just a repackaging of old shorts and scenes from movies, but still was fun to watch.
albert
