Christmas movies remind us it really is a wonderful life

What's your favorite holiday classic?

Some people binge on Christmas cookies, I binge on Christmas movies.

I've already watched more than I can count, and yes, half of them are Hallmark movies. But I still love the classics that I watched every year as a child.

By Dec. 25, I will have watched most of the old Christmas classics, White Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, Rudolf, A Charlie Brown Christmas and Miracle of 34^th Street.

Even after all these years, questions linger: Why is the doll with the red hair on the Island of Misfit Toys? Does Potter ever return the money? Why does everyone always use Charlie Brown’s full name?

I’m also hooked on newer Christmas classics, like Love Actually, The Family Stone, Christmas with the Kranks, Noel, Elf, A Christmas Story and Die Hard.

Yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. At least that’s what half of the country believes, including me. There’s even a Christmas card Bruce Willis wrote on the dead terrorist wearing the Santa hat: “Now I have a machine gun. Ho, ho, ho.”

I watch Christmas movies for the same reason Hugh Grant’s character likes the airport arrivals gate in Love Actually:

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love.”

If that doesn’t make your heart melt like Frosty in the greenhouse, the Bailey family will. Zuzu does it every time I hear that ting-a-ling and she tells her pa, “Look, Daddy. Teacher says every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.”

It takes my breath away when Clarence Goodbody AS2 (Angel Second Class) tells George at his little brother Harry’s grave, “Every man on that transport died. Harry wasn’t there to save them, because you weren’t there to save Harry...Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”

I cry buckets thinking about my own 10 siblings and how we all lifted each other through life. None of us would be who we are without the other 10.

It's a Wonderful Life is pure joy when George Bailey gets his second chance at life and screams to the world, “Merry Christmas, movie house! Merry Christmas, Emporium! Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Building and Loan!”

Then there’s that sacred moment in Noel where Charlie (Robin Williams) tells Rose (Susan Sarandon), “You saved me Rose. I was wondering where God was and then the next thing you know, there you are at the bedside of a complete stranger telling him you love him with such meaning. And then I knew God was there in that room, with you.”

I cry every time. Same goes for that moment in Christmas With the Kranks where Tim Allen is standing in the middle of the street between his joyful Christmas Eve party and the quiet home where his neighbor won’t live to see another Christmas. He looks to the heavens, and finally, in that silent night, his Grinch heart grows. Grab a tissue.

You can feel the snow in Family Stone when one brother shares his dream: “You were just a little girl in a flannel night gown. And you were shoveling snow from the walk in front of our house. And I was the snow, I was the snow. And everywhere it landed and everywhere it covered. You scoop me up with a big red shovel. You scoop me up.”

Christmas movies scoop you up.

No matter what sorrow you might be going through, you can't help but laugh over that treasured leg lamp or when you see Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) in A Christmas Story clinging to the edge of the store slide begging Santa, “No! No! I want an official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!” We all know what Santa’s reply will be: “You'll shoot your eye out, kid.”

Christmas makes you feel like a kid again, one that never has to grow up, like Elf who sticks to “the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup.”

Home Alone remind us how much family matters when Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) pleads, “This is extremely important. Will you please tell Santa that instead of presents this year, I just want my family back. No toys. Nothing but Peter, Kate, Buzz, Megan, Linnie, and Jeff. And my aunt and my cousins. And if he has time, my Uncle Frank. Okay?”

Yes, family. They are the true gift. Even those relatives who put the fun in dysfunctional.

Christmas movies remind us of the people we want to be.

As Frank Cross (Bill Murray) said in Scrooged: “It's Christmas Eve. It's the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year we are the people that we always hoped we would be.”

Here’s hoping you find the right movie to lift your spirits, and if you’ve already found it, share it with us so it will lift ours.