Happiness is...a Christmas movie!

(So much for my 12 Days of Christmas posts...not sure how I skipped over yesterday completely, oops! And it was only day 2! Let's just pretend this posted yesterday, shall we?)

I love my holiday movies almost as much as I love my music, though it takes longer to watch a movie so I don’t get nearly as many in. Christmas isn’t Christmas without at least a partial viewing of A Christmas Story and the Rankin Bass Christmas specials with Frosty, Rudolph, and the gang. (I’m good with catching a half hour or so of them on tv and don’t usually feel compelled to watch the whole thing) and one or two of the ridiculously cheesy romantic comedy-esque movies that are churned out by the hundreds on Lifetime and Hallmark and ABC Family. Predictable, laughable and depending on which channel possibly filled with a death or two, they are also a requisite Christmas experience.

A few essentials that I watch at least once every year, sometimes not even at Christmas (shh!):

• White Christmas
• Muppet Christmas Carol
• It's a Wonderful Life
• Elf
• Holiday Inn
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original cartoon version with Boris Karloff narrating , not the scandalously horrid Jim Carey version)

Some great classics that make their way into my viewing lineup once every couple of years:

• A Christmas Carol-any version, but this is one of my favorites
• The Bishop's Wife
• Mr. Krueger's Christmas
• Miracle on 34th Street (I find I alternate the versions each year, usually getting one of them in each season and haven't been able to pick a favorite between the two)
• The Santa Clause
• The Small One
• Mickey's Christmas Carol

A few pre/pseudo holiday movies that help get you in the spirit without technically being Christmas movies:

• The Holiday
• While You Were Sleeping
• You've Got Mail
• Meet Me In St. Louis
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Little Women (the most recent version with Christian Bale...of course!)

I know it’s probably heresy to some of you that I don’t have A Charlie Brown Christmas on here but I’ve never been a fan. Aside from the part where they are practicing for the program and they all do their little happy dance I just think they’re mean to each other (Charlie in particular) and it’s just no good. I spend way too much time feeling sorry for Charlie Brown and never quite catching the oh-so-subtle spirit of Christmas hidden at the end to enjoy it. The music, however, is brilliant.

Any of your favorites I may have missed?

Let's leave you with a short clip to get your weekend started out right. Whaddya say?

Such a fabulous movie! Go watch the rest, right now. Whatever you think you need to be doing instead will still be waiting for you when it's over.