I'd put Trading Places more in the Die Hard category - set around Christmas, but not really about Christmas. But it's closer to being about Christmas than Die Hard is and I like it a lot more than Die Hard.
It certainly deserves it.
Since more and more of us are not in the habit of ever watching stuff on TV at the time the networks want to show it, we'll probably start our own holiday watch-lists.
When I was a kid and even up until fairly recently, what was a "Christmas classic" or "in the Christmas rotation" was largely dictated by the TV programmers. My recollection is that It's a Wonderful Life in particular didn't really enter the canon until it was on TV a lot. And, as I recall, until some point in the 90s when NBC bought the exclusive rights, it was on all the time throughout December on lots of different channels. A Christmas Story was a bit of a cult hit, as I recall, that slowly built-up steam in the VHS market through word-of-mouth - there are a lot of films like that - but it really took off and became part of the collective consciousness (or pick a better phrase) when TBS started showing it repeatedly.
Incidentally, I remember the first time I saw A Christmas Story and there aren't any other Christmas movies where I can distinctly recall the first time I saw it. It was early December and I was sick at home. My mom rented it from Mike's Video on the recommendation of the people who worked there. I'd not heard of it before even though it was about 10 years old at that time, but watched it a bunch of times during that rental period.
Tell kids today that and they won't believe you.
I get the feeling that Paddington 2 is going to become a Xmas classic and annual rewatch, in my household at least. It doesn't actually feature Xmas at all but has that feel.
Since more and more of us are not in the habit of ever watching stuff on TV at the time the networks want to show it, we'll probably start our own holiday watch-lists.
When I was a kid and even up until fairly recently, what was a "Christmas classic" or "in the Christmas rotation" was largely dictated by the TV programmers. My recollection is that It's a Wonderful Life in particular didn't really enter the canon until it was on TV a lot. And, as I recall, until some point in the 90s when NBC bought the exclusive rights, it was on all the time throughout December on lots of different channels. A Christmas Story was a bit of a cult hit, as I recall, that slowly built-up steam in the VHS market through word-of-mouth - there are a lot of films like that - but it really took off and became part of the collective consciousness (or pick a better phrase) when TBS started showing it repeatedly.
Incidentally, I remember the first time I saw A Christmas Story and there aren't any other Christmas movies where I can distinctly recall the first time I saw it. It was early December and I was sick at home. My mom rented it from Mike's Video on the recommendation of the people who worked there. I'd not heard of it before even though it was about 10 years old at that time, but watched it a bunch of times during that rental period.
Tell kids today that and they won't believe you.
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