Christmas Movie

I am reposting what is arguably the most important and controversial series of articles ever.  This is at the level of “who would win in a fight, Tony Stark or JARVIS?” but probably doesn’t quite rise to the “free will or predestination” conflict, it is something that I am finally going to settle for the sake of posterity.

I am sitting here in my Christmas sweater, sipping on hot apple cider watching the snow gently drift to the ground here in East Texas.

No, I’m not.

I am, however, watching the rain in the 60-degree day outside wishing I had remembered to make some coffee before I sat down and now I am feeling too lazy to get up and make it.

However, I am in the Christmas mood anyway, so I want to write about something I am interested in: Christmas movies.

It is always fascinating to me that we celebrate the birth of Jesus during Christmas by creating movies about epic, traditional, family stories which generally don’t even mention Jesus… but for some reason we do.

I’m not complaining, I love a good Christmas movie.

I think they are wonderful additions to our national narrative.  The messages of conversion, repentance, love, redemption, family values, and the source of real value are gold to the power of Christmas to unify us. Sadly, sometimes Christmas movies can divide us as well.

How often have you ever been involved in a debate about which is the best Christmas movie?

I know I have, and as often is the case, one of the issues is agreeing to a definition.  It is amazing how often that is the root of a disagreement.

I also like understanding how this confusion of language and terms create problems for people.  A lot of my articles are intended to help remove confusion, but not necessarily disagreement.

I just kind of hate when people are disagreeing but don’t understand why.  Often, this is an issue of definitions.  What does “social justice” mean?  What does “Halloween” mean?  What is a protest?

I also kind of like classifying things.

So, I decided, once and for all, to come up with a complete and unabridged recipe for the ingredients that are required to make a Christmas movie.  Some of these are flimsy, and some are rather deeper in the psychological
realm, but here we go:

First off, a Christmas movie cannot be a tragedy. It might be an epic, but generally, it should be a comedy.

Before you start pulling out pitchforks, I don’t mean necessarily funny.  I mean according to the old literary styles – comedy.  You remember your literature class in college?

A tragedy ends with the dispersal and disintegration of community and in Shakespearean terms, usually a funeral or a room full of dead bodies.

A comedy ends with the reunification of community and in those same terms, typically a wedding (and if the wedding ends up with a room full of dead bodies, you were duped – it is a tragedy).

So, warm feelings at the end. The bowl in which to mix the ingredients for a Christmas movie must be a comedy – one that unites, brings together… usually in warmth, with smiles, under blankets… with bright lights.

Let me build on this for a minute (this happens at the community level) a couple is brought together with an imminent new marriage and a new house and Santa’s walking stick, a father is reunited with his long-lost son raised by elves,

but most importantly, it happens at the individual level.

Something needs to come together for a key player in the movie– spiritually and/or psychologically. Someone accepts their own voice and leads a crowd to sing; a man realizes, as a little bell rings, how good his life actually is; a wealthy miser is brought to a place of conversion and repentance.

This is how a Christmas movie must end in order to earn the title.  A deeply buried hurt is reconciled.  A pain is redeemed.  The self is restored.

They may not realize it, but they are responded to this deep desire in us:  hope. “All is well”

New friendships must be created. And angel and a man become friends; an old boyfriend is reunited on a television special with his first love; the reindeer all come to appreciate the deformed reindeer in the midst… etc.  People formerly unknown to one another are now friends for life.

In the best Christmas movies, in addition to a new friendship(s), there is a powerful restoration of an old, but broken relationship.A husband and wife on the brink of divorce are reconciled; a father and son who have never met and now they will live happily ever after; a cousin moves his RV into the main character’s yard.

Part of this is also the role of the character who is NOT in the Christmas spirit. They must either be destroyed or defeated, fall from power, or be converted.  Every Christmas movie requires one or more foil characters who exemplify the power of the Christmas spirit – or the danger of not getting into the Christmas spirit.

These are the deepest pieces of the puzzle.  However, while these are things that all Christmas movies must have, the truth is that many other narratives, stories and movies have these components.  So, while a movie is NOT a Christmas movie without these, there are other things specific to them.

So far:

1.  comedy or epic with warm feelings at the end.
2. things come together for the protagonist.
3. new friendships are made.
4. an old relationship is restored
5. The “Grinch/Ebenezar” character must be redeemed or brought down.

More to follow… (That wasn’t definitive enough, after all).