The Christmas season isn't complete without a list of movies, and we watch several in our house that I thought I'd recommend. Some are magical, some are sweet, but each will surely bring some Christmas spirit to your home. So, throw on your favorite PJs, grab some sugar cookies, fix a cup of hot cocoa, and settle in under your blanket. Here are 10 of our favorite Christmas movies.
1. An Evergreen Christmas
With its ties to our farm, how could I not put this movie at the top of our list? Jeremy Culver and his sister, Morgen Culver, wrote this film based loosely on their childhood experiences on his grandfather's Christmas tree farm - now Five and a Half North Farm. A credit at the movie's end says, "For Mr. Don Culver, our very own Christmas tree farmer."
The movie follows Evergreen (Evie) Lee, who left Hollywood and returned to her hometown and her family's once-thriving Christmas tree farm after her father passed away.
One of the quotes I love so much in this movie is, "You can't just chase your dreams, you have to live them."
2. The Polar Express
This is another movie about belief. A young boy grows skeptical about Santa's existence but finds himself boarding The Polar Express train, which has stopped outside his house. The train sets out for the North Pole, but before they can get there, the passenger car they're riding in becomes uncoupled from the train. After an action-filled journey to reach the North Pole, the conductor (Tom Hanks) announces the child who will receive the first gift of Christmas from Santa. It's our Hero Boy, and he asks for a simple bell that only those who believe in Santa can hear.
3. The Ultimate Gift
A multi-billionaire grandfather leaves his estate to his spoiled adult grandson, but before he can claim his inheritance, he has to complete 12 tasks that each revolve around their own "gift." The tasks are designed to teach the man lessons he never learned growing up. Once each lesson is learned and each task is complete, he is given the final "ultimate gift" to do with as he pleases, but he realizes that gift isn't actually his inheritance.
4. Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square
Dolly plays a woman named Angel in this film about a wealthy woman named Regina Fuller (Christine Baranski) who returns to her hometown just to evict the residents and sell the land to a mall developer. Angel tries to convince the woman to change her mind and save her hometown.
During filming, Dolly became a real-life angel when she saved a 9-year-old dancer from being hit by a moving vehicle. How can you not watch a Christmas movie like this when you hear about a true miracle happening behind the scenes?
5. Frosty The Snowman (1969)
Frosty is pure magic in this classic, mid-century animated TV short when a hat is placed on his head, and he comes to life to have adventures with the children who made him.
"You see, it was a very special kind of snow. A snow that made the happy happier, and the giddy even giddier...it was the first snow of the season. And as any child can tell you, there's a certain magic that comes with the very first snow, especially when it falls on the day before Christmas."
This movie quote is so right! That first snow around Christmas serves as some of the inspiration behind my upcoming children's book - more on that soon!
6. Last Holiday
Queen Latifah stars as Georgia, a department store employee who secretly wants to cook professionally and replicates Emeril Lagasse's recipes, taking photos and recording them in her scrapbook of "possibilities." She leads a simple life, refusing to allow herself the pleasure of tasting the gourmet meals she makes, and serves them to her neighbor instead.
She meets a handsome store clerk named Sean, and he becomes her dream husband in her book of possibilities. During the Christmas season, she bumps her head, and a faulty MRI machine makes her think she's dying of brain cancer, so she quits her job and takes every cent she has to take her dream vacation and treat herself to life's finest things.
I won't tell you any more. Just know that this movie shows that you can have whatever you desire when you focus on following your dreams - even love.
7. The Christmas Train
Dermot Mulroney, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Danny Glover, and Joan Cusack star in this movie about a retired, cynical war correspondent forced to ride a train after running into trouble with airport TSA. Wanting to spend Christmas with the woman he's seeing in LA, he boards the Capitol Express in DC.
Unlike air travel, train passengers can get to know one another along the long ride. He takes notes about his quirky co-travelers and finds inspiration to write a piece to honor his late father. He even finds an old flame of his on the train.
8. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Emma Stone, Lacey Chabert, and Michael Douglas star in this modern take on A Christmas Carol.
Conner (McConaughey) was heartbroken by Jenny (Garner) when they were teens, and it set him on the path to be a famous photographer, but that's not all he's known for. A serial womanizer, he saves time by conference-calling three women he's seeing so he can break up with them all at once before heading out of town to attend his brother's wedding at his late uncle's estate.
After a drunken best man speech, Conner is visited by the ghost of his playboy uncle (Douglas), who taught him everything he knew but stressed he was wrong to have taught him how to be a womanizer. He encourages him to reconcile with Jenny. Three other ghosts come to visit him, each showing him different things to change his ways.
9. The Noel Diary
Jake Turner, a bestselling author played by Justin Harley, is notified that his mother has passed, and he's inherited her belongings. He travels back to her house - now his - in Connecticut for the first time in 20 years to clear the house and settle the estate. He learns from the neighbor that his Dad, who'd left after Jake's brother died as a child, had come to the funeral hoping to see him.
He discovers a diary while going through his mother's things. At the same time, he finds a woman looking in his window, hoping to find information about her mother, Noel, who had been Jake's nanny as a child. This sets the two off on a journey of reconnecting with loved ones while they find a love of their own.
10. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
We always have this movie playing while we're baking Christmas cookies for some lighthearted cheer!
Clark Griswold, performed by Chevy Chase, is on a mission to have an old-fashioned family Christmas, but everything he does - from putting up so many lights the town has a power outage, to uprooting the biggest Christmas tree he can find - goes wrong. This hilarious movie needs to be a part of your holiday at least once!
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