Seasonal Flicks

Sassy recently posted on FB that she was watching her favorite Christmas movie, The Santa Clause. It is good - family friendly with nuances that make it relatable for adults, good elf representation, and Tim Allen at the height of his career (it came out the year Sassy was born).

I have a few of my own faves:

• Miracle on 34th Street (only the original 1947 version with Natale Wood and Edmund Gwenn) I love the mom - independent and principled
• The Family Man I'm a sucker for Nicolas Cage and Tea Leoni is one of my favorite actresses - they have great chemistry here; a modern day Dickens/Capra redemption tale; one of the best lines is "welcome to earth"
• The Family Stone Genius casting - multi-layered authentic family dynamics 
• Love Actually Quirky, multi-layered with mostly happy endings all around; again, genius casting (Andrew Lincoln!); bonus points for use of one of the best Christmas songs ever (Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You)
• National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation Two words - Clark Griswald; this is why Chevy Chase is an icon

I know a lot of people would add Die Hard and Elf here, but they don't quite make my favorites cut. This year I'll likely be on my own Christmas Eve so I'm going to watch a classic that I've actually never seen (shocking!) - Meet Me in St. Louis.