THEME: GMGM 2016!
Editor’s Note: Each writer submitted a list of her Top 10 Anything. These lists will be published over the next few days as we usher in the New Year. We hope 2016 is the year that shakes your snow globe – in the best way possible.
Need advice for next Christmas or a last minute holiday fix? See below for Meg’s list of classics.
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by Meg
This post isn’t going to cause any great debates or spark any revelations. We all know and love these movies. I made my top 10 list about Christmas movies because it’s my favorite part of the holiday season. I get to sit in my jammies with my fammies and watch movies that make us laugh or cry. It’s a Wonderful Life is an obvious go-to which I’ve seen every year for the past 15 years, so I wanted to give a shout-out to the other Christmas greats out there! So, here it is:
TOP 10 CHRISTMAS MOVIES (besides It’s a Wonderful Life)
- Charlie Brown Christmas
It’s a classic! It’s adorable! And a soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi!? I mean, if you don’t like this movie, you don’t have a soul. There, I said it.
- Holiday Inn
This movie has everything: song and dance, a love triangle, and even an uncomfortable and inappropriate blackface number! It is book-ended by Christmas, and pays homage to all the holidays of yore. The July 4th dance by Fred Astaire will you blow your mind, and this is the movie where “White Christmas” first appeared. I’m surprised by how many people haven’t seen this film – I HIGHLY recommend a viewing.
- Die Hard
I love that this is the unofficial Christmas movie for many of my friends. With quotable lines, German bad guys, and barefoot Bruce Willis saving the office holiday party, this is the perfect movie to watch after you have eaten too much goose, or pheasant, or whatever weird dinner your family makes because it’s the holidays.
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
I’ve probably seen this movie 50 times. Maybe more. I can’t even watch it now without mentally transporting back to my family’s living room as an eight-year-old, singing along to the Island of Misfit Toys song. I Heart Bumble & the Squirt Gun that Squirts Jelly.
- Scrooged
BILL MURRAY. Any time, anywhere, but especially in this movie. It’s wonderfully late-80’s, has super fun roles for Carol Kane and Bobcat Goldthwait (and a tiny cameo for Miles Davis!!!), and has an epic sing-a-long at the end. It’s a winner. (Honorable mention goes to The Muppet Christmas Carol, my other favorite telling of this classic.)
- Rudolph’s Shiny New Year
This movie is a claymation acid-trip. Baby New Year shows up in all these strange, non-sensical lands, and has adventures while Rudolph is struggling to find him. If he doesn’t, the New Year doesn’t happen!!! My favorite bizarre moment is while Baby New Year is on the Island of 1023 (ten-two-three), which is a medieval island with fairytale characters. What? Oh, and Baby Bear from the Goldilocks mythos is voiced by Red Skelton, so… enough said.
- Elf
Who would have thought that a movie starring Sonny Corleone could be so adorable? This movie warms my heart and makes me laugh. A solid holiday choice for the whole family.
- The Nightmare Before Christmas
I had the pleasure of re-watching this movie at the Castro Theater in San Francisco on 35mm, and it was beautiful. The music continues to give me chills. The story is universal: what happens when you get tired of doing the thing you’re good at?; try something you have no business meddling with!
- A Christmas Story
Whether you want to watch this or not, you will no doubt channel-surf past TBS on Christmas Day and say “Oh, I’ll just watch this scene, it’s my favorite” and BOOM! Three hours have passed and you’re on your third viewing of this damn movie, commercials and all. It holds up, though. It’s still as hilarious as the first time I watched it.
- While You Were Sleeping
Ok, so I may have lost some of you here, but I’ve got to be honest: I love this movie!!! Young, goofy Sandra Bullock yearns for Peter Gallagher’s giant eyebrows, saves his eyebrows from an oncoming train, and falls in love with Bill Pullman (our president during that terrible alien invasion on Independence Day) while eyebrows is in a coma. It takes place over Christmas and has the wholesomeness that those 90’s rom-coms perfected. I would save this movie from an oncoming train.
I hope all of your 2015’s were marvelous, and I hope 2016 is even better for all of you – especially my fellow GMGM writers. ❤
Good Morning, Good Morning! 