Do you have a favorite movie to watch on Christmas Eve?

[Fridays Child]

Mine is Scrooge, the 1951 version with Alastair Sim. I also love Trading Places, It's a Wonderful Life, and White Christmas but Scrooge is a Christmas Eve must-see, no matter what.

Happy Celebrations to the Lounge, whatever custom you may observe--or avoid observing. :)

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Actually, no.

Most Christmas specials are annoyingly sentimental and insipid. I do rather like Scrooged and A Christmas Story, though.

[david13]

2. The Frank Capra one. What a tear jerker. dc

[JonLP24]

3. I like It's a Wonderful Life

However I'm more interested in something else that is on TV at the moment.

[brooklynite]

4. "Miracle on 34th Street" -- the original version

As my wife puts it: "it has all the essentials--New York at Christmastime, Dutch Speakers, and Lawyers..."

[Fridays Child]

6. Yes! It's a great one, too.

:hi:

[AsahinaKimi]

8. agreed

Thats mine.

[bigwillq]

5. No

We're not really home on XMas eve unless we host but we normally don't watch a movie. We did watch "Elf" a few years ago, though.

[Lionel Mandrake]

7. LA Confidential (1997)

I like the scene where Officer Bud White (Russell Crowe) pulls the Christmas decorations down off the roof of a house.

[Fridays Child]

11. Haven't seen that one.

I'll check it out. :)

[bigwillq]

12. See it!

It's excellent.

[bikebloke]

9. No favourite.

But I did watch The Girlfriend Experience and Nevada Smith this evening. Both are pretty holiday-ish. ;-)

[cynatnite]

10. Muppet Christmas Carol and A Christmas Story. n/t

[tammywammy]

14. I love the Muppet Christmas Carol!

I watched Christmas Vacation with my dad today and I'll watching A Christmas Story with my mom tomorrow. :)

[tigereye]

13. that CC is a great one, esp late at night - great spooky quality

[Fridays Child]

16. You're right--spooky, in a way.

I love Hermione Baddeley, as Mrs. Cratchhit, too, and the part where even the little kids drink rum punch on Christmas morning. Nowadays, a scene like that, in a "family" movie, would be left on the cutting room floor.

[OnionPatch]

15. The Polar Express is our new tradition.

Ever since that movie first came out we've loved it. We watch it every Christmas Eve. In fact, we're watching it right now. :)

[Fridays Child]

17. Cool!

Enjoy it, and Merry Christmas. :hi:

[tmyers09]

18. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

It has been for years. When we would have parties at my grandparents' on Christmas Eve, we would all watch it. When everybody spread across the country (Arizona, Florida, Virginia) it changed to just the immediate family. However, for my grandma's funeral a few weekends ago, we had a get-together the night before and everybody watched it. It was the first time I had seen everybody together in at least eight or nine years.

"Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving! Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. NO, NO! We're all in this together! This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fuckin' Kaye! And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse!"

[Fridays Child]

19. Another good one!

:)

[Qanisqineq]

22. I have to watch that one every year

that and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

[GaYellowDawg]

55. Merry Christmas! Shitter's full!

nm

[Zomby Woof]

20. A Christmas Story

Not from the TBS marathon, but from the DVD, so we avoid the commercials.

I always get a little bit of my childhood back with that film. We forget how vivid our daydreams were, and how hellish life seemed to us when something went wrong. But it was all worth it in the end. I can't think of any other film which captures the magic of Christmas morning for a boy like this film does. :-)

It strikes the right balance between sentimentality and cynicism. I can't tolerate sentimentality to the point of cloying sweetness, and I can't take cynicism to the point of screw-it-all despair.

[CBHagman]

27. So true!

It strikes the right balance between sentimentality and cynicism. I can't tolerate sentimentality to the point of cloying sweetness, and I can't take cynicism to the point of screw-it-all despair.

Well put.

On one Christmas night during my childhood we were driving back from visiting relatives, and my father switched on the car radio and Jean Shepherd was on, telling the story that would eventually become the movie. His description of getting kids dressed for a Midwestern winter was hilarious, even funnier than what happens in the movie when the kid brother, Randy, is more or less immobilized by his winter gear.

And the department store Santa Claus, with the chute and the admonition ("You'll shoot your eye out, kid!")? Even funnier when Shepherd told it.

I was sorry we got home before the story concluded.

[elocs]

28. I've always wondered about the year that movie was set. 1939?

No reference to the war and The Wizard of Oz is mentioned.

Even though I was in grade school some 20 years later much about this movie still rings through for that time in my life. Even in the late 50s I could remember the big, old department store in my town that had the big picture windows with the elaborate Christmas displays as well as the big electric train setups.

[Zomby Woof]

30. It's supposed to be 1939 or 1940

Because, as you said, 'The Wizard of Oz' is featured and mentioned in the movie (the Xmas parade at Higbee's had Oz characters - then again, MGM produced 'A Christmas Story', so you have clever cross-promotion), and also as you said, no mention of war, evidence of rationing or what have you. The Parkers seem just well enough off to be surviving the tail end of the Depression.

[pokerfan]

33. Evidence for 1940

The Radio Orphan Annie decoder pin that Ralphie receives is the 1940 "Speedomatic" model, indicating that the movie takes place in December, 1940. Different decoder badges were made each year from 1935-1940. By 1941, the decoders were made of paper.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/trivia

This could potentially narrow it down except that the trade never happened:

While reading the newspaper at the kitchen table the "Old Man" angrily mentions that the "Sox traded Bullfrog". This is a reference to long time Chicago White Sox pitcher Bill Dietrich, who's nickname was Bullfrog. He pitched during the 1930s and 1940s. Dietrich was never traded from the Sox, he was released September 18, 1946.

[pokerfan]

34. More evidence

Director Bob Clark stated in the film's commentary CD that he and author Shepherd wished for the movie to be seen as "amorphously late 30s, early 40s." The film is not specifically about a given year, it is about a particular time in American family life. The film appears to be set roughly around the tail end of the Great Depression but before the United States involvement in World War II. There are references throughout the film that viewers enjoy linking to particular years, and if one connects a reference to a particular year, the movie can be dated as being as early as 1935 or as late as 1947. Some of the other year clues include the following:

* 1935: In the scene where Ralphie and his friends peer into the Higbee's toy store window, Lionel's model of the Union Pacific M-10000 can be seen running around a loop of track. That model was made from 1935 to 1941.
* Pre-1937: The tin Zeppelin mentioned in the original story ("it rolls and it beeps"), and appearing unremarked under the Christmas tree. Zeppelin travel ended for all intents and purposes with the Hindenburg disaster on May 6, 1937.
* 1937: Reference in the newspaper quiz to Snow White, released by Disney that year. Snow White can also be seen in the Higbee's window.
* 1937: The Parker family car.
* 1937: A Big Little Book of "Pat Nelson: Ace of Test Pilots" appears in Miss Shields' desk drawer of confiscated toys and novelties.
* 1938: The color comics on Christmas Day, implying a Sunday. Christmas fell on a Sunday in 1938.
* 1939: Characters from The Wizard of Oz, released that year, appear in the Christmas parade. Ralphie's teacher, Miss Shields, also appears as the Wicked Witch in one of his classroom fantasies.
* 1940: The license plates on the cars are silver (white) on a black field. Those were the colors of the Indiana license plates that year.
* 1940: Each year, Ovaltine brought out a different model for this decoder ring. The Radio Orphan Annie secret decoder model used in the movie is the 1940 model.<30>
* 1943: The Bing Crosby/Andrews Sisters recordings of "Jingle Bells" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" are both very clearly heard on the living room radio (both recorded on September 27, 1943).
* 1946: Ralphie's father complains in the movie that "the Sox traded Bullfrog!" which is a reference to Chicago White Sox pitcher Bill Dietrich, who was in fact released from the Sox, not traded, in 1946.<31>
* 1947: The police car in the schoolyard scene.

Many other year specific references can be found in the film.

1939-40 is slightly later than author Jean Shepherd's own childhood (he was 19 years old in 1940) but earlier than that of director Bob Clark (who was born in 1939). While Shepherd was age 10 in 1931, Clark was age 10 in 1949 - a separation of 18 years. If the consensus between Shepherd and Clark was to find a "middle-ground" for their youths, they may well have divided the difference in half (9), then added that amount of years to the earliest date (1931), thereby arriving at 1940.

These minor contradictory items only indicate what director Bob Clark said in his commentary, as previously stated above: The film is set in the "amorphously later Thirties, early Forties." The movie is intended as a credible, warm and thoroughly inviting memory of an innocent American Christmas around the World War II era. The individual viewer can elect to date the film to any year they wish, but for whatever year they choose, many contradictions occur within the film, and this fits exactly with the writer and directors idea of "around 1940".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Story#Settings

[sarge43]

40. In the crowd scene in front of the store window there's both

a serviceman and woman in army uniforms, circa 1944/45. However, Little Orphan Annie went off the air in April 1942. The WAAC were formed in June 1942, so the uniforms are an anachronism. I believe that's a World's Fair souvenir on the radio. So, 40/41.

[AwakeAtLast]

38. Same for me!

My dad was watching some of it last night and even though we watch it every year he just laughed and laughed....he's 70 so I'm sure there were a lot of things he remembered just like you said.

[KamaAina]

48. I usually wait 'til Christmas day to shoot my eye out

making dinner around 8; not gonna make it up from 10 'til midnight.

Just did get Mom off the phone in time for the 10 am showing!

[proteus_lives]

21. Silent Night, Deadly Night.

;-)

[Are_grits_groceries]

23. "A Christmas Memory"

with Geraldinr Page. It's a Truman Capote short story that was made into a great Xmas present.

[Stardust]

24. Love Actually - incredible cast with the perfect Christmas message.

[stewartcolbert08]

52. I LOVE that movie!

[peekaloo]

25. The Ref.

:-)

[rurallib]

26. The 1947 version of "Miracle on 34th Street"

We used to add the Alistair Sims "Scrooge" but I have not been able to find it on DVD.

[Fridays Child]

58. Lookie here.

http://tinyurl.com/yg2jtqd :hi:

[HopeHoops]

29. "Christmas Eve on Sesame Street"

Oscar tells Big Bird that there's no way fat Santa can get down a chimney and if Big Bird doesn't figure out how he does it, there will be "No you know whats for you know who".

[HipChick]

31. The Great Escape with Steve McQueen

[mzteris]

32. A Wish for Wings that Work -

it's an Opus and Bill short film.

We love it! and quote from it all year long (and of course people think we're nuts when we do 'cause they have nooooo idea what we're talking about.) My 11 yo took it to school and "nobody liked it, Mom!?!"

I guess it is an acquired taste and the allusions were probably a bit over their heads.

Still and all - I think it's a very good Christmas movie and lots of fun.



Rhinoceros! RHINOCEROS!! . . . . How about a water buffalo?

[Broken_Hero]

35. Usually we do a run of the LOTR special edition

but we didn't have time this year, so we did an all Comedy Routine night, nothing but stand up from Carlin, Pryor, Murphy, Gab Iglesis, and Lewis Black

[Fridays Child]

42. Carlin.

Miss that genius. :(

[debbierlus]

36. I am a Gen X girl - the original 1978 Christmas Eve on Sesame St

Then, A Muppet Family Christmas

Scrooged (Bill Murray - too funny)

A Christmas Carol - I own three versions

A Muppet Christmas Carol

It's a Wonderful Life I will watch tonight most likely.

So many. We are big into Christmas here. Carols and Christmas movies have been playing for a week.

[Fridays Child]

41. HopeHoops is with you, on the Sesame Street movie.

See above. :)

[jmowreader]

37. I always watch my "Christmas Movies"

To me a Christmas movie needs two features to be good: it needs to be set at Christmastime and contain a LOT of gunfire. Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are always good. Die Hard 2? Meh.

[Tikki]

39. Repo Man....and it is a family...

tradition and the best way to get both boys and their families and the Mr. and I in one room
Xmas eve.

In years past we have watched Strange Brew and This Is Spinal Tap.

Tikki

[helderheid]

43. The Birdcage!

[NMDemDist2]

45. gak!!! That's a great idea, I need to pull that out and rewatch it

:yourock:

[Fridays Child]

46. One of my favorites.

I guess I just never thought of it as a Christmastime movie. :toast:

[NMDemDist2]

44. we always do "The Santa Clause" on xmas eve

and we also find time for the Muppets Christmas Carol and usually Scrooged too, but gave Jim Carey's "The Grinch" another look this year. It actually was better than I had remembered from the first time I saw it.....

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

47. The Cheaters

the best Christmas movie you've never seen. Last year it was on TCM, but not this year. Glad I made a copy.

[sakabatou]

49. We saw "The Big Lebowski:"

[GoddessOfGuinness]

50. The Bishop's Wife

with Cary Grant, David Niven, and Loretta Young.

[KittyWampus]

51. Radio Days, Fanny & Alexander, Cold Fever are the untraditional movies I like around Xmas

[stewartcolbert08]

53. A Christmas Story

I know its a pretty common one but I love it!

[EastTennesseeDem]

54. You know, I think that Wall-E is going to be a tradition.

Watched it 12/24/08, and again last night. So dark. So quiet. Ultimately, so happy. Perfect for the occasion.

[es350_ibm]

56. die hard

[bif]

57. "Love Actually"

My kids watch it every Christmas.