Snow business

Ho-ho-holy heck! It’s almost Christmas! You know what that means boys and girls, the time of year where every television channel is flooded with countless terrible Christmas movies about friendship powering Santa’s sleigh. We’ve all seen Home Alone. We’ve all seen Elf. You don’t want to watch those any more! What you do want to do is sit back, make yourself a nice glass of piping hot cocoa, grab your favourite fuzzy Christmas socks, and check out three of the all time greatest Christmas movies according to a Christmas expert.

Die Hard

The definitive Christmas movie in my household, Die Hard is the perfect blend of super cheesy but awe inspiring one liners, super wild explosions and guns and obviously the coolest villain to ever grace a film screen in history. If you are someone who has never seen Die Hard, you should be ashamed, as it truly is a good old story of good beating evil. Bruce Willis, who portrays the charismatic, off-duty, cowboy policeman, John McClane, is on his way to Los Angeles to visit his estranged wife and daughters with presents in tow, similar to our old friend jolly old Saint Nick. McClane sure is in a giving mood this Christmas, but the suave and stylish Hans Gruber, played absolutely spectacularly by the late, great Alan Rickman, is unfortunately in a taking mood this Christmas. Gruber’s plan to steal over $600 million from the business that McClane’s wife just happens to work for sets the scene, as John McClane must not only rescue his wife from the clutches of the devilishly handsome terrorist, but must also rescue hostages, stop the heist and in the end, save Christmas. Die Hard is an incredibly predictable film with basically no cerebral moments involved, but the acting from both Willis and Rickman is absolutely fantastic. The action and banter between the characters is legendary and it is by far one of the most fun and original Christmas movies out there. If your family is missing a Christmas miracle this year, put on Die Hard, and you can all reminisce on the days where Bruce Willis still had hair, which truly is the biggest Christmas miracle of them all.

The Nightmare Before Christmas 

Have you ever felt weary or sick of having the exact same routine every Christmas? The same food, the same decorations, the same obnoxious relative who insists you watch Home Alone for the fifteenth time. Ever felt like switching things up? If that’s the case, you sure do have a lot in common with the quirky protagonist from Tim Burton’s imaginative animation film The Nightmare Before Christmas. Jack Skellington has also grown bored of the same routine of Halloween that the residents of Halloweentown share, and wants something new. Upon stumbling upon a spooky door that leads him through a portal into the cleverly named Christmastown, Jack Skellington soon finds himself enthralled in the Christmas spirit. Just like Die Hard, Jack Skellington’s adventure is a true Christmas classic, due to it’s incredibly inventive characters, incredible visual effects, and its ability to transport us into a imaginative new world. The sense of wonder and awe that is captured by The Nightmare Before Christmas is very similar to the childlike wonder many of us feel throughout the Christmas season. If you haven’t seen The Nightmare Before Christmas, do yourself a favour and watch an extraordinary holiday movie about spooky skeletons and ghastly ghouls.

Home Alone, Elf and other classic Christmas movies

Okay, so maybe I lied. Sometimes you do want to watch these, even though you’ve probably seen them at least thirty times like I have. Watching a young Macaulay Culkin plant dubious traps in Home Alone or Will Ferrell guzzling down bottles of maple syrup in Elf brings back countless memories of when I was just a young lad. Isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Coming together with friends and family and spending time together, reminiscing over the past year and looking forward to things to come? Classics like Home Alone and Elf might have lost some of their original charm for me personally, but the memories that I have made sitting around with people watching these movies are unforgettable. In the end, Christmas movies are about capturing that magical feeling we are all longing for, and some of these movies might help make your Christmas just a little bit more magical.