December is the time to get all cozy, eat Lebkuchen and cookies and have your best egg-nogg substitute: Glühwein. There is no better way than to celebrate those goodies with a cuddly movie session. Here are the best Christmas movies ever: It’s a fact. Everybody says so. Anything else is fake news.
- Muppets Family Christmas
This is my personal favorite. While this 80’s classic served as my portal to the American world during my childhood in Europe, I still watch the Muppet’s Family Classic on YouTube /on repeat from Black Friday to Christmas Day every year. In my eyes, no other holiday movie is able to grasp the holiday sentiment nor the heartwarming feeling as much as this timeless classic. Children will love the 45 minutes filled with fabulous songs to sing along to, while the grown-ups can enjoy the clever jokes; with all their favorite characters from Kermit and his Muppet Gang, the Sesame Street crew – even the Fraggle Rock guys are on Board! Jim Henson at his best.
- Lampoons Christmas Vacation
You know nothing, if you haven’t seen this cinematic masterpiece from 1984. Chevy Chase taught us the essential rules you need to know for any real holiday season:
- Having your Egg Nogg out of Moose glasses is a must.
- Bigger, brighter, awesome lights.
- Only the biggest tree is the right tree
- Family is everything
- How the Grinch stole Christmas
He’s a mean one, Mister Grinch… Though there have been countless new versions, and 2018 is bringing out another one as well, the classic 1966 cartoon of Dr. Seuss’ children’s rhyme will always be in my heart (two sizes too small or not). The original – the legend- the real thing.
- Scrooged
Charles Dicken’s would be proud to see how Bill Murray as Francis Xavier Cross is a brilliant Christmas miser, trying to staple antlers to the heads of mice for the big live TV production. Murray is probably the best Scrooge in film history, no exaggeration! Yet another Christmas Classic that makes me think: The 80’s might have been the best Christmas decade.
- Die Hard I-III
Legendary bad-ass John McLane in Nakatomi Tower, against the ultimate German bad-guy Hans Gruber. The most epic show down in movie history…well Ok, at least in 80’s movie history.
John McLane is such a magnificent holiday genius, that even when the movie plots are set in summer in a heat-wave-struck New York City, we still regard him as our Christmas angel. No-one can bring more Christmas spirit to you than a roughed-up Bruce Willis in a dirty sweaty and bloody white tank top, pierced with shot wounds and glass stuck in his feet or with Nickels in his hands trying to find out who the 21st president was. Ho-Ho-Ho, McLane!
- The Long Kiss Goodnight
Geena Davis as Samantha finds out she is a tough cookie – a real killing machine. This is pre-Kill Bill (Tarantino) and when this movie first came out in 1996 Davis was top! Though the story line might not be the most convincing and we have certainly watched better movies, this film is a personal must-see in my family (my mom likes the thrills of blood and justice served violently), and so Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without this “The Bourne Identity” goes “Kill Bill” killing spree.
- Elf
Unfortunately, I was introduced to this movie only later on in life. My childhood could have been so much happier already a lot sooner.
Buddy (Will Ferrell) accidently ends up in Santa’s sack when he is a baby and grows up in the North Pole as one of the elves. When his gigantic-like size, compared to the other elves, make it increasingly more difficult to keep up with his elf tasks, he finds out that his real human father is on the naughty list due to his selfishness. He decides to help his father regain the Christmas spirit and travels to the human world, where life isn’t easy for an elf. This Scrooge story pimped with more laughter, and a fun Will Ferrell will make this season a holly-jolly Christmas.
- Home Alone
For the first 10 years of my life, the only French words I could speak were: Les incompetents. Kevin’s sister, cousin or whoever she was said that to poor little Kevin the night before they all left him behind.
This movie is a must-see. The Christmas music, the tacky 80’s decorations and the heart-warming Christmas spirit is what makes this blockbuster an evergreen of the holiday genre.
AMASNEME 