Last Shot at the Christmas Specials

I really meant to blog last week, but Christmas rather caught up to me and I realized that somethings are just more important.

On the first three Tuesdays of December, I had posted my favorite Christmas specials – Rudolph, Charlie Brown and Ralphie. Even though Christmas is long past (really? Coz to my mind it’s been barely a week), I still want to tell you a few of my other favorite Christmas shows.

First, here’s a confession. The only one of these shows which I watched this year was “A Christmas Story”. What kind of a sad confession is that? I wish I could tell you that last week when I wasn’t posting to this blog all week that I was getting caught up on my TV watching, but that would be a lie. I do not know what I was doing. Getting caught up instead on the after-Christmas laziness, I guess.

So here’s another confession, I am a big Jimmy Stewart fan. How can you not be? I love every movie I’ve seen that he’s been in. He is so kind-hearted and gentle and soft-spoken. Ok, he kind of always reminded me of my dad. So, of course, “It’s a Wonderful Life” has to be yet another one of my favorite Christmas shows.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that they hate that movie. I don’t know how that’s possible, and I suppose I should listen to their explanation, but instead, I am like – talk to the hand. There’s no plausible explanation for not loving a movie that asks the question each and every one of us has asked at some point. “What if I had never been born?”

My recommendation to all you who disagree with me, go watch it again.

Moving along, I want to mention another movie, which isn’t a classic, yet. But it could be some day. That would be “Elf”. Maybe in some ways it is like “Wonderful Life”. Take a simple, sweet man and try to turn him into something he’s not, but in the end, the spirit of Christmas always wins out.

I just thought of another one and now it left my mind just like. Oh, but I would include the original Grinch with Boris Karloff if I were making up a list. The remake? Not so much. Speaking of remakes, how many “Christmas Carol” versions are there? My favorite? The one with Mr Magoo. What does that tell you about me?

Then there are two shows from my childhood which I haven’t seen in probably 40 years, so maybe I made this up. “The Littlest Angel” with Johnny Whittaker and “The Snow Queen”, which is the story that “Frozen” was based on, and probably not a Christmas show at all, but it has snow in it and I can’t even find it on IMDb. And I don’t remember much about it, but it had to be from the mid-sixties.

Maybe I need to learn how to use Netflix.

Have I missed your favorite Christmas show?  And could you watch it year-round?