We’re headed into our second year’s worth of holiday movies here on Movie Valhalla, and what I really hope is that you and everyone that you love are all still here and, as much as you can be, together this holiday season, no matter what you celebrate. This year, we’re going to cast a little bit of a wider net, with personal favorites, more Charles Dickens, a couple of modern classic we missed last year, and maybe the oldest Christmas movie ever made. I hope if you’re looking for some holiday fun this year that you’ll join us for at least a few movies from Holidayfest ’21.
Here’s our planned lineup for this year:
Dec 19 – Home Alone (1992) – This comedy about Macaulay Culkin’s family forgetting him at home when they leave for Christmas was a completely ubiquitous megahit.
Dec 20 – The Bishop’s Wife (1947) – The Christmastime mission of a suave angel (Cary Grant) to help a bishop (David Niven) is complicated by his attraction to the bishop’s wife (Loretta Young).
Dec 21 – A Claymation Christmas Celebration (1987) – A silly old favorite from when I was a kid and we wore out the VHS tape that had been made off of the original TV broadcast.
Dec 22 – La Rȇve de Noël (1900) – This fantastical short film by Georges Méliès is the likely holder of the title for the first Christmas movie ever made.
Dec 23 – How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) – This Dr. Suess-based animated TV special still airs on American TV every Christmas season and has been made into multiple full-length films.
Dec 24 – Scrooge (1951) – This year’s version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was likely the most popular of its era, starring Scottish actor Alastair Sim in what is probably still the stereotypical portrayal of the title character.
Dec 25 – A Christmas Story (1983) – At least one American cable channel has a tendency to run 24-hour Christmas marathons of this widely-beloved movie about one family’s holidays in 1939.
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