Christmas movies — and a Christmas present

My wife just bought a Christmas tee shirt. It’s red, and the front is decorated with red and white and green and yellow icons from Christmas movies. See if you can figure them out.

1. The legs of an elf in yellow stockings, except they are very long for an elf. __________
2. A green “Santa Claus” with pointy fingers and pointy toes, creeping through a house. __________
3. The front of a train engine, with a ticket next to it that just says BELIEVE. ____________
4. The face of what might be a reindeer, except its nose is red. _____________
5. Santa Claus with his arms and legs outstretched and his hat up in the air. There’s kind of an “electric field” around his whole body. _____________
6. A smiling snowman holding a corncob pipe in one hand and an ornament in the other. ___________
7. A Christmas turkey with a gigantic bite taken out of it. _______________
8. An old fashioned lamp shade held up by a shapely leg in a fish-net stocking. _____________
9. Finally, a very skinny pine tree sapling with just a few branches, and holding a single red (and round) ornament. _____________

How did you do? Great, I’m guessing, which means you know a lot about Christmas movies!

There are some movies that have Christmas as part of the story, but we don’t think of them (at least I don’t) as Christmas movies. Die Hard is one of those, and so is Little Women. Rotten Tomatoes made a list of the “100 best Christmas movies,” and both of those, as well as Trading Places, are on it!

Favorites (plural)

Many people have a favorite Christmas movie, but I don’t. Like a lot of you, I have favorites (plural). Some of those are in the list above. Personally I’m not really big on Christmas romance movies, but Hallmark seems to like them, and so do millions of movie watchers.

A Christmas romance makes my list of favorites, though. It’s a classic titled The Shop Around The Corner. You may not know that one, but it was remade a couple of decades ago and called You’ve Got Mail. Good flick, but the original is better. That isn’t just my humble opinion — it is Number 2 on the Rotten Tomatoes list mentioned above.

Among my true-Christmas-movie favorites is a new one this year called The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It is a full length film based on a book of the same title. And there was a “made for TV” movie of the book as well. If you get a chance to see the new version in the theater, take it. Unfortunately, it didn’t come out in time to make the tee-shirt. Maybe next year.

I’m also a fan of It’s A Wonderful Life. My friend Tom is a community-theater actor and has played the role of Clarence (the angel trying to earn his wings) for a decade or more. So we now watch the play instead of the movie each year, but the movie is great.

Of course Ralphie (You’ll shoot your eye out!) in A Christmas Story is hard to beat for the tender as well as the fun parts. Miracle on 34th Street tests your belief every time you see it, even when you know that Kris Kringle really is….

What Christmas is all about

The movie I’ve watched every Christmas since I can remember watching movies is short. It was made for TV and aired (barely) for the first time on December 9, 1965.

Why barely? For one thing, the production was completed just ten days before the movie special was set to premier. That was cutting it close, even in 1965.

The idea for a Charlie Brown TV special came from Lee Mendelson, a TV producer. He contacted Charles Schulz to see if he was interested, they talked, and they agreed to do one. It was Schulz who came up with most of the core ideas for A Charlie Brown Christmas, including using jazz music and a reading from the Bible.

That part was a little worrisome to both Mendelson and to Bill Melendez, who would do a lot of the animating. They both thought the topic of religion was too controversial for the special. Schulz, however, insisted that the special should focus on “the true meaning of Christmas.”

And it did.

It is far better in context, but in the story Charlie Brown, who is at his wits end because of the way Christmas is being treated, asks loudly if anyone knows what Christmas is all about. Linus says he does, and he walks to center stage in the theater where they are and recites Luke 2:8-20.

Then Linus picks up his blanket, walks back to Charlie Brown, and says, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Force me to choose a favorite Christmas movie, and this is it. We will watch it again this year, and I hope you will too.

A Christmas present for you

The jazz music in A Charlie Brown Christmas is terrific. Vince Guaraldi composed all of that, including the famous Linus and Lucy track we all associate with Charlie Brown.

My good friend and songwriting partner, Gary Dugan, has created an instrumental medley of well known Christmas songs. Linus and Lucy is not one of them, but you will know them all. He called the other day to tell me that he had been working on updating the medley and was now releasing it on Apple Music and Spotify.

If fact, it releases today, December 13!

The title is One Holy Night — A Christmas Medley, and he released it under the name Do Good Music rather than his own name.

He wanted it to be a Christmas gift to everyone, and it is beautiful! I recommend putting on your headphones, sitting in a comfortable chair, closing your eyes, and just listening. Somewhere in there, even without words, you might just hear the true meaning of Christmas.

Thank you, Gary, for doing good!