Things have changed a lot since my childhood, when if you missed the Christmas special on TV, you had to wait an entire year to see it again.
It's an alien concept for the seven-year-old in our household, fond of watching Santa Paws in the heat of July.
Our choices in the age of DVDs and Netflix are wider, much wider, as the list of self-proclaimed "holiday classics" grows by a halfdozen titles every year, if you factor in theatrical and straight-to-DVD releases.
This season's theatrical offerings are strictly for the big kids. Tyler Perry has yet another Madea movie coming out, Madea's Christmas, featuring a holiday-themed clash of cultures. Aunt Madea meddles in a friend's daughter's interracial relationship, complete with Larry the Cable Guy as a potential in-law.
Still playing in theatres are The Best Man Holiday and Black Nativity. Best Man Holiday meets all the criteria for holiday schmaltz: grand house, family feuds, terminal illness. Reuniting the stars of The Best Man from back in 1999, the film features a mix of feel-good and PG moments, as well as a killer New Edition dance routine. And Black Nativity, a musical based on Langston Hughes' play, tells the story of Langston (Jacob Latimore) who is sent by his single mother (Jennifer Hudson) to spend the holidays with his grandparents, a pastor and his wife (Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett).
Here's a look at other not-for-kids holiday films to enjoy after you've assembled that giant dollhouse. ... Love, Actually just came out with a 10th anniversary DVD. It's definitely not for prudish eyes: I made the mistake of taking my Granny only to discover that one storyline features two sex-scene doubles (Martin Freeman and Joanna Page) who try to make smalltalk while they're bucknaked. The film's seven or so storylines run the gamut from tragic (Emma Thompson discovers her husband is having an affair, Liam Neeson is a widower trying to move on) to silly (Hugh Grant as Prime Minister, busting a move). It all ends on a high note: Mariah Carey's, to be exact.
Billy Bob Thornton is Bad Santa, a criminal with a nefarious reason for donning the red suit. Enter a sweet barmaid with a thing for Santas (Lauren Graham) and a bullied kid who'd fit the suit much better than Thornton does, and the profane, liquored-up Bad Santa might just be in for a makeover. The late Bernie Mac and John Ritter co-star, both great.
It's almost Christmas in a large country manor, where the man of the house is found dead. There are eight suspects, all women, all with secrets to hide. Ah, but what suspects! Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant and Emmanuelle Beart lead the stellar cast of 8 Women (2002).
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a crime-comedy set during the holidays starring Robert Downey Jr. as a crook who stumbles into an audition and finds himself with an acting gig. He's assigned a real-life private detective (Val Kilmer) to give him lessons on how to be a convincing cop, and the bodies start piling up.
My favourite movie to watch while I'm sick is still While You Were Sleeping, starring a fresh-faced Sandra Bullock. Lucy (Bullock) is a train station employee who never leaves her booth, until she rushes out to save her crush-from-afar (Peter Gallagher) from certain death. Suddenly the girl who never had a family has a whole tree, who think she's comatose Peter's fiancée. But maybe Peter's brother (Bill Paxton) is a better love match?
OK, so the familybaggaGe storyline for This Christmas (Loretta Devine, Regina King, Idris Elba, Chris Brown and others) isn't anything new. But the scene before the closing
credits - where the cast members do an impromptu Soul Train line for the camera - can't fail to get you in the holiday mood! "He's an easy guy to like, and a hard man to kill." Come on, who doesn't love John McClane and the first Die Hard at Christmas? Bruce Willis destroys a 40-storey building, goes toe-to-toe with baddie Alan Rickman (appearing twice on this list) and saves a bunch of hostages just in time for Christmas, gifting the line "yippee kai-yay mother#*" to the movie lexicon.
