It’s March! Let’s Talk about My favorite Christmas Movies

I never really had a show or movie series that I was passionate about when I was growing up. Though, I was raised by adults who had a heartfelt love for movie culture. I have watched all the Tyler Perry movies, every edition of Friday, Coming to America, and every good and bad version of Barbershop. I didn’t have a lot of control over our family remote.

Although the movies mentioned above now hold a special place in my heart, back then they didn’t really resonate with me. The only time I got to watch movies I liked was around Christmas, whether it was a romantic comedy or a beautifully animated cartoon, I always took to seasonal movies more. Since nobody can ever really turn down a good Christmas movie, one of my first memories is watching The Nightmare Before Christmas with my grandma on Christmas Eve. In today’s blog, I want to talk about a few Christmas films that first resonated with me.

Polar Express:

Even though I’m still young and building what I will consider my “youth” one day, I consider the most prominent points of my childhood to have been around 2010-2018. Polar Express came out in 2004. This movie caught my eye because I never saw a film that was animated like it was. It has a realistic 3D animation type, and although that’s pretty common to see these days, it was not common to six-year-old me.

 I didn’t recognize the feeling back then, but when I first saw the film, I got a deep sense of uncanny valley. I was really drawn to the plot, which is basically a kid leaving his house in the middle of the night to catch a train and discover if Santa Claus is real or not. It sounded a lot more adventurous when I was a kid, but I can probably watch this movie at any point in my life and still love it with all my heart.

Edward Scissorhands:

My first time watching Edward Scissorhands was more recent than one might think. By recent, I mean last year. Some of my friends introduced it to me once they heard I’d never seen it before. I’m interested in anything that’s made by Tim burton. I love all his films and admire the way he uses his creative freedom. In this movie, and a few of his others, he uses color in an interesting way. I like to describe it as everything being a different color, but in the same shade or hue, and it creates this since of parallelism.

 I love movies that interact with color like this, because it signifies the universe of the movie is unique from our own. Or at least that’s how I think of it. I know some people like to argue that this is a Halloween movie, and I can totally see how that comes to mind, but this film has always felt like a Christmas movie to me. Even though the plot might seem like a good Halloween movie, there are a lot of aspects of the Holidays here, so I really disagree with that.

Gremlins:

Though Gremlins is considered a less-cuddly type of Christmas movie, it has always been one of my favorites. I watched it when was a little older, around my pre-teen years, so I was mature enough to not be terrified of the microwave scene (ifykyk). Gremlins came out in 1984, and it was popular before I even watched it. It’s about this Gadget Salesman that purchases a pet for his son at a sketchy shop, and the store owner give him very specific instructions to keep the pet from basically turning into a monster.

The guy buys it anyway, gives it to his son for Christmas, the son doesn’t adhere to his dad’s instructions, then the pet turns into a monster and procreates little versions of himself. So now, the entire town is full of furry, sharp-toothed Gremlins running around and terrorizing people on Christmas. It’s a lot funnier than it sounds. I also like this movie because the plot was really unique to me at the time, since I’d never seen a holiday movie mixed with horror before. I really encourage you to watch this one if not anything else.