December 11, 2014

Five Classic Christmas Movies I Inexplicably Hated At First

I have done so much talking about Christmas TV shows I decided I should do at least one article on Christmas movies. Some Christmas movies are loved by me instantly, like Scrooged or The Santa Clause. Others, for whatever reason, take a little more time to win me over. Today I want to discuss five movies which are Christmas classics, and I hated them when they first came on the scene. Today I appreciate them a lot more, but for some reason my initial reaction was not so positive.



Home Alone
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Yeah I really have no excuse for this one. But when this became the biggest comedy hit of all time in 1990, we were outraged! And a Christmas classic? How?? It was stupid, we said! Ummm, did I actually watch the movie when I saw it in theaters? I don’t know, but whatever the case years later I re watched and realized that this is a really good Christmas movie.  I have done a 180 and this is one of my favorite Christmas movies I have to watch every year. I guess we focused more on the slapstick and ignored the rest of the film, which was very nicely directed by Chris Columbus not to mention written by John Hughes.





Polar Express
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It may not be accurate to say I hated this one, more that I just didn’t have any interest in it. OK this is embarrassing again, but I didn’t realize it was a Christmas movie. I know, duh! It’s about the North Pole! But I never read the book and I think I was thrown but the trailers which didn’t really show anything so I didn’t care about it and it just flew under my radar, until my father told me to see it! Yes I love it today.




One Magic Christmas
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This may be cheating since this is hardly a Christmas classic. It’s pretty depressing and boring. But I admit, I don’t hate it as much as when I first saw it. It really does have a good story and Mary Steenbergen is a decent actress. Yeah it’s slow and a little to somber, but when given a chance it really isn’t all bad. It’s about a woman depressed at Christmas until an angel makes her realize that she has more than she thinks. Worth checking out.





White Christmas
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I hated this movie for years. When a movie has music in it, all I ask is that the songs have something to do with the plot, advance the story, or help develop the characters. In this film this does not happen.. The songs aren’t bad and are of course  Irving Berlin hits but for the most part have little to do with the actual story, instead diverting from it or even stopping it cold! However, thanks to my ex I did watch this several times over the years and I appreciate it more for all its corny and goofiness. Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney are fantastic and the songs are good whether they are related to the story or not. It’s a decent classic that I watch every year even though I’m divorced now.






A Christmas Story
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Yeah you may have seen this one coming. Now I wont go so far as to say that this is a favorite or must watch for me at Christmas. I will admit that my hatred for this movie has waned. As a kid, this movie just rubbed me the wrong way. Especially the creepy Santa Claus scene. But as a I got older and was exposed to it again and again, I realized that there are some genuinely well done moments in this movie. So while it will never by my favorite, I get why it is so many others



By the way, it can go the other way. There was a certain movie I loved when I saw it, but looking back…yeah it really isn’t very good. Which?


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Yeah when you really look at it, this movie is kind of awful. But it’s still a movie I watch every year as a guiltypleasure.






Christmas is one time that I love watching movies, I just can’t get enough. Share with me in the comments any Christmas movies you’ve changed your mind about over the years.

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