I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it on this blog but I have watched A LOT of Christmas movies. (I’ll append a partial list at the bottom of this post.) And, on Friday, I’ll start to watch more.
I haven’t always been this way. There was a time when I shunned everything Christmas. Just not my vibe.
So, how does something like this happen?
Our Christmas movie watching started in 2019 but it’s rooted in our movie watching habit which began in 1999.
One of the ways Jennifer and I bonded when we started dating is through movies. Friday night quickly became movie night when we dated (hmmm, now that I think about it, we started hanging out and watching movies before we started dating) in 1999 and it’s been a part of our routine for the last quarter century.
Some quick math. Watching 50 movies a year for 25 years equals 1250 movies. We haven’t watched a movie every single Friday night, but more often than not. And, we often watch movies even when it’s not Friday night. So, a conservative estimate is that we’ve watched more than 1300 movies together.
That’s a lot of movies.
We’ve watched entire horror franchises, we’ve selected performers and watched every movie in which they appeared. We’ve picked out directors and writers and watched everything they’ve done. We were once diligent about watching everything nominated in the major categories of the Academy Awards. We’ve gone through phases of watching classics, indies, international, animation, musicals, and all the genres. We watch highly recommended flicks and cringe-inducing schlock.
But not Christmas movies.
Until 2019.
It was the day before Christmas, or perhaps the day of or the day after. It was a cozy night and we were lazing in front of the television trying to decide what to watch. Netflix was pushing A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby, and because it promised to be frothy and cozy, I suggested the first of the series — A Christmas Prince. It was cheesy and got us talking about classic Christmas movies and what we’d seen and what we hadn’t.
We made some idle plans to watch more Christmas movies. That same winter there was a BBC dark fantasy version of A Christmas Carol that I watched. In all, we watched eight or nine Christmas movies between Christmas eve and a few days after the start of the new year.
In a different timeline that was the end of it. But in this timeline, 2020 was a very special year.
By the time Thanksgiving rolled around in 2020 we were conditioned to stay inside. Covid deaths were high and there was a lot of uncertainty when and if a vaccine might be rolled out. Recalling the coziness of the previous year’s Christmas movie watching, combined with our past experience of immersing ourselves in particular genres or styles of movies, we decided to go all in on Christmas movies and Christmas shows.
It was a lot of fun. (Remember, we have a remarkable tolerance for cringe-inducing schlock.)
We watched about 40 movies between Thanksgiving and Epiphany (12 days after Christmas). And about 10 or 12 shows/episodes.
An aside. I grew up in a place with snow. As a child I built snowmen and lived through blizzards. One memorable winter, wind blew snow against the front of the house creating a drift that reached the roof. We had to exit through the back until we dug out the front door.
Here, in the semi-tropical weather of Florida, there are none of the environmental triggers I learned to associate with winter or Christmas. And so, Christmas time in Florida is weird to me. How can there be Christmas lights, Christmas music, AND I’m walking through the neighborhood in shorts and a t-shirt? It feels alien and wrong.
Watching Christmas movies helped Florida feel a little more winter-y, a little cozier in a time when we craved comfort and coziness.
So, we did it again in 2021.
This year will be our 5th year of Christmas movie/show binging. To this point we’ve watched approximately 235 shows and movies. Last year we watched about sixty shows/movies. So, if we do something similar this year, we’ll be pushing 300 by the time we wrap up in 2025.
That’s a lot of Christmas movies!
Here is a list of what we watched in the winter of 2020. I’ll post the entire list of 2019-2023 in a separate post. Here’s the complete list for 2019-2013.
Christmas Movie Watchlist 2020
Drama
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
The Bishop’s Wife (1947)
It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
A Christmas Carol (1951)
The Apartment (1960)
Die Hard (1988)
Scrooged (1988)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
The Preacher’s Wife (1996)
The Family Man (2000)
Love Actually (2003)
This Christmas (2007)
A Christmas Tale (2008)
All is Bright (2013)
Ideal Home (2018)
Happiest Season (2020)
A New York Christmas Wedding (2020)
Horror
Black Christmas (1974)
You Better Watch Out (aka Christmas Evil) (1980)
Gremlins (1984)
Black Christmas (2006)
Red Christmas (2016)
Musical
Meet Me in Saint Louis (1944)
White Christmas (1954)
Scrooge (1970)
Anna & the Apocalypse (2017)
Comedy
The Great Rupert (1950)
Mixed Nuts (1994)
Elf (2003)
The Night Before (2015)
Cup of Cheer (2020)
Holidate (2020)
Letters to Satan Claus (2020)
Hallmark Style
Christmas Inheritance (2017)
A Christmas Movie Christmas (2019)
The Christmas House (2020)
The Christmas Set-up (2020)
Dashing in December (2020)
Variety Shows
A Very Murray Christmas (2015)
The Jinkx and Dela Christmas Show (2020)
Cartoon / Animations
The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974)
Klaus (2019)
Television Shows / Episodes
The Librarians and Santa’s Midnight Run (2014)
Last Tango in Halifax Christmas Special (2017)
Dash & Lily (2020)
Great British Baking Show: Holidays (2020)
Home for Christmas Season 2 (2020)