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Every December as Christmas approaches, my primetime viewing calendar fills up with Christmas movies, shows, and specials. It’s one of my favorite parts of the season and is possibly one of the main drivers of my Christmas spirit.
I love going back and watching the same old things year after year, and a lot of what I watch can be traced back to the days when I was a kid. As the years have rolled by, there have been new movies and specials that have come along that I’ve added to my yearly watch as well.
I wanted to take a few minutes this morning and run down what I call the essentials when it comes to my holiday viewing. I had planned a much more elaborate post than this with full details and the history behind each entry, but the season has already caught up with me and I’m short on time with just a few days left before the holiday, so an abbreviated version is going to have to do. I’m breaking down into a few categories though. The things I watch every year, and the things I sometimes skip a year here and there.
Must Watch Every Year
Mickey’s Christmas Carol – Ever since I first saw the TV special when I was a kid and instantly fell in love with it, Mickey’s Christmas Carol has been my main must-watch of the season. The closest thing I’ve found to the original presentation is a DVD we own called Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse. It presents the three cartoons that were at the heart of the original special, plus throws in a few more for good measure.
It’s a Wonderful Life—While this played on NBC every Christmas Eve while I was growing up, I never cared to give it a watch. I’d always heard about it, but I never took the plunge until the early 2000s. Once I did, though, I found that I had just watched a movie that quickly jumped into my top five movies of all-time. It’s a must-watch every year now—the black-and-white version, not the color version.
The Homecoming: A Christmas Story – This is the original made-for-TV movie that gave us the Walton family. It was so popular that the Waltons television series was created off the back of its success. My aunt watched it every year without fail but it was never on in our house. And this is another one I watched for the first time in the early 2000s and loved it. It has found its way onto my television every Christmas since. If you’ve never seen it and want to give it a try, you can watch the whole thing for free on YouTube here.
A Christmas Story – My history with this movie goes back a bit further than most I would say. Either in 1986 or 1987, a few years after the movie came out, a local TV channel here played it one afternoon before Christmas. I happened to catch it and immediately loved it. I was obsessed with looking for it at the video store, never with any luck. It wasn’t until we got cable in 1988 and it came on HBO that I got to see it again. In that same time period we recorded it on VHS so I could watch it over and over again. This was way before it became super popular due to it airing for 24 straight hours on TBS. I was a very early adopter of this movie, and still watch it every year. And I don’t mean turn it on on Christmas Eve, I mean sit down and actually watch it once every year.
Johnny Cash Christmas Special from 1977 – This one is available on YouTube and I first watched it several years ago and it instantly hit the yearly must-watch list. With guests Roy Clark, the Statler Brothers, Carl Perkins, the Carter Family, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Roy Orbison, the music is great and I really enjoy the humor they inject as well.
Saved By The Bell’s Home For Christmas – I got instantly excited when I tuned in to watch Saved By The Bell one Saturday morning and realized it was a Christmas episode! I got even more excited when it turned out to be a two-part episode. Then came that dead zone period before streaming where it couldn’t be found anywhere to watch and I went years without seeing it. But the streaming age came and these days Saved By The Bell is almost always available somewhere, and ever since that time, it has been on my yearly watch list.
Jingle All the Way – I love, love, love this movie. I remember those days in the late ’90s fighting the crowds for specific presents and going to as many stores as needed to find them. I save this one and watch on the 23rd every year, as that day is one that I am usually very busy getting ready for the big day, and the movie mirrors life at that point.
Watch Ever Other Year or So
Below is the list of other Christmas things I watch on a daily regular basis. Not all of them get watched every year due to time constraints, but I kind of watch them in rotation every other year or so. Sorry, but I don’t have the time this season to give the story behind each of these. I want to include them in this post though to give you a better idea of who I am:
- Honeymooners Christmas Episode
- Emmit Otter’s Jug Band Christmas
- National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – a classic that I can quote by heart, but have seen it so many times I don’t have to watch it every year.
- 8 Bit Christmas – a newer movie that is quickly working its way to the yearly watch list.
- Christmas Comes to Willow Creek – Bo and Luke Duke are driving a big rig of toys to kids in Alaska at Christmas. What’s not to love?
- A Very Brady Christmas
- Christmas Through the Decades – a docuseries from History that looks at Christmas in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. It’s available on Prime this season. Give it a look!
- Garfield’s Christmas
- A Charlie Brown Christmas
- He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special
- A Christmas Carol – the 1984 made-for-TV version with George C. Scott
- Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special
- Home Alone
I’m sure I’m missing some things from this list, but it’s a pretty good representation of the Christmas movies and specials that I try to squeeze in every year.
What do you have in your yearly rotation?
