'Tis the Season for Christmas Movies!

Alright so there's a week and a half before Christmas and there is no way to avoid them - Christmas movies. Most of them are HORRIBLE, however I will now be sharing with you my top 10 favorite (in no real order for I love them all the same) Christmas movies of all time. You can argue with me all you want, in fact I enjoy it most of the time, if you think I left one off or included one that shouldn't be there (and based entirely on the events of my Christmas Movie festival a couple days ago people will disagree with at least one of them). Anyway on to the list.

10. Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas

Alright I will be the first to admit that my love of this stems mostly from my love of Jim Henson. Growing up I spent the first 6 years of my life on a steady television diet of Muppets and Fraggle Rock. To me this man is a god and could do no wrong. When presented with the gift of the Maggi as told through Otter puppets I just couldn't get enough. Sure their voices are a bit unnerving when they sing but they're puppets, you can't expect them to suddenly sound like amazing singers. And yes for the most part this has very little to do with Christmas other than being about buying presents for Christmas and taking place on Christmas Eve for the most part, but it has long been a tradition of mine that I simply can't get enough of. Unfortunately my friends didn't think the same when I shared it with them recently, but I guess without a childhood connection maybe I wouldn't have been so easily entertained myself. Still I love it!

9. Scrooged

There are approximately 9 million retellings of A Christmas Carol. i could have gone with a more traditional telling of the story or the ever so popular Muppet version, but I am anything but traditional and I already talked about my love of Muppets so I couldn't bring myself to do so twice on the same blog. No I need my Ghost of Christmas present to be sweet and innocent and then punch someone in the face for no real reason. I need my Ghost of Christmas Future to make me wet myself at the sight of him. Drunken taxi driver as the Ghost of Christmas past? Yes please, I'll take 2. Bill Murray before he got all serious and Indie with his movies, is a Christmas present I will cherish forever. Throw in a wonderfully clever acting job by Bobcat Goithwait and you'll be wanting to staple antlers to mice and be left wondering if that is a nipple or a shadow.

8. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
I LOVE the vacation movies. All of them. I even sat through that Vegas movie that shouldn't have been made. Chevy is a comedic genius when he wants to be and this one just proves that point. The end all be all of horrible Christmas dinners is an absolute blast. And who hasn't wished for some super strength lube to make your sled go even faster down the hill? Throw in the ever classic Christmas blow up and subsequent happy ending and you have the grounds for an instant holiday favorite that is required viewing some time from Thanksgiving to New Year.

7. A Christmas Story

They don't play this thing for 24 hours on Christmas day on TBS for no reason. This thing is a classic. Everyone has had their own variant of a Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time in their past and this is the perfect reminder of Christmases gone by. If you read my last insanely long blog you would know what mine was so I won't go into it again but every single year I love to watch this and remember more innocent times. Where a double dog dare was as good as a signed contract, and you actually cared about the toy in the box of cereal. Someone buy me that leg lamp.

6. Die Hard

Now I know what all of you are thinking, I've gone off my rocker in including this obvious guy film on my list of Christmas movies I love but no I tell you this is a Christmas movie. Sure it isn't traditional, but the story is all about a man visiting his estranged wife in LA at a Christmas party for her work and wanting to get back to his kids alive. You even hear the classic Christmas song "Christmas in Hollis" and other Christmas tunes. Now tell me that isn't a Christmas Classic. Yep just like I thought can't do it.

Just wait until I do a valentines movie list and try and explain why I think Terminator is a love story.

5. The Santa Claus
Okay back to the classics. Commonly referred to the last good thing Tim Allen has ever done Not counting Galaxy Quest. the idea of a normal man becoming Santa is a new and interesting take on the theme of Adults not getting Christmas and needing a child to remind them of it's wonders and the joys of the holiday. Tim is the perfect cranky adult who is bitter and neglectful to his child. That's the problem that the other films in this series didn't get, that's what makes this movie a success - not Tim Allen as an actor but the bitter and angry person evolving into the epitome of Christmas and Childhood joy. Once you lose that, there really is no reason to watch. Which is why I say just like I say with every movie series not a part of the big three (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and the Godfather) skip the sequels.

4. Love, Actually

If there was ever a movie that epitomized what most everyone I know truly wants for Christmas it would be Love, Actually. The Holiday season is kinda rough without someone to love, and to share the season with and the older you get the less you want that person to be your parents. I mean I love my family more than almost anything but really I've reached that point in my life where I'd like to start traditions of my own and have someone to spend it with that I love who isn't a relative. This movie makes me think it's still possible and that some day I will have what they have. And that it could be anywhere I just have to keep my eye out for it.

3. Elf

The ONLY Will Ferrell movie as an adult that thinks and acts like a child movie I like. I'm just glad they haven't tried to destroy the pleasure I find in this one by making a sequel. I couldn't see anyone else in this role either, I just wish I didn't have to see him in this role while playing other characters in every single movie he makes not named Stranger Than Fiction. This one once again fits into the same position as the Santa Clause, kid(like adult) changes bitter old man for the better. James Caan is always a great idea if you need someone to be angry and look like they will kill you if you look at them wrong, and honestly if felt kinda weird to see him cheerful and happy by the end of the movie. Though I guess that is a good thing for the character since he became someone new and different by the end.

2. Serendipity

If you thought Die Hard was a stretch this one is as elastic as Stretch Armstrong in a sweat lodge. Honestly the connection to Christmas is as simple as the first 20 minutes and the last 2, but I don't care, I love this movie. Cusack and Beckensale have chemistry to spare and I felt for them not being together through the entire movie. Any chance I have to talk about this under appreciated RomCom i will take it. Now go rent it!

1. Charlie Brown Christmas
I wanted to end on a high note, and what better high note than Charles Schultz's holiday classic that combines the qualities I love about almost all of the other movies on this list and throws them into one event that goes above and beyond the gifts and the glitter and gets to the bottom of teaching everyone a lesson and showing them what Christmas is truly about the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. And so I will leave you with this. Merry Christmas all of you, I hope you get everything on your list, and a few things you didn't even know you needed.