Christmas Kleenex Classics

I've started my vacation, so I'm ready to enjoy many of the wonderful movies of the season. I'm a sap for the season's film fare, so I'm all ready with an endless supply of kleenex. There are many movies I will watch this Christmas, on the Hallmark Channel, GMCTV, Turner Movie Classics and AMC for the most part, many which I've never seen but also ones I look for to watch every year.

I'm hoping to add to seeing White Christmas with Crosby and Kaye, the precursor film Holiday Inn with Crosby and Astaire. Have you seen their storylines - they have in common, yes, the beloved song 'White Christmas', introduced in the latter. Story has it that the song 'White Christmas' "was originally about a New Yorker stranded in sunny California during Christmas". The movie Holiday Inn covers a spectrum of holidays (similar to Sleepless in Seattle's Christmas to Valentine's Day) being a venue that was only open on holidays--I understand that the reknown Holiday Inn hotel chain took its name from this movie.

Connecticut, the locale for Holiday Inn, also boasts the movie Christmas in Connecticut, a rare classic with Stanwyck. If you're into rare Christmas classics, I hear that her Remember the Night is a jewel, another one is The Bells of Saint Mary, another Crosby favorite.

My most favoritest Christmas movies are:

• Best of all is the Nativity - you can climb into biblical times and experience the depth of the experience of Christ's birth, Joseph's challenge and commitment, Mary's demise and courage ~and  their risks--live Christmas Day and bring it home to your heart with real understanding. 
• Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol - I've watched it since a child and know every song. My daughter and I can quickly break out into 'where are two shoes that click to my clack'.  Check for other wonderful Carol movies and Christmas recommendations.
• It's a Wonderful Life - Marlo Thomas did a made-for-TV version not available.  It the version I love best, but I never tire of the original - that opportunity to remember even my life means something, touches people; every life does.
• Miracle on 34st Street is wonderful in any version.
• a dear, dear favorite - The Gift of the Magi
• The Bishop's Wife and The Preacher's Wife
• This Christmas
• The Grinch
• I like watching too, in a somewhat different vein, the Die Hard series. But then that would be a different blog post; one that doesn't require kleenex! :-)

May all your Christmas movies be a bright part of your holidays!