All I’ve ever wanted for Chanukah was an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two hundred shot range model air rifle. Okay, that’s not true. But I did look forward to hearing that phrase uttered 24 times during TBS’s 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story.
Each year my family has that film on the television for the full 24 hours whether we are watching it or not. I cannot recall the last time I saw the film from start to finish as it was intended, but I can tell you when everything happens in the film and most of the lines throughout. Because my family does not cenebrate Christmas, we go on vacation during that time, but no matter where we are that film is always on for 24 hours on Christmas Day.
This is a tradition that I was shown as a kid and will definitely want to share with my family in the future. It is one of joyous memories that will always remain untainted. That feeling is far beyond the mise-en-scène of the film, though I will forever have a soft spot for the part when Randy flails in the snow in his cumbersome getup. It is a feeling of sanity and the awareness that whether I am with my family or not, they will be watching the same thing I am at the same time, bringing us closer together.
Holiday movie traditions are as important to the season as the lighting of the Christmas tree, the menorah or the kinara candles. These filmic explorations dive into the depths of an individual’s psyche to fill them with feelings of warmth and safety (also something that The Grinch from How The Grinch Stole Christmas accomplished). Holiday traditions vary from family to family, but there is a more formulaic quality to the way movies are repeatedly shown to families each year, moreso than on other holidays.
A typical Christmas or holiday movie tells the tale of an individual who learns the difference between naughty and nice in a journey of self-discovery, love, family and friendship. This is not to say that the major film studios are sitting around with choice verb and noun cards, like an Apples to Apples game, hoping to create a sentimental holiday classic, but there is something ubiquitous to the films that causes an audience to yearn for them year after year.
To further explore why some film traditions are the way they are, I turned to the students at Connecticut College to see what their families did during the holidays, and if there were some conclusion to it all.
The first student I talked to did not hesitate to say that Miracle on 34th Street was the film that she has been shown since a young age. She continued that it was the one aspect of the holidays that she and her brother knew would happen year after year. The film was originally shown to her by her mother, and she looks forward to that quality couch time with her family. Also, the message she took away from the film is that family is everything.
For those who are uninformed, Miracle on 34th Street tells the tale of a Santa trying to prove in court that he is the real deal. The film is darling and touching. One thing I have learned from Christmas movies is that Santa is 100% legit. There is never a debate in any of these films that Santa’s existence in fictitious. Instead, it is more about an identity crisis that Santa experiences in a whole different sense of the world. Why is this? Obviously, it is because these films are set out to be shown to an entire family, and by undermining Santa’s reality, a film might cause a child to question his or her own existence. That may be a little heavy, but still there is something to this Santa scheme.
Another movie tradition that seemed to be a consensus amongst many students was ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas. Every year, ABC Family displays an overabundance of holiday themed movies from Holiday in Handcuffs to 8 Crazy Nights to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. These movies vary in their seriousness and originality, but they never fail to disappoint the consumer’s appetite for snow, presents, love and mischief.
ABC Family movies fall over a scatterplot, on an x-y scale of nostalgia to empty fun. Students who enjoy the 25 days of holiday movie overload partake in watching them with family or friends. Another few favorites spoken about were Home Alone 2, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Mean Girls. Whatever the film was, the concurrence of the students was that one touched a home base. These movies find ways to tug at the heartstrings of the viewer and remind them of a time of childhood passivity and joy. The kid in all of us comes out during December, and these holiday movies just help bring it out through the glitz and glam.
