'Tis the TV season

It is the season for holiday specials. I love holiday special and movies, especially the older ones. When compiling my list of favorites I found that I had to separate them into two categories, specials and movies. So here are mine, and I’d like to know yours.

Specials:
1. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
-This is my favorite and I wait for it every year. I loveFred Astair and Micky Rooney.


2. Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
-This is a lesser known one, but it is sweet and charming. It's based on Frank L. Baum's book.


3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
-a classic, of course I'm talking about the animated version.


4. Charlie Brown Christmas

5. Year Without a Santa Claus
-"I'm Mr. Heat Miser, I'm Mr. Sun."


Movies:
1. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
-You can't beat Natalie Wood and Maureen O'Hara.



2. A Christmas Carol (1938)
-This one is a tradition with my stepdad and me. We watch it every year on Christmas Eve, even when we aren't in the same city.


3. A Christmas Story
-Ralphie brings to life the best and worst of a real family at holidays. We can all identify.



4. The Homecoming
-The original Waltons. This version had a different set of parents, but the kids were the same. It's a great story about what's really important at Christmas.



5. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
-Talk about being able to identify...Every family has a cousin Eddie.


6. The Santa Clause
-Tim Allen is surprisingly great as the man in the red suit.

7. White Christmas
-Danny Kaye was one of my all time favorite song and dance men. He and Bing make this a terrific movie filled with music and laughter.


8. Bells of St. Mary’s
-Bing again with the etherial and amazing Ingrid Bergman. This is on my list of top ten movies period.


9. The Bishop’s Wife
-Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven. It's hard to mess that up.


10. It’s a Wonderful Life
-If you'd asked me a few years ago, I'd not have listed it because Ted Turner nearly ruined it by colorizing it and running it every hour on the blessed hour the whole Christmas season. But through it all, Jimmy Stewart still gave us a classic.

Holiday favorites

This time of year one of the things I look forward to is watching the holiday classic movies. We all have favorites, don’t we? Everyone from Forbes (highest to lowest grossing) to Movie Phone (viewer votes) has their compiled list. I have mine too but these are in no particular order.

White Christmas- I love Danny Kaye. I actually cried when he died. This feature is just heartwarming and sweet.

Miracle on 34th Street-Natalie Wood in black and white of course. I hate colorization.

The Bishop’s Wife-Cary Grant. *sigh* do they make them any more elegant, charming and sexy than that?

The Santa Clause-This first installment was wonderful, but the franchise should have stopped there.

It’s a Wonderful Life-This one was over done by Turner Broadcasting for a long time. Let’s face it, it’s great, but we didn’t need to see marathons of it for days on end. One of the teacher’s at my school calls my principal “Clarence” because she says he looks like the angel Clarence. Needless to say my principal is not amused by this.

A Christmas Story- You either love or hate this one, get it or don’t get it. I get it. I love it. I grew up in the Midwest and getting bundled up, fights with the furnace, “don’t touch your tongue to metal” and other things rang true from my childhood as well. However, those with cable are quickly going the way of It’s a Wonderful Life with this one as TBS now runs it in day long marathons. Too much of a good thing folks.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation-A sequel that was better than the original. The lights scene reminds me of my family. My brother once stapled himself to the roof of their house while putting up lights. As this was in Illinois, he got pretty darned cold waiting for someone to find him and get him down.

Bells of St. Mary’s-I love Ingrid Bergman as a nun. This is just one of those warm you heart kind of movies. This one was one of my grandmother’s favorites too. My grandfather bore a bit of a resemblance to Bing Crosby in his early days. It’s about the power of prayer and the strength of faith.

The Homecoming: A Christmas Story-The beginning of the Waltons. This told the story of Pa trying to make it home for Christmas and the struggles of being a poor family during the Depression. Most of the cast, except for Momma Walton is the same as those in the television series. No film has ever screamed family like this one.

And I have one dark horse that I’m probably one of the few that remembers it. Or liked it. In the 80s or 90s, Dyann Cannon, Tony Curtis and Kris Kristofferson remade the Barbara Stanwyck classic “Christmas in Connecticut.” I loved this remake. I’ve no idea why, but I do. Oddly enough it was directed by Arnold Schwartzenegger. News is they’re doing a remake in 2009.

Now these aren’t actually Christmas movies, but they are set in the Christmas season and I love them both. They’re action films that kicked serious butt.

Die Hard- Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman at their best looking. And it was a damned good film.

Lethal Weapon-Mel Gibson when you didn’t cringe as you heard his name.

So what are your favorite holiday movies?

Now for our festive Santa

As you can see they must be having an unusually warm December at the North Pole. That, or Mrs. Claus has cranked up the heat on purpose. This graphic is supposed to have falling snow and sparklies, but I can't seem to get them to transfer when I post it. Oh well, our photoshopped Santa is still nice to look at.