Your favorite Christmas films?

Christmas with the Griswolds

Now that Thanksgiving has passed I'm in full Christmas mode. The tree is up, wifey has been putting up decorations, we've both started the shopping madness and now we're ready for a marathon of Christmas movies. Well, my wife will watch a movie now and then and I'll be the couch potato that will watch one right after the next. Thank goodness for laptops and smartphones - I rarely need to get up from the TV.

Every year I like to mix in some of my favorite Christmas films with others I've never seen before. By far my favorite annual film is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989). No matter how many times I see this film I always find myself laughing out loud. My brothers and I can practically quote the whole film.

The Griswold Home

"Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse."

That's Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) ranting after so many things go wrong with the perfect Christmas he had planned. 

I've already got Holiday Affair (1949) with Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh in this season. Next up on the viewing list is the original Miracle on 34th Street (1947) with Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn.

What are your favorite Christmas season films to watch? I'm always on the look out for some lesser known holiday films. This year I'm going to watch All Mine to Give (1957) which I've only heard of a couple years ago and have not seen yet.