What are your favorite Christmas shows and movies?

Very few things remind me of my childhood more than Christmas and watching my favorite shows and movies. I never stopped. Watched them as a teen, young adult and continued watching with my wife - way before kids!

Have so many favorites. Shows include Charlie Brown, Rudolph, Frosty, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, The Year Without a Santa Claus, The Little Drummer Boy, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol for the animated ones, though my favorite is the Grinch!

Movies include Holiday Inn, Miracle on 34 St., White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, Bishop's Wife, Christmas Story, The Santa Claus and others.

What about you??

You pretty much covered it. ^_^ I did buy all the Holiday Charlie Brown movies and a few more. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines Day, Easter Bunny, Pied Piper, I want a dog for Christmas, Snoopy Come Home, you get the idea.
Love Mr. Magoo! Micky saves Santa, Jingle All the Way, All Dogs Christmas Carol, Blizzard, The Christmas Box, Scrooge, and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) I watched this w/my Dad...nice memories.

My teenaged son has a new girlfriend, and I almost hugged her when she brought over some videos to watch - and they included Holiday Inn (and Guys and Dolls)!! I told my son she's a keeper! I can't believe there's a teen who's ever heard of these movies, never mind LIKES them!

I always loved the Grinch, but usually miss it because they run it way too early (but that's one of my gripes anyway - starting Christmas the second Thanksgiving is over.)

You all must remember all those ...was it claymation?? shows? My favorite was the one with the Heat Miser and the Cold Miser. I used to sing the song to my kids all the time, and then about four years ago they finally saw the show when there was a marathon of those shows.

Of course, there's the classic A Christmas Carol, but only the one with Alistair Sim for me. Well, and the Muppets version too, lol!

Yes - that was a good version, Dee. Heat Miser was The Year Without a Santa.

It's a wondeful life.

This message was edited Dec 2, 2009 5:42 AM

Grinch is my hands down fave.
I just finished knitting Whoville caps for newborn twins.
Digger "Holiday Inn" is a favorite film.
Rosemary Clooney( Georges Aunt) never looked so good.
What a dream world hollywood created.Thanks for the brain jog I had almost forgotten.
Along with that film there is "Its a Wonderful Life"
and the BBC version of "A Chrismas Carole" Alec Guinness was a treat.
There hasnt been a better version made since.

Wonderful Life House without a Christmas Tree & the Grinch

The Year without a Santa Claus is one of my family's favorites. Rudolph is the next runner up. We all know the songs by heart. I personally identify with Mother Nature from a Year without....
:)
Deb

I like any version of the Nutcracker. Have seen many live performances of it too.

Also, somehow we always watched "The Thief of Bagdad" an Arabian nights tale although it is not a traditional xmas story, I think for the fantasy aspect..flying carpets..a genii in the bottle..a magic crystal...an evil magician and a beautiful princess,doesnt get any better than that :-)

Loved Mr. Magoo, The Grinch and anything Burl Ives narrated. Love his voice.

Yes, we love his voice too, Joyce!

Forgot Nutcracker. Love the music.

Yep, Burl Ives could make the phone book sound good.

A year without a santa .. love the misfit toys... and of course the nightmare before christmas

LOL. NBC is good. How did I know you were gonna say that Allison? :-)

Yes - I always loved the Charley in the Box!

Last year I had the opportunity to appear in IAWL in the Lionel Barrymore role as the evil financier Mr. Potter. What fun to zip around the stage in a wheelchair and debase that poor Jimmy Stewart character. Heh, heh, heh! (Definitely not Ho, ho, ho!) Even wrote the theme song for the production.

Great, Don! That's a fantastic role - what a scoundrel!

Ugh, Nutcracker! My daughter danced in the Nutcracker for about 7 years. Rehearsals started in September, and she danced about 3 or 4 roles, so I spent my weekends every autumn for 12 or so weeks hearing that darn music. Then 8 performances in three days, and of course, the "living room" performances that we had to sit through because my daughter loved it so much she had to give private performances where she danced every role, lol. That was a nightly occurence for at least a week. My husband had a nickname for "Nutcracker", lol - use your imagination!

By New Year's I think I would have strangled whoever was standing next to me if I heard one note of Nutcracker. Thank goodness she gave it up to concentrate on her hockey!

The funny thing? By next year, I'd be all excited about it and couldn't wait to hear it or see it (the company really did an excellent performance of it). Now it just brings back good memories, because it really was a good time.

Nothing like a little "Russians" from the Nutcracker to get your toe tapping!

Great role for you Don.
I am in my pre holiday cynical depressed mode.
This thread makes me want to make cookies.

Grinch cookies?

Hee hee!

Something that looks good but has a kickback.
Shnnecken-something or other.
German cookies I think and they have pepper in them.

ERP

Muppets Christmas Carol.
The Santa Clause I and II
The Toy that Saved Christmas
I LOVE the Nutcracker, sorry Dee
My friend is currently working on Broadway with White Christmas, she does hair.
I love the old Christmas movies.

How great was Jimmy Stewart in Wonderful Life?!! That scene at the bar and on the bridge were so convincing. He's one of the greats.

There are 3 greats from that era
Jimmy Stewert
Gary Cooper
Gregory Peck
All gentlemen from the old school.
At least that was their public persona.

When I was 13, Gregory Peck was my dad and Scout was my sister :-)

Yes - those three were great, but there were others as well.

I forgot Twas the Night Before Christmas, with the louse who badmouthed Santa. Love that one.

I loved To Kill ma Mockingbird.
Harper Lee was a neighbor of Truman Capote ,the little boy next door who visited his Aunt in the summer was Truman.

cousin

Get out! That was little Truman? or representative of Truman?

According to Harper Lees bio. Truman was the character Dell in the movie.
Harper had a neighbor who was Truman Capotes Aunt. Truman lived with nhis Aunt for some time and he and Harper were really close friends, writting stories together. Trumans childhood was strange. I believe his mother was bipolar or something and he spent a lot of his life in hotel rooms,some of his years were spent with the Aunt.He wrote a Chrismas Story about his Aunt who made moonshine and put it in Chrismas Cakes to give to friends and neighbors.
Harper Lee only wrote 1 great book, To Kill a Mockingbird.
The girl who played Scout in the movie only made 1 more film and it wasnt a hit by any means.
She and Gregory Peck became life long friends.

I have a nice first edition of Kill.

Thought you would like to know, when I was about 16 years old and would turn on the short wave from London, to my mother's consternation thinking we might get arrested if any one would find out but I paid no heed and one Christmas just before the war ended I heard Bring Crosby sing Dreaming of A White Christmas, loved that song ever after.

Maria, that is a sweet story.
I love the BBC dramas that take place at that time period.
I have just finished the series Foyles War.
It reminds me of WW2 and rationing.
The holidays were much sweeter because of the sacrifice.

I have a first of Kill too! and some lesser ones. Even the book club ones go over big.(if it has a dust jacket)

Wow GE, how interesting! There you go, moonshine in your xmas cookies :-)

I baked Alice B Tolkles brownies once and added Orange kerisow(sp) instead of water to the brownie mix.
I had a half hour to wait for them to bake so I stepped outside to weed.
BOOOOOOM
I was met with verrrry dark brownies that had blown open the oven door.

Nice memory, Maria. Christmas was less commercial then too. More meaningful.

LOL! Brownie Bombs! Love it.

By the way, Capote's relative bought the moonshine, didn't make it/ the story is Christmas Memory or(Memories) & charming.

Harper and Atticus are my dog's names!!

I think I watched every Christmas movie ever made! 'A Christmas Carol' is never missed...I saw one called 'An American Christmas carol' years ago with Henry Winkler that was so good. It never gets played. I loved it! I liked 'Heidi' and 'The Little Princess'. Bells of Saint Mary is another great one! I'm watching the Hallmark channel right now, some good ones on there!