Featuring films: The Polar Express, The Grinch, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, Jingle All The Way, Die Hard, Rocky IV, and Prometheus.
By Charlie Maurer
Everyone has their favorite movie to put on during the Christmas season. There’s the modern stuff, the classics, the hallmarks, and plenty more to choose from. Having all these choices is great, but it brings about an age-old question: What counts as a Christmas movie? Does it have to be about the spirit of Christmas? Or does it just have to take place during the holiday?
If we’re classifying Christmas movies by how much spirit they have, then we’re looking at a handful of classics. The Polar Express, The Grinch, and A Charlie Brown Christmas, are the favorites in my house. These movies, and countless more, focus on the message of Christmas, serving as a fun way to teach meaningful lessons to viewers about kind heartedness and giving through comedic or fantastical tales. They often have important moral elements woven into eye-catching and engaging stories. These movies build everlasting memories with children, are cherished by adults, and are loved dearly by both.
However, some movies tend to skew these messages more toward greedy consumerism and commercialism. A Christmas Story walks the narrow line between a moral lesson and a consumer’s story by mainly focusing on the commercial side of the holiday, only to swing back around in the third act to show us the true joy of Christmas comes from family. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation leans all the way into the commercial aspect by creating hilarious scenarios surrounding the gross material nature and outdated tradition now associated with Christmas. One of my personal favorites, Jingle All the Way, not only has some of the funniest quotes I’ve ever heard, but is also a perfect example of a holiday comedy solely focused on consumerism. These are definitely still considered Christmas movies despite lacking the meaningful message, so what else qualifies?
Does it just have to take place on Christmas? Or even just during the season? The classic question of whether or not Die Hard counts as a Christmas movie has been debated since the film's release in 1988 and may never be answered. However, if the main argument for Die Hard’s holiday movie status is its date (December 24th - Christmas Eve) then one must consider other films that meet that criteria. In Rocky IV, the finale has Rocky fighting Ivan Drago on Christmas day in Moscow. Would it not be a Christmas movie by Die Hard’s logic? To stretch it even further, Prometheus, the 5th film in the Alien franchise, has a handful of jokes about a Christmas tree on board the spaceship because the crew lands on the alien planet on Christmas day 2093. So is Prometheus also a Christmas movie? Food for thought.
Whatever your standards for your festive films may be, we at the Viking Chronicle hope you enjoy whatever you choose to watch this holiday season.
Whether it be The Polar Express…
Or Die Hard.
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